I’m listening to Debussy as I type this. It is ideal Sunday morning music. I’m having my coffee and gearing up to write a few hundred words on the Roosevelt Sr./Olmsted/Dodge manuscript. I’ll do some tweaking and editing while I listen to the AFC title game tonight. I don’t know if this is unusual but I am writing the book in chronological order; when I began I started the monograph in the 1830s and am now up to January 1863. My story ends in 1878 with Roosevelt’s death. In a small coincidence General Ambrose Burnside’s disastrous Mud March took place 154 years ago this week, right when I was discussing it yesterday. Lincoln replaced Burnside with Hooker a few days later. The disastrous Union offensive added urgency to Olmsted and Wolcott Gibbs’s  creation of the Union League Club, which though in the works since November 1862 came into being in February.

This was a productive week. I was able to generate over 4000 words. As I mentioned in a post the other day, this is the winter when I bring it all together. I have been working on this for 3 1/2 years now, with many–many–side projects mixed in there along the way as well. The target is to finish the draft by mid spring and to not be writing new material come summer. The semester begins a week from tomorrow, and while I will be doing my usual duties I will not be teaching this term. I asked out because the idea is to cut down on the distractions. Winter 2017 rolls along.

(image/NYPL)