BEATNICK WRITER QUIBBLES WITH THE GENIUS OF TOLSTOY or THE MYTHOLOGY OF FEELINGS

I was innocently reading War and Peace when I came across the following:

It seemed to her [Natasha] that everybody knew about her disappointment, was laughing at her, and pitied her. With all the strength of her inner grief, this grief of vanity intensified her unhappiness. 

[Natasha loves Prince Andrei and can't understand why he hasn't visited in three weeks. Andrei is talking with his disapproving father about proposing to Natasha.]

Tolstoy labels the poor girl's anguish as "grief of vanity". In that passage, he reveals why everything we know about human behavior and how we moralize about it is obsolete. Take away language, strip Natasha's feelings free of the moral epithet, vanity, place the poor girl in a troop of monkeys where we all came from and, then, understand the truth of her grief, or what Tolstoy labels as grief. 

Natasha's feelings, her pain, and her imagination about what others think of her is the evolved process by which all animals in our human troop find our places in society, either low down or high up or somewhere in the middle. Emotions, beyond our control, are mechanisms which move us to find and accept our places in the human monkey troop. Nothing noble about her feelings or reprehensible. Emotions just are. Tolstoy's moralizing is his monkey brain justifying his own processes of finding where he belonged in the human troop, and, interestingly enough, look how his feelings of "shame" caused Tolstoy to free his peasants and to unsuccessfully try and be like them, but he couldn't escape his own genius. Fortunately for me, I've got no genius to deal with. Only endless shame. Good movie to watch about Tolstoy is The Last Station.

PPS: For all my understanding of the human condition, I continue to write as of old, too old to change my ways, all the while asking, "How will any of us write if we no longer mythologize our feelings?" Perhaps we won't.

BOOMER'S SILENT NIGHTS IN OLD SPOKANE

My novel, Manning, has lain untouched for several days as Mertie and I have been in Spokane visiting family. We both have family here and our days are full as we try to touch base with as many as possible. We both have friends in the area, and we've only had time to make one or two contacts. Tomorrow, early, we'll drive back to Vancouver and back to our old haunts and routines. 

Good news for people who would rather hold a book in their hands than stare at an eye scorching bright screen. Books are holding their own against e-books which are showing flat sales recently.

Recently, I notice I enjoy reading the news in my newspaper much more than reading on the Internet. I admit my mind is unintentionally being biased by the fact that I follow up the shares of my Facebook friends and my incoming emails from the charities and political groups I contribute to. Without meaning to, I take in more news with a slant than without a slant. Over the Xmas holiday, I had a talk with a retired farmer and a Republican, one of my wife's family, and discovered that he and I agree on many things. There's a vast middle ground shared by Republicans and old Democrats like myself. It's only these hardline "True Believers" who are making all the noise and creating all the hatred, and we all know who they are.

A MACHINIST WRITER'S BEAT LIFE IS UNIVERSALLY AMBIVALENT

One morning when I was working from six pm to six am, seven days a week, as a machinist at Brown and Root in Belle Chasse, Louisiana, I awoke to just such a morning as the one depicted in this photo. The photo was posted on Facbook by my virtual friend, Thomas Gunn in Jacksonville, Florida. 

I was in my 30s, the prime of my physical life. Looking out my efficiency apartment window, I asked myself what I really wanted to do that morning and decided I didn't want to work at Brown and Root on a hot day in a tin shed without air-conditioning, standing twelve hours on ground so unsteady that every piece of heavy equipment passing by made the tin shed shake, rattle and roll. I went to my foreman that morning and told him I was packing up and moving on. King Ray, that was his name, understood perfectly and sent me on my way with a smile and a recommendation for rehire should I ever return. 

That morning was the closest I ever came to truly feeling like a free man who could choose his own destiny, but feelings are fleeting, and, of course, the money I'd saved didn't last long. Another woman appeared who I should never have married, and, soon, I was back in deep doodoo. Within the year, I was splitsville with that wife and on the road again. That's what I always think of as a Southern man's thinking, the sort of thoughts and behaviors that make up the vast majority of country-western songs—struggling, loving, fighting and moving on. An endless cycle. Of course, then I got sober and a lot changed, but a lot more remained the same. Ambivalence is, maybe, more universal than change.

BEATNICK, SILENT BOOMER GROWS MOSSY

in the uninspired memedome today

Except for this blog entry and interactions with others through my Facebook personality, I won't write much today. Nothing at all on the Manning novel. If it weren't for the knowledge that the current novel has the potential to earn a few dollars, I might quit working on it altogether and go sit on my ass while my skin grows mossy in the rain. Manning is a good tale because it set my skin tingling as I conceived it, but the day to day process of birthing it is proving a grueling ordeal. (90 pp by 3 months)

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Writer isn't always a fun movie these days. I recall when writing was pure joy. Watching the words come out of nowhere and build their relationships with each other, take their place in the essay or story, novel or poem ... that was pure joy, endlessly entertaining. Though the whole piece might end up in the circular file later and no financial success, nothing was lost because I was entertaining myself for free, playing happily with my own feelings, words and thoughts or, more coarsely, dabbling in my own shit.

