I’ve barely written anything this week. My mind has been occupied on other things. Project work and the project work I’m not doing and the project work I’m currently trying to do. I feel like a lousy baker who’s been provided with all the ingredients to make a pie and they’ve given me no instructions. I’ve read wonderful stories before, I’ve watched brilliant stories before. I know what they feel like and I’m anxious the work I create won’t feel that way.

The day passed in the basement of the library. The fire did its damage. Like a smoker’s house, the walls and the carpets still smell like smoke.

I did very little for four hours. Researching baby names from the 30s and 40s was depressing. I only ever read those names on the margins of black and white photos. All the people named Wilbur and Horace, Eunice and Glenda probably aren’t around anymore.

I found some names for a few characters, but I might change them later. I dunno. Somehow identifying characters made them feel more solid, but they’ve all moved further away from me. It’s like I know and understand them even less now that I’ve named them. They have a name and that means they have people who gave them that name, parents who chose that name because it meant something to them. And they grew up listening to that name being spoken to them and they have their own history and independence that not even I, the voice of God, have unearthed yet. I worry that I won’t do them justice in the translation from my mind to the page. Movers sometimes break things on the way, fragile things wrapped in bubblewrap and newspaper. What is it about the characters that I’m worried I’ll ruin? Their morals? Their habits or dispositions or personalities? I’m too tired. No words make sense.