The other night I’d thought I’d sort of finished a first draft of Chapter 4 of my Lomax book. Then, yesterday, a source called back with some illuminating information about one of Alan Lomax’s many undertakings in the years just after WWII.

Then, today — and I can hardly believe this — I remembered that I never had made it all the way through the letters of his that are available here in Austin at the Center for American History. (I’d left off in the mid-1940s back when I was still writing about the mid-1930s, and I guess I got distracted.) So, I spent a late lunch hour there today getting still more clarification about the period covered by Chapter 4.

I’d love to keep this momentum going, but I’m due for a major gear-switching. For several months my plan had been to spend December turning out drafts of three more chapters for Pasta. With the recent change in editors, though, I hadn’t been sure whether the original vision and schedule for the project would hold.

Yesterday, I had a enjoying and reassuring first conversation with my new Pasta editor, and the upshot is that all previous plans for the book are still intact. Which means it’s time for me to get ready for those additional Pasta chapters. I just need to make sure I remember to go back to the CAH for the rest of those Lomax letters when I’m done.