Today is the last day I can write an April essay for Heart Demons. Will you be able to read it before May? We’ll see! I’ve been setting my sights on getting the monthly essay done in the month’s last week. And now I find myself facing the dwindling hours of the month’s last day. How much does a date matter? Let’s say I don’t do an April essay and crank out two great ones in May. Would that be okay? A self-imposed deadline isn’t important for its own sake. But don’t I owe my subscribers some regularity? When subscribing to a magazine one doesn’t expect zero April and May issues then three in June. That would be weird.
Regularity should be good for me, too. I could use productive habits. You’ve heard of writers who assign themselves a certain number of words a day. Graham Greene, for instance, chose 500 words for his daily assignment, 5 days a week. (He got his weekends off?) When I was writing Thousand I wrote 100 words a day. Thousand wasn’t a Graham Greene novel. But then nobody writes 500 Graham Greene words a day anymore. That discipline has been put aside.
You’ve gotten this far in the April Heart Demons essay. How much farther is there to go? A task should not be done merely for form’s sake, just to say one has done it. I stare at this paragraph, wondering what it is up to. As my sister Bernice said, after reading a piece I’d written to promote Autobiography of a Book, “OK. You’ve described what it is. Now tell me why I should care.”
I didn’t like hearing that. But Bernice was right. People have a million demands on their time, other ways to spend their money. If I understand a person’s needs, I can tell them what in my book could meet their needs. You could escape from your ennui, I might say to those who sigh and lean a chin on a hand. Autobiography of a Book will waken you to the worlds around you waiting to be opened, ready to snatch your attention and give it a whirl.
I am talking about a book you can’t get. Due to circumstances beyond our control Autobiography of a Book is not yet available. The company that has been distributing AC Books quite suddenly went under. A new distributor is being sought. I am hoping that next month I will be cheering the publication of Autobiography of a Book and telling you just where you can get your very own copy.
We are down to here. My April meets its end. Perhaps this essay is emblematic of it. I lift my chin from my hand and stare out the window. It’s dark. Most of the lights I see in the window are reflections from the ceiling bulbs. A few more light other people’s lives.
I’m quite late reading this having found you on a note. Of course, now if I navigate back to find where… you get the picture! If you asked about notes, it sits at the bottom of my Substack app on an iPhone.