Listen All You Bullets

Just working on the proofs for the new book, to be published by Gaspereau in the fall. It's always a welcome relief to return to the work, knowing someone else has read it attentively, and still be happy with it.

I'm not sure how it works for other writers, but I always find odd sentences that may be changed, or should be changed. But the fewer times that happens when you return to a work after some time, the better it is, of course. Right now the big thing for me is getting back in the space of the novel in question. Sometimes I dislike a bit of writing (and actually I should not really be reading it much at this stage; I should be looking for typos and so on) and change it, only to read further and realize it was a bit of parody, and its style meant as an allusion to another author or genre.

It's my last work I'll write, I think, in this mode. That's another reason I worried about disliking it upon my return -- the novel I work on presently, The Whole Show, is realism, with less show, kind of. I like it, too. I suppose I can like both.

And besides, all the writers I admire (without making a list and looking hard for exceptions) have things that recur in all their separate works. I may think I am writing a completely different novel now only to find it's the same exact thing in different colours. Who knows?

Anyway, the next step is figuring out how to read from Listen All You Bullets. It's going to be a bit of a tough fall, but fun. Lots of events planned to promote the book, which will be a lot of fun. But it's not a traditional novel, and if I read from one passage in one style only, perhaps I alienate certain readers . . . . That's okay. I'm not really James Joyce.My voice is in all the pieces somehow, I suppose.