War and Remembrance

From the diary: “January 19, 1985

“Well, I actually finally finished The Lost Queen of Oz. I typed ‘The End’ this afternoon. Some year I’ll do a second draft, make it really good, but I’ll be doing other stuff meantime. Am just now starting War and Remembrance. Watched all 6 Thin Man movies on Channel 2 this week. The last of LQofOz has me kinda bummed.”

So it took me three and a half years to write The Lost Queen of Oz. Hm. I still haven’t done a second draft. I think about it now and then. I have made a couple attempts, but those didn’t get past the first chapter.

In the next few diary entries I mention War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk’s sequel to his Winds of War, I’m reading it, I’m reading it, then, “I spent so much time reading it I dint write. Good book. Sad. sigh.”

I remember being disappointed in War and Remembrance, but maybe I wouldn’t have said so at the time.

These days I’m always reading several books. Back then, if I remember right, I didn’t. Usually it was one book until I got all the way to the last page. Naturally there were exceptions and I certainly read other things – newspapers, comic books – but I felt I had to give my attention to the one book.

I remember fondly watching all the Thin Man movies night by night as though they were a mini-series. The quality gradually goes downhill until by the sixth movie the only reason you watch is the charm of Nick and Nora. It helps that the first two movies are quite good so the series has real heights from which to fall.