Elvis Costello had a very catchy song where the hook was, “Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book.” The first few chapters were about falling in love . . . and so one skims along and wonders about the final chapters in the book.

A surgeon named Sherwin Nuland wrote an amazing book entitled HOW WE DIE: “Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter.” It is written with such clinical exactitude, and yet it is so philosophical and poetic – - while telling a compelling story about death, about how we are likely to die.

Society understandably represses the presence of Death (instead, seeks refuge in all-out consumerism), and this avoidance has negative psychological consequences.

Buddha, on the other hand, leveraged our inescapable bondage to death in a constructive effort to purge unwholesome ways of living, in favor of wholesome alternatives with socially ethical implications.

Coming to terms with the inevitable final chapters gives a sense of urgency to what we will “write” everyday in our book. * There is no luxury for a draft in progress. Clarity of plot is essential. We as writers are truly under a dead-line . . . *