This Saturday is birthday number Thirty-seven.  But I shan’t be in Portland to blarg about.  Mrs and I are flying to Chicago tomorrow, accompanied by Pater and Sister and Brother-in-Law.  From there we drive to Oak Park, where our hotel is.  From Oak Park we will drive to South Bend.  Itinerary: in Oak Park to revel in things Hemingwayan, him being my father’s favorite writer.  In South Bend, to watch the skirmish between Notre Dame and UCLA; ND is my father’s favorite college football team and my sister and brother-in-law are UCLA season-ticket holders.  Mrs and I are partisans of neither side but fully willing to accept a  free outing to the Midwest.

So this travel means last week’s paltry addition to the current novel is certain to be repeated.  But! I have written through to the End, and know now how the whole things needs to be structured and tweaked to achieve said End.  I now start from the beginning and flesh out the skeleton (and much was left skeletal and sketchy) and do the other tweaking and re-arrangement and re-writing required.  This process should proceed far quicker than the earlier work.  Then I will have a finished draft which I can ask folks to read and offer opinions on.