Writing
Deep in the second draft of a novella I've been circling for two years. It's set over a single winter on a peninsula that closes off from the mainland when the causeway floods. Three characters, no real plot — just the particular pressure of proximity and bad weather. The first draft clocked in at 34,000 words; I expect the second to be shorter by a third and better by more than that.
Also working on a short essay about a Robert Walser story that I've been rereading every January since 2019. I keep thinking I understand it and then not.
Reading
Currently: The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald (a re-read, the third), and a collection of Anne Carson's shorter prose pieces that a friend left at my place in February and I haven't returned. Also a battered Penguin paperback of Chekhov stories I found in a secondhand shop in March — the kind that's been through three or four owners, each of whom left different passages underlined. I find myself reading their emphases as much as the stories.
Other things
Learning to use a medium-format film camera I inherited last autumn. The physics of it are completely different from digital and I'm making all the beginner mistakes again, which is quietly useful as a reminder of what learning feels like.
Trying to get back into the habit of long walks before noon. I do better work on days when I've been outside first.