Kickass with the geese and Vonnegut

Kickass, the doorstop dog, and the keeper spent part of the afternoon on a remote Wisconsin River sandbar listening to the loud-mouthed geese argue about which of them was going to nest on what island; while the keeper read a conversation between Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer entitled “Like Shaking Hands With God,” which the two of them agreed describes the experience of trying to figure out how you are going to fill up pages and then “bingo” something happens and it is “like shaking hands with God.”

The keeper found it easier to identify with Vonnegut’s statement: “I’ve written a hell of a lot of crap. I’m glad I didn’t publish most of it.”

Now as the keeper gears up—finally, for the publication of his first novel—Margaret’s War, he found comfort in Vonnegut’s, “Anyone who has finished a book, whether the thing has been published or not, whether the thing is any good or not, is a colleague of ours.”