back at work on the novel idea; I find I have to block out memories of this time last year when I was working on the novel that is now languishing in the study, having not won any prizes nor sparked any interest from publishers. I should send it off a couple more times before I declare it dead. I hope that this one is not only better but closer to what I want it to be, but I'm not sure; the motivation to persist has to come from within me, not from any confidence that this will be published, nor from the admittedly thin-yet-positive response to my short stories. The novel is Big; big ideas, big numbers of words; it can carry me away and cause me to lose perspective. so hard to see the palace when you're just a bricklayer working on an obscure but necessary back wall.