I'll get back to Manning tomorrow and the mystery he's trying to solve 250 years in the future. Today, I'll live in the moment, watching people until my lovely wife comes home from work, and we can sit to watch something informative or mindlessly comforting on TV ... like "Law and Order: SVU" which, by now, is almost family. Or "Dexter" ... also like family?

Had a good time last night at the book party thrown by Curious Monkey Publishing at Ford Food and Drink on the corner of 11th and Division in Portland. Those things are fun when I don't drink anymore and hungrily yearn for every cool lady in the house. A happy marriage has great side benefits. 

SILENT BOOMER SPEAKS ON LANGUAGE: SPOKEN AND WRITTEN

Richard Dawkins talking

My query letter, nice little worm, must be getting more attractive. Two nibbles. An agent wanted 5 pages but quickly got back to me. Did not "draw her in", her nice note read. The other, a small Portland publishing house, wanted 4 consecutive chapters. Sent that off this morning after dealing with fear because it also requested my ideas for the dreaded "marketing".

Now for some discussion of language as written and as heard. If we listened to ourselves speak while we're speaking, we'd realize how we actually "sound". Novelists who use dialogue realize there's a line between how our language sounds and how it's written. Enjoyed this article which contained a discussion of Californian language. 

The section about "hella" in the article points up my thoughts. "Hella" is a contraction of "hell-of-a" so it's not really a new word; it's a contraction. I worked with troubled teens in the past and, for a long time, I couldn't understand what a couple of Cincinnati teens meant when they said, "fingo". Later, I realized "fingo" was a contraction for an Appalachian phraseology, i.e. "fixing-to-go" as in "I'm fixing to go shoot that man if he don't quit singing." 

Deafness contributes to changes in language too. In the 60s, people used to speak of "boogieing" as in I'm going to "boogie it out of here", meaning get out quick from the frenetic dance, boogie-woogie. Wasn't many decades after that phrase appeared before I began to encounter the written word "book" in place of "boogie". Now people were "booking it" out of somewhere. Phrase made no sense except to the ear. Recently, a friend, Carl Tropea, pointed out that "book  it" might be a phrase coined from "booking a flight". That makes sense.

THE BEATEST SILENT BOOMER GETS LOST IN HIS REFLECTIONS

klipschutz

The personality trait about myself hardest to accept is that I'm a writer. Came through to me two days ago when a publisher I queried asked to look at Angie's Choice and also asked for "intended audience, marketing ideas for your work". These days the writer not only writes but he must market his work. Panic! I never took a course in marketing, have no talent for selling myself or the book I've written. The thought of selling myself terrifies me. 

my hidden nature

I don't know marketing from grocery shopping or networking from fishnet hosiery. I've been writing about my life and the reality it exists in since high school with absolutely no financial success or major critical acclaim. If I'm not writing a poem or short story, I've been at work on a novel, most of those unfinished. Those times when I'm not working on creative stuff, I'm pounding away at internet debates with strangers, letters to the editor, emails to friends and family, and essays or journaling, now blogging or Facebooking—thousands and thousands of pieces of my reality all over the place—plus those scholarly term papers when I was in school. Several decades ago I got tired of carrying them around and found a home for them in a dirty green dumpster. Could it be, I ask myself, that I'm trying to disprove the idea that if a writer sticks with it, he'll make it. "Make it" itself is loaded with ambivalence and ambiguity. 

Here's the problem in a nutshell: What is it about a human nature that it must have someone other than itself approve of what it's doing before the value of the doing becomes evident to him or her? At the top, I've included a photo of klipschutz, a poet/songwriter who understands the art of presenting the self. His work is pretty damn good also. Take a look at it. We published him long ago in a microzine wife and I published and edited: George & Mertie's Place.

THE SILENT BOOMER LOOKS FEARFULLY TO THE MILLENNIALS

It’s 4:50 am. My interior alarm awakes me in a sweat. At this time of the day, the world always appears extremely dark (unless you live at the North Pole during the winter solstice). I’m a worrier. Always have been. Proof of that fact is the fact that I’m 76 and worrying over a future—over a fictional tale about reality in my brain—that will have no real power to affect me but that really affects me as I worry about it.

Find photo here...

