Houston, we have a premise...

Work on the new book is progressing... slowly...

I thought I'd include a clip for you in case anyone wasn't quite sure about the premise. In short, it's "Ken goes off to do another silly thing". In long, it's...


“What’s the book you want to write?”
Now, I put down her hand and rose from the bed. Though our condominium is small, the master bedroom is large. And I like that because it gives me room to move. And I needed room to move. I moved to the other side of the room and looked at her in the dark. “One that probably nobody is ever going to want to read.”
She was silent.
“What do you think?” I asked her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What do you mean by that? I’m no writer. It doesn’t make sense. How do you know nobody’s going to want to read it?”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“What’s it about?”
“Success.”
The result was expected. Silence. Every time I thought of the book being on the shelf in a bookstore, that’s the same response I projected.
“What about success?”
“What do you mean?”
“Who’s success? What kind of story?”
“No. No story. Just – success.”
“I don’t get it.”
“That’s just it. I don’t think anyone will. But think about it, hon. We go through our lives expecting to be successful or having people tell us we should be successful, trying to be successful, working our asses off to be successful – and, in the end, I don’t even know what that means. Sean doesn’t know what that means. Tim’s too drunk to know what that means. Do you know what that means?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Exactly.”
“No,” she said, sitting up. “What I mean is, I don’t know how you plan to write about book about this. If you plan to write a book about how to be a success -”
“No,” I told her. “It’s not how.” I thought for a moment. “It’s not even why. I mean, it’s not about how to be a success or why people are successful it’s… I can’t explain it. And I thought I could. I’ve been spending my whole day thinking about this. But anyone can say they have the answer and charge you hundreds of dollars on books and seminars on how to become a success. I mean, that’s a good way to become a success, you know?”
She smiled an odd smile. “But that’s not what you’re writing about.”
“No,” I said. Then, I found the word. “What. What is success?”
“What is success?”
“Yes. That’s what the book is going to be about.”
“You’re going to tell people how to be successful?”
“No. Not how. What.”
“You’re going to tell people what success is.” She was dubious.
“Right. That’s what I want to write about.”
“Honey, everybody knows what success is.”
“What is it?”
“Well, it depends on the person.”
“Such as?”
“It could be a lot of things.” She listed, “It could be having a lot of money. It could be having a big family. It could be having a nice home.”
“So, success could be having things.”
“It could be more than that. It could be reaching some state of enlightenment or driving cross-country.”
“Right,” I answered, nodding. “I see.”
Vicky had known me a while, though. She didn’t believe me. “Maybe I’m just not getting what you want to write about.”
Then, I looked at her. “What’s a ball?”
“Excuse me?”
“Define a ball for me.”
“Why?”
“Well, it could be a lot of things, right? It could be something used in basketball. It could be something used in football. It could be a place where a lot of well-dressed people gather to dance.”
She interrupted my stream of thought. “What’s your point?”
“That’s the thing. A ball could be a lot of things but that’s not what it is. Success could be a lot of things. I want to know what success is.”