Though writers appreciate their friends asking “What are you working on now?” they often answer evasively, since so much can go wrong with a work-in-progress. And they’re superstitious — better not tempt fate by giving too much away! Or — a problem for some — you don’t want to brag. “A minor classic, that’s what I working on.” Make sure you smile ironically if those words ever escape your lips.

I used to be like that — I’d mumble when someone asked what book might be next, then quickly change the subject — but after so many years of making them, these evasions now seem foolish.

What am I working on? How good of you to ask! Here are some excerpts from a book I’m spending most of my time on now, though I haven’t even settled on a title. And since the theme of the book’s introduction fits into the theme of these columns, I’m all the more willing to share with you a short preview, with ellipses to knit things together…

“Local Pond” I’ll call it, since it stands for every body of water that people live near and drive to, skate upon and fish in, walk along and boat on, swim across and picnic beside, stare at and admire — and almost without realizing it, slowly come to cherish.

We’re not talking Lake Superior here, or Lake Champlain, or even Lake Wobegon. Local Pond covers 144 acres, exactly double the size of Walden; from anywhere on its banks you can stare across the water, and, at least by squinting, make out someone waving to you from the far shore. It’s this human, comprehensible scale that makes for a good pond, and Local, if nothing else, is human and comprehensible.

My Local Pond happens to be in New England, which lends it a certain northland tartness, but its best features trend toward the universal, so it could with some minor adjustments be situated in upstate New York or rural Ohio or anywhere in Minnesota, or — with further modifications — North Carolina or Arkansas, or just about any state you choose.

As you move west across the continent, ponds become lakes, even if they’re tiny. “Pond” is a term the Pilgrims brought with them from East Anglia, finding it matched nicely the Abenaki word paug designating small roundish bodies of water. The appellation died away by the time settlers crossed the Mississippi — but I know a pond when I see one, and half those western “lakes” aren’t really lakes at all …

There’s this funny thing about ponds: comparatively little has ever been written about them. Hardly a single great novel doesn’t include a scene

on or near the ocean, and there are hundreds of books about rivers (I’ve written three myself), but few writers have celebrated small lakes and ponds, and it’s worth speculating on why this is so.

With American literature it’s easy: Walden. It’s a perfect book about a perfect pond, written so beautifully it’s hardly allowed room for another author to tackle the same subject in the 165 years since it was published. And while no one loves that book more than I do, I can’t help feeling that, two centuries later, it’s time we heard from another pond.

There are other reasons writers neglect ponds. We ask oceans to carry our shipping, float our navies, provide us with food, and we ask rivers to carry away our waste, supply us with power, irrigate our crops, but with ponds we only ask them to provide us with beauty, supply us with delight. And since there’s not much drama in beauty and delight, authors focus on larger bodies of water when it comes time to write their books.

It’s one of the defining qualities of a pond: a body of water that begs you to underestimate it, take it for granted. Pond virtues aren’t trendy ones. Self-containment. Modesty. Self-sufficiency. Tranquility. Reflection. Ponds, the best ones, never have a contemporary feel — they always seem set 30 years in the past …

A pond is nature’s most perfect expression — small things often touch the heart deepest. And while oceans and rivers ask us many big questions, a pond demands from us only one thing: to love it. In the 1840s, visitors to Walden came to the pond, just as I come to my pond, to get away from the hard realities of their day. War with Mexico? Madness! Slavery? Abomination! James K. Polk? Beneath contempt!

And yet Walden knew nothing of such things, and a few hours by its shores, swimming, berrying, fishing, left those Concordians with the feeling that life is sweet despite everything.

Was this escapism on their part? Sure. Is my love for Local escapism? Sometimes. When I’m out on the pond, I’m not thinking about the madness of contemporary history, but how to get those trout to take my fly.

And we’re not talking about wilderness water here, reached only by great exertion and much expense, so fragile that even a few visitors would ruin it. Local is six minutes from my house, six minutes from the village; a pond lover in Manhattan could drive six hours and be enjoying it like I do. All the best ponds are local ponds. Escape — if it is escape — is often closer than you would think.

And while ponds can be preserved and protected by remoteness, they can also be preserved and protected by propinquity.

Pondness is what I intend to celebrate in what follows, in a world, an era, that badly needs more celebration. Only occasionally will I quote from that other book by that other writer about that other pond. It was written by a 34-year-old when the country was young; this one’s written by a 70-year-old in a country that suddenly seems old. So there’s a difference in perspective right there …

As well as needing to hear from a different pond than Walden, we need to hear about one that doesn’t carry heavy metaphorical weight. A pond can sometimes be a mirror of the universe, but sometimes it can just be a pond.

One town to the south of us, the Army Corps of Engineers runs CRREL, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab. Back during the Cold War, their scientists did tests on Local’s ice-covered surface to determine how many Abrams tanks a frozen pond can support.

I don’t remember the figure they came up with, but it was a lot of tanks. So if some symbolic weight is applied, even accidentally, in what follows, Local is more than capable of bearing up under the task. Thoreau was right about that part — ponds at certain times in certain moods do indeed suggest some higher truths, just as sometimes, in regard to those who love this pond, lesser truths kick in, too.

But I’ll tread lightly here. It’s a book about delight written by a man getting up there in years who wants to cling to as much beauty as he can while he can — and, in that regard, if I help with the words, Local can easily strike its own resonances.

There’s that wonderful proverb that applies to ponds and certain types of human beings: “Still waters run deep.” It doesn’t always work with people — a lot of quiet ones have nothing particular to say — but does it work with ponds?

It’s a question worth asking…

W.D. Wetherell is a novelist, short-story writer and essayist who lives in Lyme.