I had been working on a novel for about six months when I started reading The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. It was a forest that I disliked, full of trees that I couldn’t get enough of. The story bored me to tears, but each sentence was just magical.

"There’s a second or two of tromboning as he brings the paper within focusing range. The flesh of his right arm sloshes in the wineskin of his sleeve."

"At 12: 03 the sun has already punched its ticket. Sinking, it stains the cobbles and stucco of the platz in a violin-colored throb of light that you would have to be a stone not to find poignant. Landsman, a curse on his head, may be a shammes, but he is no stone."

I immediately rewrote one of my scenes in present tense, put it in a Google Doc parallel with the original, and ran it by a half dozen readers. I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in it, not having tried present before. Turns out, those readers liked the present version without anyone actually mentioning that particular difference.

I’ve since rewritten a large portion of the novel in present, so I guess I’m pretty bought in. I’m getting better at it. It’s just so, well, *present*. As a reader, I’m there! Sometimes to the point of exhaustion, in fact (which may be the downside).

Anyway, just wanted to chime in. Great to meet everybody, by the way.