Looking forward to an e-conversation with Tracy Chevalier, an interview with an editor at Kirkus, opening the launch in Houston October 4th, a reading in Asheville NC, introduced by Charles Frazier (really looking forward to that), then Minneapolis, then from there fly to St. Louis the 13th for Left Bank books, then 4 days riding with Susan in the Ozarks, then home. It’s going to be a pressed, busy trip but I think I will be okay.

The video is up at newsoftheworldbook.com. I love it.

Haven’t been riding for a month except one day a week ago, when it was so hot, got on for 15 minutes but both Buck and I thought, ‘this sucks’ and turned around. Then all of a sudden, I think it was, August 11th, Thursday, after it had been 102 F. for a week, the rains came. The temperature dropped to the eighties, so far have had five inches or so. I am working down in the pasture when I can, clearing an area, it’s like landscaping or interior decorating. Exterior decorating. I am making a good place for the equines under two very large, old cedars.

The music group is going to have to do without Chuck for September. Working on my piano scales. Started a new work about a quartet in the post-apocalypse. What good is singing when the world is collapsing? Answer; a great deal.

The thing about inventing a world for sci-fi or dystopia is that the writer loses all that wealth and complexity of dialect and jokes and songs and references and slang that makes up much of our daily life. And you can’t invent that without it sounding false, so you must do without it, and your dystopian world is fall less rich in language and reference than that of a historical novel. Unless you have characters that incessantly refer back to the ‘old world’ — i.e. ‘this ancient song, called I Ain’t Got No Satisfaction’ etc. but that gets heavy and forced after a while.

Lovely, lovely rain.