In another 50 years—I tell myself—the bookless and newspaper-less world as I know it will be so different, I truly can’t imagine it, but I’ve got a few favorite dystopian ideas. I see a world returned to the Dark Ages. Lots of information at humanity’s fingertips, but each man jack of us, at his or her starship computer station, will be tuned solely to their favorite world views. Like a villager at the mythological time of Jesus, we won’t know what’s going on in the next village except the hottest gossip and most frightening and disgusting news as distorted by world leaders whose best interests are served by the distortions. Charlatanism will be the order of the day and all sorts of fake systems of knowledge (like clairvoyance or telekinesis or theology) will have new power in the stories that people tell themselves about their personal realities. Meanwhile the zillionaire rulers of Planet Earth, flitting here and there to secret meetings on yachts all over the globe, will be uncontrollably dishonest, beyond punishment, as they accumulate more and more of the world’s wealth, leaving the rest of us to take the hindmost. No longer will there exist a fourth estate with the money and reach to watch over the plutocrats and sound the alarm.

Then, again … the sun also rises and the sky lightens, and I return to the hopeful business of writing a futuristic novel about a worldwide plague as if the bookless dark age ahead will have any place for my fantastic novel.

SILENTLY TIME FLIES, THEN IT'S TUESDAY AND ONE IS 76

find photo on this site

I've been thinking about the phrase "once upon a time" that I discussed in my last blog entry. I asked myself why would anyone (why did I) use that phrase in a work of fiction that is not a fairy tale? I fear I'm guilty of using that phrase frequently. I suppose it represents a lifetime attitude that most of life is a fairytale in the minds of most people. I've used the phrase unconsciously and sarcastically until it's become a sort of writer's tic. 

It's sadly true that most people grow emotionally until they reach the age of 12 or so, then they freeze into that emotional state, half escaped from fairy tales and gods and romantic notions about life, country and family they picked up in the home. They reside in those falsehoods until, in the last decade of their lives, many realize they've been foolish. 

Sometimes, I imagine my alcoholism, my three divorces and all the pain in my life and pain I created in others lives was the price I paid to escape the fairy tales that still entrap so many humans. It's not always comfortable outside the human family that remains sitting around the campfire and endlessly retelling the old fairy tales they continue to live by, but I'd rather live on the fringes than live in the fairy tale. 

What proof do I offer for what I've just said? I look around my world. Would a species of grownup, sensible people create the sort of mockery of life we force ourselves and others to live in if we actually knew better?

OLD DOG FROM SILENT GEN. LEARNS NEW TRICKS

find this photo at

Jefferson wrote "The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do." Why argue with the man who wrote America's "Declaration of Independence"? Yesterday, I wrote a sentence that ended with "an old building that once upon a time housed the famous Powell's Bookstore." How many times, I wondered, had I written "once upon a time" when "once" accounted very well for the longer phrase? I can't imagine how far along I'd be if I hadn't first had to deal with alcoholism and woman issues before I got down to serious attempts at successful writing. I can't fret about my wasted years and lack of confidence or I'll have regret to deal with next. One does what one can and at whatever pace he discovers he can do it at.

On the far northeast section of my daily walk, I sometimes enter a neighborhood of expensive homes, and I imagine living there one day ... if, of course, I can write one successful book that becomes a movie. I think I'm writing that book now, and walking through that neighborhood always fires my imagination. Who knows? More unlikely things have happened. Once that sentence would have read "More unlikely things have been known to happen"? See what I mean? I can now instruct Jefferson too: "The most valuable talent is never using two words when one will do." The superlative "most" eliminated the need for "of all" in Jefferson's maxim. Of course, history reveals that the pronoun "that" would have been required in Jefferson's time to refer to "valuable" and that historical circumstance is why Jefferson constructed his sentence as he did.

SILENT COMPLETES THE LAST REWRITE OF ANGIE'S CHOICE

A happy note! Wife Mertie did the final reread of Angie's Choice today. Five last chapters and only about six errors found. I will not look at it again, except to send it around to agents and directly to publishers. I culled through the 2013 Writer's Market and built a huge list of possible publishers. More of the kind of work that it would be nice to have an agent do for me as Agent Ruth Cantor once did for me back in the 1980s. 

Today I went into Portland to the Humanists of Greater Portland Sunday meeting. Then took an hour walk in downtown Portland and realized, as I enjoyed my walk, that under my original plan (to get someone other than myself to publish a book of mine) there lies another plan—to make enough money from one or the other of my novels to buy a modest condo in Portland. Well ... I'm 76 now and might just as well dream big as small. Eh? Of course the book I'm pinning my hopes on is Manning (working title). Also in the wings for complete revision is my most serious novel, Delinquent Lives. The Porno Writer could be a scorcher if I can write a final polished draft of it. It's done, but needs polishing. I think there's work enough ahead to carry me to the crematory but into a Portland condo...?

