Scott D. McLean, MD

Time has stopped. What matters about a day, a year? A life? All time is now, distilled into a moment, this moment, and the election is so much less important than it seems to be. Live this moment. There. You did it. Good job.

In the current incarnation of my gap year, the interlude between what was and what will be, I am writing. I’m also reading – finished Stephen King’s On Writing, today The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. No, I never read it as a teenager, I suspect because my English teachers thought it was crap. Their biases dog me even today, more than half a century later.

Currently I am writing a short story, > 3000 words so far. Perhaps it will run a bit long and become a novella. I have no idea exactly what my characters are going to do. Not even sure who they are or will be by the end, wherever that is. It might turn out to be speculative fiction, or science fiction, or impossible fiction. How fun. Probably bad. But fun. Holden Caulfield never had so much fun. Maybe he did. I haven’t finished the book.

Here’s a question: what do you think I should read next? Just one book, any book. Fiction, non-fiction, memoir, poetry, incantations. No promises, but I’ll think about it. I’d really appreciate it, I really would, just so it’s not boring as hell. Swell. I might not give a damn, though. I don’t know, as long as it’s not boring. The funny part is, I admit it.