In the night kitchen

Howard has been busy at Big Blue. He has been working on the kitchen.

Up above is a photograph of his handiwork!

I tell him it is like me and my book, sometimes the progress is not visible to the naked eye. I have pouring a lot of time lately into my book. I get up early and when that doesn't work, I stay up late. Like Howard and his kitchen it is not drudgery. It is a labor of love!

And the good news is, I realized last week how much progress I had made. There is all this research, all this info I have collected and processed over the last few years. So often along the way it has become discouraging because I cannot always see the progress I am making. And people look at me and all they see is, no book.

For a while recently I was afraid even to look at it. It just seemed monumental and impossible. This is terrible but a while ago I read about this poor woman, I forget her name, who tried to write a book on Billie Holiday. She went and interviewed everyone Billie Holiday had known and then after all that she could not put the book together and went crazy. She is dead now.

I hated reading about that!

What if that were me?

Here I have interviewed so many people who ever knew Leonard Pennario and to tell you the truth, now I am not sure if that was a great idea. I should have just slapped this thing together. I see these other books on musicians, nobody interviews anybody. And at least the thing is done.

Oh well. In the case of Billie Holiday you have to consider the subject matter. I would go crazy writing about Billie Holiday. I go crazy just reading about her. It is a depressing story.

The story of Leonard Pennario is not depressing. It is a life and a world I love.

Back to Howard and his kitchen. Both of us work and work in our respective universes and for long periods of time nobody else sees our progress. We have to be our own critics and cheerleaders. It gets solitary and disorienting. In my case it sometimes seems I am floundering around endlessly in my sea of papers and red wine and Red Zinger and Shur-Fine diet pop. Any writer would know what I mean. However.

One day you get it together to step back and take a look at what you have done ... and you see that it is good.

Last week I was able to take a good look at my progress on my book and I was very encouraged.

This thing is in good shape!

Now it is a race to see what gets done first, the book or the kitchen at Big Blue.

Great things take time!