ANOTHER SILENT BOOMER, MANNING'S MODEL, JERRY ORBACK (born October 20, 1935)

Lennie Briscoe/Jerry Orbach

Today the writing went extremely well. Finished segment 14. I don't call them chapters because their length is irregular. In a filmed drama, they'd be scenes. That's how they break into segments—as scenes.

In this 14th segment, Manning's character becomes more fully revealed. I sometimes picture Manning as Jerry Orbach in character as Lennie Briscoe of SVU. Coincidentally, I was born on Oct. 20th, 1937. In this segment, one of Manning's longtime friends goes missing, and since it's Manning who has brought his friend into harm's way, he feels guilty. He's already lost an acqaintence to whatever the forces are he's dealing with, and he's pretty far from knowing what those forces are. He's certain they're pretty bad forces. Being a physically fragile ghoul, Manning would like to give up this job, but his friend is missing now. 

Also had an interesting sense of time today. I'm setting novel this in Portland, Oregon, 250 years in the future. Anyway, I've got Manning going to a Starbucks on Lombard Street, near U. of Portland. Then I stop to wonder if Starbucks will be there in 250 years. Two-hundred-fifty years is a long time as far as cultural icons go. Compare it to Sears and Roebucks which began in 1893 as a mail order catalog. That's a mere 120 years ago. According to some people, Sears is fading even as we speak ... or as I write. 
 
Zags won again last night! Olynyk is playing for Celtics. My feeling is Kelly's the type to make something of his opportunity. Maybe even moreso than the solid Ronny Turiaf.

BOOMER, SILENTLY BEATS ON

More than a week since an entry has appeared here. Had to do with a gap when I had nothing to say, then a family visit followed by another period of nothing to say. I've been working on a plot outline for Manning, rereading everything I've written and condensing the material into synopses to help me recall important information about characters and future plot elements. 

the Oregon Coast

I continually fear I'll lose interest before I finish the Manning novel. Many times recently, I've begun books only to lose interest after 50 or 100 pages. Ideas come easily, but the finger numbing job of sitting down and typing has not been a happy process for my poetical psyche. I'm good for the short dash, but the long haul is difficult. I've managed to complete four novels, but it's been awhile since that happened. 

Burroughs and Kerouac

Went to watch Big Sur, based on novelist alcoholic  Jack Kerouac's book by that name, and I wish we'd gone to the Oregon Coast this last summer. I don't know what can be said about his alcoholic take on life since it led to his own early & ugly death. I've always thought one section of Big Sur represents a true picture of Delirium tremens if you're curious about how it feels.

BOOMER GOES OUT TO TORQUE AND BLACK ROCK TO WRITE

A very productive day today, but not a lot to say. I finished another section of Manning earlier in the day and realized some interesting plotting to develop and a clue to drop to see how alert my readers are of what's gone before. I just now finished typing three more pages of The Man In The Mirror while my sweetheart was doing Bikram Hot Yoga up on 164th Avenue. This hot yoga stuff turns her on, relaxes her, makes her feel very good physically and mentally. She's always claimed there is something about physical routines that work wonders for her. She used to love Tai Chi, but that instructor was not of her political persuasion, and he would not let off, talking his talk, so finally, after years, she quit showing up. She's a very loyal person. She wouldn't quit on anyone without making an effort first. Oh do I love her! Walked by the Columbia today. Overcast, winter coming, and I took a few pictures of the I-5 bridge. Handed out a couple more Silent Boomer cards to baristas also where I do some of my writing when home office gets gray with overcast. Hello, there, if you're looking in.

REPORT FROM THE SILENT GENERATION'S BEATEST BOOMER

Picture: Daniel Selmeczi/Steve Bloom / Rex Features

My goal remains to get someone other than myself to publish a book of mine before I drop dead. Currently I'm working on three novels simultaneously. Mertie is making a final reread of Angie's Choice, and with each chapter she finishes, I correct errors she's spotted in that novel. She's only finding one to three minor errors every two chapters. I'm very grateful that she's doing it. When I send out the first chapter or first 20 pages (whatever an agent or publisher requires), I have been very certain that technically it's as correct as it can be. I read sections of it every once in awhile, and I KNOW the writing is solid, and I think there's sufficient suspense to keep an average reader interested. Now, it's like fishing. Have I got the right lure for the pilot fish I'm trying to catch? 

Every day or so, I sit down and slowly transfer the first novel I ever wrote—The Man In the Mirror—a page at a time, typing it into an editable file on my computer. Of course, the new novel, working title Manning, is my full time writing gig. Progress is steady. Today, on my daily walk, I came up with several more plot elements for Manning that will add to its suspense and, I hope, interesting reading for the reader. I can see several chapters into the future. I always carry a small notebook in my back pocket to write down my thoughts. Lately, I've also written some brief reviews on Amazon for the works of living writers I know and appreciate. The walks are getting colder now, and I'm stepping out pretty briskly, enjoying the trees, the clouds and the neighborhoods I pass through. 

