eb. 14: Reported to camp today. Nearly impossible to get any writing done with this pitching business. I find I'm too tired at day's end, especially if I've drunk a case of beer at lunch. Kafka spoke of the devil's pact writers make with paying work. Bacchus haunts me.

Feb. 16: "Gatsby." What an extraordinary accomplishment. The tragedy, the beauty, the love Gatsby never finds. Amazing that Fitzgerald was only 29 when it was published. Wonder if he tried ephedra?

Feb. 20: Spoke with Steinbrenner about going to Yaddo. "The fishing camp in the Caymans?" he asked. He was excited because he was about to give a press conference falsely accusing Jeter of sympathizing with the French: "For fun, ya' know. Get the kid motivated."

Feb. 22: The galleys arrived. I must admit a certain surprise at much of the writing. My editor said that's because this is the first time I'm actually seeing the words in print (Garamond Antiqua! What a beautiful serif).

Feb. 22 (late): Franzen just called. Crying. Said he couldn't find a voice for his new book. Tragic. "Jon," I said, "reach deep within yourself. Struggle as you never have. Find what's waiting in that dark place only the writer dares go."

Feb. 23: Is there not a single place in Florida that can fix a Smith-Corona?

Feb. 24: Woke up out of doors again. Perhaps just a glass of wine with dinner from now on.

Feb. 26: How I love Billy Collins' work. So deceptively simple, yet so resonant, so meaningful. I think of a poem like "Picnic, Lightning" and I am instantly put in the mind of the May '98 Red Sox game when I replaced the Gatorade with Schlitz. We committed 11 errors. And Boston still lost. There is beauty in the world. We need only look for it.

Feb. 27: Nabokov. Eerie similarities to his work and "Perfect I'm Not: Boomer on Beer, Brawls, Backaches, and Baseball." The way, for instance, I inverted "I'm not perfect" to make it sound more . . . better.

March 1: Looking again at Clemens in the dugout today I was struck by his inner sadness. Might his volatility stem from a troubled youth? Must revise passage in Chapter 8 when I say Piazza should have run him over with a pickup.

March 3: The media. What's all this about "facts" and "truth" and "steroids." How does any of that matter? As a left-handed artist, my job is crafting experience (imagined or not), while controlling the corners of the plate with a combination of off-speed pitches and fastballs.

March 4: Spoke to agent about the panel discussion with Alice Sebold. We do, after all, share a literary vision. Like her, I feel I cannot be held to earthly constraints. As I like to say, "to write is to be close to music without actually hearing the notes."

John Kenney is an advertising copywriter.