I’m six thousand words into the first chapter of Hotter Than That: A Life of Louis Armstrong (I’ve already written the eight-thousand-word prologue), and I’m so pleased at how well it’s going that I’m almost afraid to admit it. Writing The Skeptic: A Life of H.L. Mencken was agony in slow motion–sort of like spending a decade skinning yourself with a butter knife–and I wrote All in the Dances: A Brief Life of George Balanchine so quickly that the pain didn’t have time to register until the book was in production. Not so Hotter Than That, which is coming very easily. Your response to the snippet I posted the other day has been wonderfully encouraging, though the truth is that I haven’t needed a whole lot of encouraging, at least not this week: I can hardly wait to sit down at my iBook each morning. I especially like a comment that Our Girl passed on from her father, who told her, “The beginning of Terry’s book reads like a novel.” Yes!
I know it won’t always go this well, if only because my reviewing schedule often prevents me from getting any work done on the book for a week or two at a time. For the moment, though, I’m still in the land of bliss, and with a little bit of luck I’ll have the first chapter finished by Monday, after which I plan to blow town for a couple of desperately needed days of untheatrical, computer-free down time at my favorite undisclosed location. (I called yesterday to make a reservation. The manager, bless her, asked, “Where’ve you been all winter?”)
As for today, I’m planning to write four or five pages of Hotter Than That, hit a couple of galleries and have dinner with a friend, then come straight home and knock out another couple of pages before crashing. Another thrilling night in the life of a cosmopolitan drama critic? Maybe not, but I’ve got the muse sitting on my shoulder, and I intend to make the most of her presence before she flies away.
Have a nice weekend.