Sidenote: on the very northern margin of my neighborhood walks from our condo, I pass through a very upscale neighborhood. Two homes of the wealthy sported political signs. One home had my favorites as their favorites. The other was not as intelligent.

A MAN FROM THE GREATEST GENERATION IN A DIFFERENT WAR

BUKOWSKI

Some poets have always found the material for their work from their personal suffering. I tried Bukowski's path for a long time myself, but there came a time when I said enough is enough. In fact, Bukowski came to a place where he also grew tired of writing his poetry on the bones of his psyche. I first wrote the following poem about myself, then I gave the nightmare back to Bukowski.

BUKOWSKI’S NIGHTMARE

Stuck between the gap of earth and sky,
He once reeled single in our afternoons.
While sun pinned shadow to his feet,
His seemed the only motion on the street.
Cling and move to cling again, he leaned
To each bare, solid thing along the way,
Pausing now and then to rest the errors
Of his feet, his clinging progress stopped.
There, holding to any solid post halfway
Between some mindless thing or other,
He'd note the shadow at his feet,
Its flatness, and the way it filled a crack.
Then memory with its awful motion would
Move again and press him to the nearest bar
Where no single shadow plagued his feet
But all was shadow which took all in,
And there was no, not even passing, rest
While he stood still and spoke with shadows

Out of noon and into evening.

SILENT'S NOVEL IDEA COMES TRUE WAY AHEAD OF TIME

 Tammie Lou Van Sant, photo by USAToday

A futuristic novelist can't work fast enough to keep ahead of the technological world itself. No sooner does one of my characters in Manning say in describing one of several options for his new smart phone system to a friend, "You can get a pair of Chiptoman granny glasses with Earmax speaker/mikes, Eyemax combo screen and correctional lenses, and the communicator in the temple all together," then I look on the newstand at USAToday and read about Google's new wearable computer: 

Although a number of scientists have been toiling in obscurity since the 1970s on glasses that harness computing power, Google was first out of the commercial gate with a lightweight, voice-controlled device that features a small square prism just off the right eye and a touch-sensitive temple. Through voice and touch, Glass can shoot pictures and video, make and receive calls and texts, and access the Web.

I'm still ahead of them in several of my smart phone devices which can be bought and used in several combinations in the future, but I'm not mentioning how they haven't caught up yet. I think they might be reading my mind, and I need to sell the novel first.

BEACH WALKS, CHAPTERS AHEAD, CLEAR SAILING FOR WEEKS

the beaches we walked

Over the weekend, in celebration of my 76 birthday (October 20th) my wife and I spent a weekend on Camano Island, north of Seattle, walking the beaches in fog and mist with nary a sign of sunshine, except in the love in our hearts for each other. That's all sunshine. Camano Island is stuck between Whidbey Island and the Washington Coast. Hardly an island at all, a couple of dump trucks of dirt would fill in the slough and creek that separates the mainland from Camano Island. We drove to La Conner, north of Camano Island for fried oysters. In fact, I broke so free of my vegan/vegetarian regime that I put on five pounds in two days of eating, but three disappeared as soon as we returned to Vancouver. Like magic. 

Today, I roughed out ideas for the next two or three chapters of Manning, adding several mysterious deaths that will puzzle Manning and, I hope the reader too. As I've said before, I see the ending, with only one decision to be made there, but getting to that ending should be all the fun of it for the reader.

GHOST TOWN ANTHOLOGY: A CELEBRATION TO BOOM

Vancouver, Washington, I said.
You mean, Vancouver British Columbia, don't you?
No, I mean Vancouver, Washington, that little city across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon.
So?
Well, I got an interesting poetry anthology to tell you about that hails from that city. 
Oh, no! Not poetry?
Shut up your face and listen.

Christopher Luna (recently named Clark County's Poet Laureate) and Toni Partington have put together a collection of poems selected from the poetry of those who have read at the Ghost Town Poetry open mic from 2004 through 2010. The open mic which includes featured poets from California to Seattle (and points East of the Cascades but West of the Rockies) takes place the 2nd Thursday of every month at a little book store in North Vancouver, called Cover To Cover Books. Google if you don't believe me. Mostly free verse, the collection—Ghost Town Poetry: Cover To Cover Books 2004-2010: An Anthology of Poems from the Ghost Town Open Mic Series—is a lively representation of all that poetry has to offer in the Pacific Northwest. You can't help but be entertained while you get an idea of the kind of poetry that the West Coast has long been known for. Production values are top notch so it's a good-looking book to hold in hand as well as a handsome read. Also, friends, if you've never experienced an open mic event, I tell you that a read through Ghost Town Poetry will give you a delightful taste of that experience. So buy the book and go to an open mic event. You'll be glad you did. 

