Editor Dan, who I will now refer to as The Taskmaster, is taking me through the manuscript revision slowly. The first 40 pages became 100. Now I’ve only 20 pages to work on—the first chapters of Part II—but it feels like looking up at Mount Everest.

I keep thinking: non-fiction would be so much easier. Easier to describe the dead than to try to bring them back to life.

Once again, I’m somewhat at a loss where to begin, how to begin. One consolation of experience is that I know that once I do, I will feel much more at ease.

Temptation: coffee.  I must resist (I’ve given up caffeine); I’ll console myself with breakfast popcorn, the perfect anxiety snack.