Update from the cave

That's the fire of completion, way in the back.

Dear readers,

I had a blast in the cave.

During my first week, I realized I’d been farting around with my novel project—reworking the beginning scenes, ad nauseam, instead of overhauling the plot.

Why?

Because I feared I’d fuck it up.

Well, I was definitely going to fuck it up. A bunch more times. So I created a new Word doc, called “super messy very rough version that roughly makes sense.”

My task, in the next six to eight months, is to finish this version.

I am ready to do this. After five and a half years of wandering around inside this project, exploring the territory, I am finally desiring to get this book done.

It is my One Thing. If I were to die suddenly, yet somehow retain attachment to earthly ambition, the one regret I imagine having is not sharing this book.

It’s also the most nourishing of the options I’ve found for composting my relationship with Lyndon McLeod.

Lyndon told me, in January 2019, that I had to write a novel. That sounded like fun. So I got started.

In June 2020, when he disappeared from my sphere, and I got mad and sad about it, I brought him into my story as the protagonist’s brother and co-conspirator.

In December 2021, after he killed and died, I re-conceived the story as an attempt to reconcile the human I had loved with the horror he’d become.

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In 2009, five years after leaving Zendik, I ran into a Zendik seller in Times Square.

I walked up to him and offered him five dollars for a magazine—hoping that if I played the role of customer he’d agree to talk to me.

Once he realized who I was, he recoiled. Our exchange ended with him sticking his fingers in his ears and chanting, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.”

I immediately turned the incident into a story and posted it to my blog.

A day or so later, I marked the entry private, and decided to quit writing publicly about Zendik—at least till I finished my memoir.

I couldn’t both fight Zendik on the Internet and do the deep work required to find out, in writing, what my soul and I were up to.

So also with Lyndon.

Whenever I listen to a “true” crime podcast episode about him, I find myself arguing—with the fictions the hosts concoct, with their efforts to strip him of his humanity. To remove him from the ring of human understanding.

I don’t believe anyone deserves this, no matter what they’ve done.

However: My job is not to argue. It’s to finish my own story, and release it to readers.

That is the job I am turning to now.

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In the next six to eight months, as I complete my super messy very rough version that roughly makes sense, I may write to you about the process (or something else). I may post excerpts. I may not. (If you have questions about the story, please ask.)

As of today, I am pausing billing for paying subscribers. I expect that once I emerge from this chamber of my novel cave I will resume posting regularly, and resume billing. If I choose not to, I will offer yearly subscribers the option of a prorated refund.

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Friday night, at the solstice circle at Earthaven, I called in “the fire of completion.” On behalf of this book—The Miracle Cave.

I eagerly anticipate the day when I’ll get to trumpet its publication, and you’ll get to dive in.

Thank you for inhabiting my metaphorical mycelium.

I appreciate your interest, attention, and support.

May nourishment continue to flow through this network.

May each of you heed the whispers you hear when you open your ears to your heart.