PROGRESS REPORT #58: THE END OF THE ROAD

ALEXANDER (close up of the painting below)

Over the past week, in spite of the holidays and round of social events, I've managed to complete a couple more chapter segments weaving new threads together to complete the tapestry of SHADOW OF THE LION. There's still a little bit of work to do but not much. Loose ends are being tied up, no dropped stitches. I have a resolution to write a bit every day on the novel although I realize that some days (like today) other things occupy my time. (However it does count that tonight I workshopped one of the new segments of the novel in my writer's group and got some good ideas on what I need to edit or add to make it complete.) And tomorrow another characters will come to the end of his road (for now as he will appear again in the 'afterword'). Every characters who has been given a 'voice' in this novel has to be accounted for. That's one of the more complicated things about writing in multiple point-of-view. And each character that I have to say good-bye to is like bidding farewell to a friend or acquaintance.

As I come to the end of the road, the finale of a very long journey, perhaps some of my hesitation is the reluctance to return to the 'present' world, having spent so much time in the 'past'. Alexander and his family and Companions have been part of my life since I was sixteen years old. This novel, SHADOW OF THE LION, has consumed my life for the past twenty. It isn't that I have been with them constantly, because I did other writing within that time including writing and producing a play (THE STREET: A Modern Tragedy), writing another play, House of the Muses (about Sappho), and many travel articles which I've published. Some people have thought that this novel was my 'life's work' but I have other irons in the fire: As soon as SHADOW is finished, while I am working on the final edits I will resume writing my Celtic novel, DRAGONS IN THE SKY and hopefully rework the Sappho play. And then I have another idea for a novel.

But time is running short for me, being one of the elders, so it means concentrating on my writing career and disciplining myself to write (hopefully each day) so I can complete these other tasks.

Meanwhile, I will strive to put "the end" on Shadow in a very short time. (I'm running four days later than schedule already so it means focusing and devoting every bit of my next week to putting the finishing touches on it.)

ALEXANDER BATTLE DARIUS AT GUAGEMELA

(It was almost the end of the road for Darius. He ran for his life.)