Until my time at the Dobie Paisano ranch, I'd never worked on such a large surface. This table, built by Texas author & journalist A.C. Greene, not only inspired order, it enabled memory. Files in drawers and books on shelves I tend to forget about, so it's as elemental as having my materials in front of my eyes. Not as distracting as I thought they'd be were windows opening onto the porch and front yard through which I saw deer, turkey, armadillo, cardinals, hummingbirds, and roadrunners.

And I'll never write there again. The fellowship is over, and we moved out yesterday. The rest of the book I'll be writing on a 4-foot long table in a windowless laundry room in Portland, Maine -- where I am productive, and which I do like. But I leave this with this book, Babel No More, about half drafted, so it's hard not to see some connection.

Last week I appeared with Ammon Shea at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, reading and talking about books. (He talked about his, me mine. Maybe next time we can swap.) His is a word book: he spent a year reading the Oxford English Dictionary. But it's not a word book like a lexicographer would do, it's a delightful book about the experience of reading a book that's a list of words (and he's working on another book about reading books that we don't think of as books: phone books, catalogs, etc.).

Anyway, I had a blast, and here are two photos: