Midway through the journey of...my novel

Dante Alighieri by Sandro Botticelli, 1495

I recently passed the halfway mark in the drafting process of my first novel—the primary project underlying my decision to create this website. My novel will, I hope, illustrate the fusion of my four pet themes—indeed, Recursion is my working title. It already contains many allusions to the extracts I’ve collected here, starting with the epigraph. Ideas right out of the journal have made it in too, though the journal's greater function has been as an alternative, non-novel writerly outlet for me on days when I am feeling frustrated or stuck.

Since today is one of those frustrating, sticky sorts of days, I thought I’d jot down some thoughts on the midway milestone and what I’ve learned to date in the writing process. None of this is intended as “advice,” which I feel entirely unqualified to give at this stage, perhaps even to myself. But there is something special about midpoints and between-ness, a literary reverence even, going back to Horace’…