2021 continues to be a good year for writing. 
It was even a good year for physical fitness for a while with my hitting my move goal every day until we had an extended cold spell this month which broke my streak.
On the novel, I finished a first draft of chapter 25 and am almost finished with the rewrite of that chapter. I’m perhaps not progressing at my ideal pace, but I’m reasonably happy with the rate of my work. I’ve realized that chapter 26 is likely to be very long, most likely longer than any other chapter in the novel so last month’s estimate of finishing the first draft of the novel in February or March was definitely optimistic.
I’ve been making solid progress on the story that I want to workshop with my writing group, but right now it’s still twenty pages of hot mess that needs a lot of rewriting before it can go up for workshop. Since my deadline is Thursday, I think I’m going to end up pulling a revision story forward for this month’s workshop. That said, this current story, which has been kicking my ass for some ridiculous amount of time (the oldest draft has a creation date of December 2009), is finally coming together and I think I finally know what it’s about.
Rejections continue to slide in, a mix of form and tiered rejections. One of my 2019 submissions is still lingering at the bottom of my Submittable.
he good fortune of easy access to what’s arguably the best collection of impressionist artwork in the work at the Art Institute (I remember visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and realizing that they had fewer pieces than the Art Institute and many of the best pieces of the period were in Chicago rather than Paris). Perhaps as a consequence of this proximity to the work, I’ve always loved impressionist artwork even if I didn’t necessarily have a good understanding of the people and culture behind it.
Decimal system under “Graphic arts & decorative arts.” There was little chance that I would read anything else when I got to this part of the Dewey Decimals, but I had originally thought I’d read some collection of newspaper strips. With the wealth of options available, I ended up deciding to instead read some writing about comics and picked up Hilary Chute’s book.
The whole concept of creating three-dimensional art has always fascinated me. So when I got to the 730s, “Sculpture, ceramics & metalwork” I was sure this was going to be my chance to finally learn this skill.
Marina City has always been a fixture of my perception of downtown Chicago. As a child I attended a broadcast of the local children’s television program, BJ and Dirty Dragon from the Marina City TV studios (now the House of Blues), saw Steve McQueen chase the bad guys through the parking garage until they crashed through the railing and plunged into the Chicago River in the TV trailers for The Hunter, not to mention all the times that I saw the towers in person, always from the outside (although I did look with interest at rental listings when I was apartment hunting in Chicago in the late ’90s).
700s: Arts & recreation. In the generic category of “Arts” I decided to got with The Lonely City Olivia Laing’s book which is a mix of memoir and examination of the works of artists who treated on the topic of solitude.