The lame duck ducks

We finally saw "Milk." Read Collin Kelley's review to get my exact thoughts. Collin must have channeled my brain. Okay, maybe I'm taking too much credit for Collin's brilliance.

While you're on Collin's site, check out the video of the lame duck ducking. Poor guy got a shoe thrown at him. Not quite equal to getting bombs and chemical weapons thrown at you. But the message couldn't be clearer.

Today I gave finals #2 and #3 out of 4. Final #4 will be a party at my house on Wednesday for my literature class. Today's finals were poetry readings by my brilliant creative writing students. They were feelin' it, and so was I. It's a crazy thrill to be able to provide an opportunity for young writers to thrive. Today was a teaching high.

And yet, I'm ready for winter break. I'm so looking forward to writing every day. It will also be make-or-break for my historical novel. I've been stuck in the mud on it for a while--and I'm going to decide during my 5 weeks of daily writing whether or not I'll continue, take a break from it and work on something else, or abandon it altogether.

There must be something about writing an historical novel that creates this problem for writers. Michael Chabon once said he was struggling with Kavalier and Clay, so he set it aside and wrote Wonder Boys in a few weeks. He was then refreshed or reprogrammed or refurbished enough to go back and finish Kavalier and Clay. Yes, you heard it: The wonderful novel Wonder Boys was written in a "few weeks." Don't think about it. Musing over that stuff is enough to create writer's block.