I stood for some time, attempting to come up with a title for today’s dispatch. No ideas were forthcoming. Titles are like shop windows; they give you an idea of what sort of merchandise must be inside. I finally decided to forego titling today’s dispatch.

So now where does this leave me? My dispatch is like a ship without a rudder in the horse latitudes, just floating along, going nowhere, because it’s been carelessly cast adrift.

I hope that I, who am the captain of this ship, still have a crew. I checked. I do. The rumor is that they are going to mutiny. There goes my readership.

One more analogy: I am like a scrabble player who has all vowels. I can either wait this out or dump my letters and begin anew. (Notice here: crew and begin a new rhyme. I have a decision to make – I can keep going or erase this dispatch or start all over.

I’ve decided to keep going since I have already put considerable time into this. I who am still the captain feel a slight breeze. Hopefully, you readers have stuck this out, even though I have first bemoaned my lack of a title and also subjected you to one too many metaphors.

So here we go – a new title. It is: Nulla Dies Sine Linea, or “Never a Day Without a Line.” I have a laminated copy of this Latin expression on my bulletin board. It was given to me by Donald Murray, who was one of my teachers when I was an undergraduate student at the University of New Hampshire. I have always thought, sure, sure, it’s a good idea to write some every day, this is just common sense.

But the past few days this phrase has resonated with me. I hadn’t done much writing in over a year – my excuse was I was too busy. Being too busy for most of us is just an excuse. I knew this, which is why I went into denial.

My job (for which I am not paid) involves sorting through hundreds and hundreds of books that other writers have gotten published. Some of these books were worth reading, some not. These writers, I often think, persevered and got their work published. Why not me? And some of these writers were so amazingly prolific. Young adult book writers Jane Yolen, Ronald Dahl, and Gary Paulson come to mind, as does James Patterson, who has written scores of adult and young adult books.

How’d they do it? They most likely did it by embracing the adage, never a day without a line.

A month ago, I located my draft of Shelf Life. It was buried under a pile of papers, on my scanner. Well, I didn’t stand a chance in hell of getting this book published if I didn’t finish it. So I resumed working on it, beginning by revising the introduction. I’m now fairly far along.

I started this dispatch with the line “I spent some time trying to come up with a title for this dispatch.” I was then tempted to abandon ship. But I kept my scabble letters and waited until a fresh breeze, an insight, came to mind.

Indeed: Never a day without a line.

Next: 7. 1/8/24: Nulla Dies Sine Linea: Consistency