Whole cloth

At the end of my literary career, which was most successful in the 1980s by the usual criteria of popularity and visibility, but in the last 15 years by my own standards, I have a stronger sense than ever of something I've always sensed: that my work is made of whole cloth. I am telling one story in a series of works, or so it seems to me. If I were the pose as a "critic" and evaluate my own work from this perspective, I could show how short stories in the 60s influence plays in the 80s and both influence novels in the 2000s and even digital films recently. It's all one huge body of work, and the individual works are like chapters in this larger story.

I doubt if anyone would agree with me -- not even the one person who probably knows my work, at least major portions of it, as well as anyone, Bob Hicks, the retired senior critic at The Oregonian, now an arts blogger, who has been aware of my work and generally supportive of it since the 80s.

I have no sense of finishing this and starting something else. It's more like, well, that didn't quite work out, let's try it this way. It's like cutting another piece from the same pie to see if it tastes better. And even when it does, in a few days you're hungry again and have to cut another.

My work comes from whole cloth. I should know. Maybe this is not clear, maybe it doesn't need to be clear and doesn't even matter, but that's the strongest sense I have of my literary career as I live the final years of it. Or is years too optimistic ha ha?