PS: In January 2014 look for another Ghost Town Poetry anthology by means of which Christopher and Toni will mark 10 years of putting together open mikes at Cover To Cover Books. 

PPS: The Silent Boomer will have a poem in this one.

SILENT BOOMER BOOMS THROUGH ROADBLOCK ...TECHNICALLY

Yesterday, I finally saw my way through the technical problem and came up with a communication system that's plausible. The future of the futuristic novel, Manning, began to have a heartbeat once more. The more you know about how the brain works, the less plausible "thought commands" seem.

photo link

Finger Food Please, George

On other fronts, good things. A poem is to be anthologized in an upcoming anthology out of Printed Matter publishing, Toni Partington's and Christopher Luna's house. Due out in December, I think. Chris and Toni also interviewed me for an article that appeared in our local alternative newspaper, the Vancouver Vector. I also reconnected with poet, songwriter, sometimes journalist, Kurt Lipschutz (aka klipschutz) while he was sailing up the West Coast on a book tour for This Drawn and Quartered Moon. Mertie and I published Kurt in George & Mertie's Place (a monthly microzine my wife and I produced from 1995 thru 2001). Also huffed and puffed up my courage and ventured into Portland to participate at Three Friends open mic, my first reading South of the mighty Columbia River. Featured poet that night was Douglas Spangle whose recent poetry collection, A White Concrete Day, came out from GobQ Books. You can get it at Mother Foucault's Bookshop in Portland.

Today I learned: the more names a writer drops, the longer it takes to get a blog entry finished. Hail Columbia! Roll on!

SILENT BOOMER STRUGGLES WITH HIGH TECH NOVEL FEATURE

Cyborg_variant_2_by_mojette

I only have this to say about the past week's writing problems. First, loss of sleep, created by political concerns, made creative thinking almost as impossible as grass growing in the middle of the Sahara. Possible, but you've got to know the way to the oases, and my camel broke down. Next, without going into too much detail, creating an implanted communication system for the human brain produces some interesting complications that I've struggled for several days to clarify. If people could read minds, they'd have the same difficulty my characters have, trying to employ my interpersonal communication system. Every time I think I've got it solved, I see another wrinkle that is implausible. Futuristic fiction and plausibility conflicts...Ce la gear!

PHOTOS, THOUGHTS AND WRITER'S BLOGS

One of the ideas that came up in Mickler's workshop on blogging and self-publishing was that a writer's blog ought to appear about once every other day and ought to include at least one photo to draw the attention of readers. This blog has been silent for several days because I've been too busy writing to have anything of interest to say. Now I've reached a rough patch, a writer's block (?) or something. Perhaps the governmental shutdown has created the block? 

Yesterday, my wife and I did go to a Chris Luna poetry reading at the Lan Su Chinese Gardens in Portland. He was accompanied by Beth Karp on piano. Very fine presentation. Here's a couple of photos from the interior of the Gardens. 

Today, the Humanist's presentation is on whale evolution. It's fascinating to me that whale ancestors left the ocean and, later, returned to it via evolution. Getting ready to go, looking forward to it. Wow!

MANNING COMMENCES INVESTIGATION, CLIENTS ANONYMOUS

Soldier of fortune, retired, or nearly so, black ops agent and ghoul extraordinary, Charley Manning begins his investigation:

The warehouse reeked of rot and death, a pungence much stronger in that confined space than the everyday odor of putrefaction that ghouls encountered on the everyday streets of Planet Earth. Decapitated ghoul bodies lay scattered on the green linoleum-tiled floor. The Buck Stops Here game show flickered silently on a large TV set mounted on one wall. A set on the opposite wall was dark. Tattered sofas and plush chairs, a card table with an abandoned cribbage game on it, a coffee station, cabinets loaded with videos, and the i-pads lying about suggested the room had been a social area. A 24 count cribbage hand lay face up on the card table. Blood pools on the floor under the necks of the corpses revealed that the deceased were posties and preebies. The pools beneath the posties were smaller because of a postie’s thicker, slower-flowing blood.

The next two very large rooms were filled with bunk beds, cots, folding chairs and free standing closets. Several washrooms and group showering facilities opened off the obvious sleeping quarters. More bodies in those two rooms than in the front room. Some had been decapitated in their sleep, never arising from their cots. Their eyes, if they still had them, were closed in sleep on the pillows. Manning’s first conclusion was that this facility was…had been, he corrected himself…a disintegrarium. Adding to that impression were the headless corpses still strapped in the restraining chairs used in disintegrariums to keep mad posties from attacking one another and attendants. The next very large room erased Manning’s first impression. 

