Memoir-in-Progress Update; Aug. 5

Although I nearly made it to the 35,000-word mark yesterday on my true-crime memoir -- intending to return to the task later in the evening to reach that benchmark -- I decided to resume course today instead. My youngest daughter wanted to have a Family Movie Night and, unlike the selfish SOBs that many writers tend to be (something I struggle, at times, not to be), I could not and would not say no to my littlest gal.

As soon as I eat breakfast, perform a job search, then post a little something to my news blog (U.S. Trade & Aid Monitor), I will resume work on the book. I remain, otherwise, unemployed, but it is my fervent hope (eesh; what a cliche) -- sorry, it is my sincerest desire -- to obtain work by September. But as the 2001-2012 school year is creeping closer, my prospects for a teaching job will soon start evaporating in the absence of a contract in the next three weeks.

So, in the meantime, I have this pocket of a little less than a month to work near-full-time on a book-length manuscript. I'd rather do it this way than to get up an hour early before work -- as I did when I wrote Hotel Dick, inspired by what mega-author John Grisham had to do early in his career, in order to squeak out of a few pages here and there.