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August 29

My dear brother :

For no particular reason - unconnected: [[insertion]] but [[/insertion]] I know, or am re-discovering, that everything is connected : two poems, and a photograph.

Am beginning on the [[underlined]] Beale Street [[/underlined]] scenario, and my novel. Hoping to have broken the back of the novel before arriving in NY. Tired, baby, [[underlined]] tired [[/underlined]], but surfacing again.

Have a [[underlined]] real [[/underlined]] offer, from a French producer, for [[underlined]] Another Country [[/underlined]], and he arrives tomorrow. Cross fingers. But the problem remains the same, and I must be the only writer in the world who has it, at least to the same degree : there is no one else to write the screen-play. I can do a screen-play, frankly, between you and me, with one hand tied behind me, one of the reasons, perhaps, that I've done so few. But that's at least a year's work : and I can't afford to lose my novel. I ain't trying to duck nothing : but pray for me.

I still have [[underlined]] The Life and Times Of The Great Sir Shine [[/underlined]] furiously sulking in my note-books, turning the womb, scaring me to death : and he say, loud, that he standing on the corner of the street and he [[underlined]] know [[/underlined]] I got to cross.

Ah. And the Ray Charles record you sent me is playing,and, following Yvonne's advice, I've done nothing at all today - how hard that is! - and I'm a little drunk, alone in the office, but cheerfully drunk, trying to look at something. I'm trying to learn to live.

I suppose, truly, that something is happening to me, and I'm moving into frightening waters, terrifying depths, and yet, fucked up as I will always be, I'm not afraid. But hold on to me, and don't let nothing happen to you.