This morning I plan to spend some time reconfiguring the Milton talk I led at this summer's Frost Place Advanced Seminar. Right now it's organized as banter, but it could be reorganized as an essay, though I'm not sure that any of my eight readers really wants more yak about Milton. But if nothing else, rewriting that talk will be a first step in learning how to be a writer again, as opposed to being a full-time copyeditor-and-harvest-frau.

I am glad to say that I spent more time with Zbigniew Herbert yesterday (in between canner batches), taking occasional breaks to eat apples and finish Pride and Prejudice. And this morning I pulled Nabokov's Speak, Memory off the shelf. I'm suddenly anxious to read it again; for it's not only a beautifully composed elegy for a vanished world but also a fine disquisition on what life feels like when one suspects that one might be about to grow up and become a writer.

I, too, would like to grow up and become a writer; and now that I've got a season of school days to myself and no editorial distractions, I'm in a hurry to get started. I suppose I should also consider the possibility of submitting some finished poems and essays to journals. To be honest, however, I must say that even vacuuming might be more intriguing than sending work to uninterested journal editors.

When I first started writing, I wanted to send out every piece instantly. Now I find myself forgetting to submit work. Overall this shift has probably been good for my writing, though it's been no good at all for my career (such as it is).

Actually, just saying the word career is a little embarrassing. I think I'll pretend I didn't.