MUSICMAKERS: POEMS ABOUT FLORIDA. October 23 - November 8. 35,000 words. I start writing GULF COAST STORIES, about driving along the Gulf Coast, from Key West to Corpus Christi, Texas. Then I change the title to FLORIDA WRITER: A PI NOVEL, investigating what form a book like FLORIDA WRITER will, at my stage of development as a writer, take. I hang a right in Pensacola, drive across the top of the state, and head down the East Coast, to Delray Beach. Around DeFuniak Springs, I see that I am writing HILLBILLY HEAVEN: I DREAM OF DYING. I'm dying here, Ma. Nobody wants to hear about death. Around Jacksonville, I see that I am writing MUSICMAKERS: POEMS ABOUT FLORIDA. A celebration of family, children, fresh seafood, and live acoustic string band music. No hard times blues I got chickens in my back yard. A barrel of flour and a bucket of lard. 40 years of marriage. The hippies were right. Nixon was wrong. Bush was Nixon.

MYTHMAKER: OUTSIDER POEMS. November 9 - December 31. In progress. School, the military, work.