Almost Present Time

Because I do not write with outlines, I never know—I am eternally anxious—whether or not the book I am currently writing will come whole. I don't trust myself until I'm three or four scenes shy of first-draft done, and unless those scenes are fully (in my mind) throbbing. Not written yet, but seen and smelled.

I am this morning three or four scenes shy of finishing a book that has been with me for ten years, more. That was born in the wake of many travels to Seville and of one particular expedition to the cortijo of Count Leopoldo Sainz de la Maza, one of Spain's greatest bull breeders. He was one of the most courtly men I ever met—tall and blue-eyed and gracious—and I have imagined him and his 7,500-acre landscape into this story of mine. I have rearranged his house (which in real life was hung with the photographs of him together with all the most famous people of the day, and which was called Arenales). I have peopled it with a young woman, an old cook, the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, and a band of gypsies.

Yesterday afternoon I tasted wedding cake with a dear soon-to-be-married friend, then came home and could not touch this book. I was afraid and stalled and doomed, I was sure. I could not imagine it forward. This morning I woke feeling heartbroken—not with fear, but with the knowing that I can indeed finish this book, and that I will. That soon this story won't be needing me anymore. It will come into its own.

I have real work to do (for my corporate clients). I have a garden to stir to life. I have a friend getting married and another healing from long sickness and many more who wish I'd quit closing myself in here, at my desk.

I have blogs to write that aren't about me.

I have a Sony digital aching for a walk.

I have been obsessed with this novel, as I am obsessed with all novels. Sometimes it's the only way to see a big dream through. After this, there will be the memory of writing. There will be me living forward, in present time.