Enjoy!

WHEN SILENT BOOMERS ARE GONE: FUTURE WORLDS

When writing about an unfamiliar world of the future, in order to communicate his vision of that future, a writer must invent terms for futuristic places, conditions and cultural artifacts that don't currently exist. Otherwise, he'd be forced constantly to use longer descriptive passages each time the reader encounters the situation, place or thing. I'm building a lexicon, and at my age, I need to write it down in order to keep track of some of the terms that are mentioned less frequently. For example, the AutoPort Cab company which features driverless cabs that zip around town, controlled by satellite and on board computers. The initial reference calls for some explanation. After that, just the cab company name suffices. Same with "tric", short for a electric auto. I don't imagine it's good practice to make slang too burdensome, so these tactics must be used sparingly, but Anthony Burgess who wrote the dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange certainly didn't coddle his readers, but, then, I'm not Anthony Burgess, and A Clockwork Orange is a novella...that is...fairly short.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY AGAIN, DAMN IT

Father & Marie

Today, it dawned on the Silent Boomer that I'd have to pick up my marbles and go back to start. Charley Manning can't be a detective at the Portland Police Bureau. The conspiracy he's investigating might go as high as D.C. and as far as China. He's definitely (probably) got to look into some happenings in Vietnam. Cohorts in a writer's meetup once remarked that you had to have your plot down firm before you began or you'd be lost. I can't pin my plot down yet. I know how it ends, but I'm not sure how to get there. Too many interesting angles to explore.   

Tyrone Power

Today, Manning was reborn as a "soldier of fortune," something along the line of a black ops Captain From Castile, a novel by Samuel Shellabarger, originally published in 1945 and made into a movie with Tyrone Power in 1947. My father was never much of a reader, but he said that Shellabarger's novels were his favorites. I found that novel on his shelves and read it while still living at home. [Holy cow, a paperback edition of that novel starts at $72.88 at Amazon!] 

In '47 I'd be ten, just about right for loving a filmed adventure like "Captain From Castile" with Tyrone Power. Liked him specially in "The Razor's Edge" based on Somerset Maugham's novel. I fancied myself a Larry Darrell, searching for meaning in life, but I never went to India. Suddenly, nostalgia just seized me by the throat and choked me up. 

SILENT BACKSTORY FOR THE NEW SILENT BOOMER'S NOVEL

I've been weeks working up what's become a 5 page back-story for the new novel. A complex history has developed that I find quite intriguing. Looking through photos on the web as stand-in inspirations for my main characters, I've found a lover for my detective and a face for his robotic partner. Faces for the Huynhymns might be harder to find, but I think I've got the Neanderthals covered pretty well. The ghouls I'll leave to your imagination.
If you think you're hearing things, well...?

More good news:  a recent effort at humor was accepted in an online issue of 50plusnorthwest.com.  

Last Saturday, was privileged to be offered (by Chris Luna) the opportunity to read a poem at the Peace and Justice Fair at Esther Short Park in downtown Vancouver. Received an unexpected honorarium of 25 dollars. Add that to the 22 dollars I earned in 1978 from the publication of two of my poems in the Anglo-Welsh Review, and I'm fat as far a being a poet on the outskirts of the known world of poetics is concerned. Of course, I've not put a value on all the copies I've received of the magazines I've appeared in. The 6 years Mertie and I published the microzine, George and Mertie's Place, we did have subscribers, but we never broke even. Didn't plan on profits in the first place. 

F. SCOTT AND THE SILENT BOOMER

F. Scott himself

I see blog readership is down. The holiday weekend? Even I would be bored by the constant drum of "writing steadily, writing steadily, writing steadily" that I'm producing lately on this blog about the novel I call Manning. I think creative writing is harder to sell with a blog than a product like "wedding cakes" or "toilet paper" or the skills of those who want to teach you how to write. I see a comparison between those who used to sell get quick rich schemes and those who are trying to cash in on everybody's secret desire to be poets and writers. Well who can blame them? Only poets aren't the romantic dreamers most people think they are. They just keep writing and writing, and that's all they have to sell...is the product of those long hours of sitting alone over a pine desk that may soon supply material for their coffins. Pity the poor novelist, then, as his ordeal is longer. 

Speaking of novelists, ladies, listen to this bit of fudge from F. Scott Fitzgerald in my favorite novel of his, Tender Is The Night. Dr. Richard Diver is touring WWI trenches with friends and a 17 year old who is enamored of him. Dick waxes philosophical through much of this scene, then he observes, 

"...Rosemary burst into tears. Like most women she liked to be told how she should feel, and she liked Dick's telling her which things were ludicrous and which things were sad."

