Q: What are you going to write after SQUIBS.

A: LOOKING BACK, SOLDIERING ON, OR DRAGGING UP: TWO MORE WEEKS IN THE LIFE OF AN UNDERGROUND WRITER

Part of SQUIBS and Additional Material: A Boxed Set

TAKING STOCK, CATCHING UP, MOVING FORWARD: TWO WEEKS IN THE LIFE OF AN UNDERGROUND WRITER. December 9 - December 22. 20,000 words. I type up and post HEAP and THE BLACK MEMOIR at The Daily Bulletin. Write people about Seedy, Stove-Up, and T-A-R-D Tired. Keep a journal. Figure out where to go next in the writing. The journal is just to keep my hand in. I'm not posting it online. I combined Goat Song: A Black Comedy and Seedy, Stove-Up, and T-A-R-D Tired: Three Books About the Writing Life and called them, together, Working, At the House. I am calling the new series, this series, Untitled (Working Title). I feel like I'm at the end of something. Or at the beginning. I feel like Working, At the House was a culmination. It's time to fall back and regroup. To take stock. Also, I need to put my affairs in order. Do some housekeeping tasks. I add CATCHING UP to the title TAKING STOCK. I write Lyons Press, Chelsea Green Publishing, and River City Publishing about GULF COAST BLUES. Add MOVING FORWARD to the title TAKING STOCK, CATCHING UP. I see that the next book is called SQUIBS. Short for VIGNETTES AND FEUILLETONS: SQUIBS FROM A WRITING LIFE. This book and that one make up a boxed set. SQUIBS and Additional Material: A Boxed Set. I start thinking about a proposal to send to LSU Press. I get together boxes of manuscripts to take to Larry and Hazel, the hard copies of books I wrote after Hurricane Katrina but didn't mail because of the disruption of services. Five Amazon.com shipping boxes, containing 19 books. Two linear feet of single-spaced manuscript. I get Adventures in the Underground ready for the printer for Pottersville Press. I write a proposal for SQUIBS and send it to LSU Press. I add the subtitle TWO WEEKS IN THE LIFE OF AN UNDERGROUND WRITER to TAKING STOCK, CATCHING UP, MOVING FORWARD. Whew--white folks! What a two weeks. I went from being depressed about GULF COAST BLUES to being excited about SQUIBS without anything happening, externally. I change the title of SQUIBS from VIGNETTES AND FEUILLETONS: SQUIBS FROM A WRITING LIFE to SQUIBS: TEAM WUPPIE DRIVE TO NEW ORLEANS.

SQUIBS: TEAM WUPPIE DRIVE TO NEW ORLEANS. December 21 - February __. In progress. Spend the week between Christmas Day and New Years Day at Graytona Lodge in Grayton Beach. The Saunders Brothers play at Cerulean's, in WaterColor. I pitch SQUIBS to LSU Press. I send the first week's work to Andrei Codrescu, Exquisite Corpse. The rejection slips for GULF COAST BLUES dribble in. I send the complete MS to River City Publishers.

LOOKING BACK, SOLDIERING ON, OR DRAGGING UP: TWO MORE WEEKS IN THE LIFE OF AN UNDERGROUND WRITER. Projected. An after-the-making-of featurette. A continuation of the making-of featurette, TAKING STOCK, CATCHING UP, MOVING FORWARD: TWO WEEKS IN THE LIFE OF AN UNDERGROUND WRITER. I try to decide whether to quit or keep going.