Yes, he was. Always had the next lined up before parting with the present one. I enjoyed your analysis, but I think you need not be so harsh on yourself trying to catch Papa's rythm. As you probably know, he stood while writing on his typewriter, and was known to begin reading yesterday's work at 5 a.m. or earlier and fixing it before adding more. So he did not write willy nilly. The general comment I've heard through time is that "Many have tried to mimic his style, and all have failed," so the odds are against you from the beginning. And in regard to his death, his father ended his life the same way. But while many thought he was turning paradoid about the government spying on him, J. Edgar Hoover indeed had FBI agents watching him because of his love for the place in Cuba and making nice with Castro to live there. I have a movie I bought off iTunes about Hem and Jimmy Stewart. They, too, like so many of that age, were friends with Papa. I think it's in that film that much explaining is done about what led up to him taking his life. We often wonder about what the government is doing now to surveil us. This was 50 years ago and in part, it drove Hemmingway to paranoia, and there was good reason for it. It was real, not so much imagined....