UPDATE: Back in NYC . . . sort of

I need a Writing Retreat in the worst way so off I go (with the inevitable footnotes).

Back on Riverside Drive

Since our return after being out of the country from 7 August - 18 November,¹ Delia & I have done very little but sleep, eat, and try to bring the house² into some kind of order.³ Much of this involves changing over drawers & closets from our considerable collection of Summer clothes to our considerable collection of Autumn clothes (which, as of today's cold snap, must suddenly shift over to the Winter collection), undertaken once we'd unpacked all 4 suitcases (and backpacks) (and by "we" I mean Delia, who is a hard worker and devastatingly good at this sort of thing, unlike her resident beloved, who's mostly been concerned with micromanaging details of our next trip⁴, which is very elaborate & has many moving parts).

Well-traveled steeds attempting to return to the stable

I couldn’t believe how much more ghastly this return was then the last time we did this; she pointed out that it had something to do with the fact that when we left home in August we’d only had a 10-day turnaround between 6 weeks' teaching at Hollins University Children's Literature & Illustration in Roanoke, VA, and setting off on our UK/EU adventures. Oh, right! I'd forgotten that part. I now dimly remember saying pretty often, in what I hoped was an encouragingly bracing manner, Look, we can just deal with that when we get back!

I was not wrong.

ANYWAY, I have been counting the minutes until Monday afternoon (tomorrow!), when I am taking off for Upstate New York, for a solid week's total and utter solitude, in a fancy cabin in the woods lent me by one of the Golux's many friends⁵

James Thurber’s THE THIRTEEN CLOCKS is my absolute ur-text. My uncle gave it to my dad for his birthday when I was 2, and my dad would read it to me. Much is explained, eh? Here is the Golux in his Indescribable hat. Delia sometimes says to me, “You’ve saved a score of princes in your time. You cannot save them all.”

I will be working on CITY YEAR: Book 2.⁶ I cannot wait to get back to Riverside, to Tremontaine House, to the Leaping Hart Theater, and to all the people that Jessica Campion wants either to sleep with or kill.

And Delia is looking forward to getting back to 19th century Paris. She has been very restive all week, and actually asserted her right to 40 Minutes/day⁷ on the Thanksgiving holiday itself. In revenge, I made her watch another episode of Decameron, though she finds it a bit rich for her blood. Which, from a woman engaged in writing about starving & murderous Parisians under siege, is saying something.

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1. Beginning with WorldCon in Glasgow, ending at the apartment in Paris that we seem to be renting regularly enough for it to feel like home. See my previous letter (or was it the one before that…?) for an odiously detailed agenda.

2. Apartment, actually - but “house” is a term of art, as Delia might say.

3. We did go to the theater twice. Because standards must be maintained. And when TDF offer tix to shows that are closing soon, it's foolish to ignore. We saw the Avett Brothers’ Swept Away, which was disappointing, and Jez Butterworth’s The Hills of California, which was brilliant. I am a huge fan of anything he writes, and it did not disappoint.

And we gave a dinner party. But only one. And it was small, and involved family.

4. Spring in the Antipodes! With brief stops in Singapore & Hong Kong. More on this anon. But if you live in Christchurch, Brisbane, Adelaide, or Melbourne, and you’d like to maybe meet up, please let me know.

5. ‘“There are no horses in the stables,” mused the Prince. “Whence came these white ones?”

‘“The Golux has a lot of friends,” said Hark. “I guess they give him horses when he needs them. But on the other thand, he may have made them up. He makes things up, you know.”’

6. If you’re just catching up, see my lengthy post about the new book: Biography of a Novel.

7. Delia’s patented daily writing aid. I’m sure she’d be glad to tell you about it if you ask. Maybe a Guest Post? Would you like that? If so, can you suggest anything to bribe her with?