THE FIRST RULE OF THE WORK IN PROGRESS IS THAT YOU DON’T TALK ABOUT THE WORK IN PROGRESS

I am just seven or eight thousand words away from the end of the first draft for my new novel.  I have been exceedingly hush hush about it, saying only that it is a sequel to The Little Girl Waits.  Hemingway warns against talking too much about a work in progress (WIP) because he says it kills the juice.  If he’d been alive to see Fight Club, which I’m sure he’d have loved, he would have restated it:  “The first rule of the work in progress is that you don’t talk about the work in progress.”

But today, I wrote a sentence, from the mind of my hapless protagonist, Pastor Butch Gregory, that I liked quite a bit, and wanted to share.  I think it is safe, as I only have a few elements to add, a little denouement, and then I’ll let it cure on the digital desk drawer until the Monday after Thanksgiving.

He didn’t have time for symbolism, or for a discussion of deutero-canonical literature of questionable origin and historicity, because he was nearing asphyxiation.

This sentence sums up kind of what the book is all about.  Of course, I can’t promise this sentence will make it into the final draft.  I may have new ideas between now and then.  However, I am eager to edit it, then publish it sometime in the spring for your reading enjoyment.