Don't get mad, my friends. Perhaps this is only a situation that a very young girl can put herself into while following after a famous older psychiatrist, but Diver does say "women"? Too much Zelda, do you think?

SILENT BEATNICK BOOMER ON THE ROAD

I've let this blog get behind times. Currently wife and I are in Spokane for a housewarming for my youngest son's new home he just bought along the Spokane River. This evening, we ate falafel sandwiches at Azar's on Monroe with Jeff, Mertie's brother, and caught up on his work adventures. On the drive over, several new plot twists came to mind for the current novel. If I can pull this off and complete it, I believe it will be the most interesting of novels. Will not be writing on the novel for a few days. Very hard to keep creative focus and energy when I'm on the road, driving around and visiting. Calling the novel, Manning, as working title, but feel that must change eventually and turn into a more intriguing title. This is current opening for Manning:

COSTAL FISHING VILLAGE, SOUTHEAST ASIA

Fisherman Qwan Bak Ti catches his breath in his sleep then abruptly sits up. His eyes open. In the darkness, Ti Qwan places a small, work-calloused hand, missing two fingers, to his chest and finds no heartbeat under the deteriorating skin. The sleep of three days is over. He has awakened from the last sleep he will ever awaken from. Sorrow overwhelms the fisherman. Tears roll down his cheeks, but he smothers his sobs in his hands. He does not wish to awaken his wife who snores quietly beside him on the sleeping mat they have shared for three decades. Ti Qwan arises from the mat and ghosts through the mosquito netting that covers it.

SILENT BOOMER BOOMING ALONG QUITE NICELY

I've been writing non-stop on the new novel. I pull my smoking keyboard to the side of the road in late afternoon to take my hour walk...in time, also, to do my cooking chores unless it's a morning crock pot preparation. I'm continually asking my working wife to have pity on the poor writer and his creative burden. When I awake, I don't even want to take time to eat or shave. I've completed 27 pages, but I see far ahead into the many possible ways this book can go. I continually adjust the characters and plot roots. One flesh and blood character has turned into a robot. I continually go over the same pages to adjust for my changing visions. The place and circumstances of the novel are so real to me I find myself putting too much detail in, and I want to keep the reader hoping along. It's best to salt the action with details rather than pour them over it. I've also written two possible openings or one may follow the other. 

It's all pretty exciting. Angie's Choice felt exciting years ago when I wrote it. Speaking of Angie's Choice, another agent rejection came in: 

Hi, George,
Thank you for your query. While your project certainly has merit, I'm going to pass. As I'm sure you know, it's important that your agent be totally excited by/committed to/passionate about your project, and I'm afraid that just didn't happen here. But opinions vary considerably in this business, and mine is just one. I'm sure you'll find others who feel differently. I hope so! I wish you the very best in your search for representation. 

Warm regards, Laney Katz Becker, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin

Agents are always kind. It could be worse, you know? They could send a photo of an agent gagging on the novel. On the more positive side, I've been asked to read a poem at the Peace and Justice Action Fair in Vancouver on the 7th of September, and another poem of mine will be hung with a piece of someone else's art at the Gallery360 Art Meets Literature Show. Theme was inspiration. Another poem or two may soon find a home, and it sounds as if someone will write a feature article about this poet for the Vancouver Vector. If that happens as expected, I'll include more details later...names and etcetera. You can always find my work at Amazon or Author House if you've a mind to. Thanks for reading.

SILENT BEATNICK BOOMER DOING THE SPLITS

character role

Well pucker my mouth with a pickle and blow me over with a hair dryer, Gertrude, I've solved the problem of what to do next. I'm working on two novels simultaneously. I'm well into a new novel about Neanderthals, aliens and necrotizing viscusitis...yep, that's what he said...necrotizing viscusitis! Second, heeding my wife's recommendation, I'm slowly typing the first novel I ever wrote into editable files, saving about 900 dollars by doing so and cleaning up a pile of sophomoric errors...such as... "I took my bosses wife out to dinner." I said sophomoric errors. I meant it! By keeping both projects in the fire, I don't have that nagging feeling I'm leave something good to languish while I concentrate on something just as good. 

Also taking what Vonnegut and Asimov have remarked about novel writing. I'm dealing with a whole new set of questions like...is this scene and character interesting, will the reader like this character and stay with him or her through the novel? Is this interesting reading? Does this scene hold the attention? That's what I'm doing, trying to write an interesting  rather than a story for the ages. I mean it when I say I want to get someone other than myself to publish a book I've written. I think I'm walking on a path to that result, and, hot doggie, my feet aren't even tired yet.