Monkey on My Back

Dearest Readers,

I have a Monkey on my back. The penultimate scene of the novella, specifically. I’m so close, it’s sort of maddening. Once the draft is in order, I’ll have editing and revisions to handle, but that shouldn’t be much of a problem: there aren’t major problems I think, and , we’ll see what the reviewers say, and most of the things that I’m worried about can be cut without much trouble. Shaving as much as 5,000 words wouldn’t be a bad thing, and could conceivably make this more sellable.¹

Anyway, that’s beside the point, it’s useless without this last two scenes. In fairness, once the one I’m hung up on gets written, the following “scene” isn’t an issue.

In the mean time I’ve been trolling YouTube, and I have a discovery to report. There are people who do Bob Dylan covers and post them on You Tube. I have to say that I love Dylan songs, “The Times they are A-Changing,” is perhaps the most misunderstood 3-part harmony song or waltz (take your pick) in all of American Folk Music. I’ve long been of the opinion that while there is a certain “kitsch” value in listening to Bob Dylan, almost everyone does a better job with them than Dylan.

Here’s one by a cute hipster. I’m not wild about the introduction, and he’s classically sincere, but it works. There are a lot of good versions of “Don’t think Twice it’s Alright,” and Dylan does a good job with it, but anyway, I like the way YouTube supports this kind of stuff. Enjoy.

And… I should be writing.