THE SILENT BOOMER'S BEAT RACE AT UPSNDOWNS

How do I write this without my egocentric backside showing? Today I ran a race at Upsndowns. 

Our local newspaper supports a feature called "Everybody Has a Story". It invites readers to send in tales from their lives. I've sent in two and both, though recognized as talented writing, have been rejected. The first was the
reflections of a movie buff, my slow evolution as I gave up American films in the early 1960s and moved on to foreign films. The piece ended with a plug for our local art house, the Kiggins. The newsman in charge of the "Story" feature at the Columbian didn't recognize it as lowbrow enough for the readers of the Columbian. Movies... what average Joe cares about movies? He didn't put it in those terms, but it's what he communicated. The subject matter was too sophisticated for Vancouver.

Minutes ago the editor in charge of "Story" rejected, via email, the second tale about my life through my divorces, practice dating and counseling to find the current happiness I enjoy with my dearest wife. A true story, the editor, bless his heart, recognized its "worthwhile message", BUT he thought it was too shocking for the Victorian morals of the Columbian readership, though he didn't use those terms. He could be right. A passel of people live in Vancouver, Washington (not to be confused with the urbane Vancouver B.C.) who think in 19th Century terms. Okay, I get it, everybody has a story but mine are too polished. Perhaps I must lower my jib and tackle my spinnaker. Okay...whatever...I'm not a sailor.

I think old age has set in. Rejections are a part of submitting works to strangers and for decades I've lived with them, but the fact that I'm 75 going on death must be putting a hitch in my normally smooth get-a-long. BUT...here's the Ups in Upsndowns. Withing minutes—MINUTES—of firing off two ill-considered emails to the Columbian, I got an email response from a senior publication expressing interest in my query about doing some writing for them. They wanted my blog address (this one) and a writing sample. I attached my humorous essay aimed at seniors, called "Exercise and Cabbage Heads". For all I know he's reading this entry right now.

Ups and Downs, everyone!

BEAT BOOMER PLOTTING ALONG

I got a surprise yesterday when I realized that Delinquent Lives, the book I translated with Readiris OCR software was missing chapters. I feared I had many more pages to translate one page at a time in a very slow process, but, then, among files dedicated solely to my creative work, I found the missing material already translated in a subfolder under the novel's title where I had not expected to find it. I was relieved because this meant I didn't have to translate all those missing pages. However...in my rewrite, if you recall, I have already caught myself being too clever for my own good. 

Looking at this new material, I see that my cleverness must be corrected again and, this time, thoroughly. My chronology has always been twisted in order to maintain what I've thought of as my clever opening. My plot has to be repaired. A complete rearrangement of early material is called for. O, no! The Nightmare Rewrite is upon me, the kind of complete rewrite that at my age (feeling rushed as I am by the grim reaper) I shrink from, but if this book is to be the one that somebody other than myself publishes (and it could be this book), then I will have to rearrange several early chapters and fragments of chapters. I will have to put my chronology in order.

I take a deep breath. Where will I find the time to keep rewriting Delinquent Lives, making these blog entries, court agents for Angie's Choice, attend the writer's group I enjoy, send off short stories and poetry to competitions, cook suppers for wife, read a book now and then, do the laundry, keep the house straightened up and manage to write fresh material at the same time? And what...if...after all this time and effort, nobody likes the book?

SILENT BOOMER MISSES A CATCH!

Well, here I am, awake in the middle of the night and blank space before my eyes so I'll keep you up to date on the search for an agent to represent my book, Angie's Choice. Unhappily, Mr. Paul Lucas got back to me in less than 24 hours. He tells me that he's a busy man and I believe him.

Of course, I don't know how

close I came!                

Thank you for the opportunity to read your submission. Unfortunately, you have come to me at a time when I am inundated with requests for assistance and representation.  The need to allocate my time effectively forces me to decline participation in many worthy projects, and I regret that must be the decision in the case as well.

I am very sorry not to be able to help you with this project but please accept my best wishes for you in your search for representation. 

Best regards,
Paul 

Paul Lucas  Janklow & Nesbit Associates

I'm thinking next time I'll send off queries to two agents at a time. They get back to me pretty fast. An interesting phenomenon happens every time I send out samples of a novel. I rewrite whatever number of pages they request as a sample. I can never look over a page of my writing that I don't think it can be improved. I don't know whether that's a sign of low self-esteem or just a sign of a too ambitious critic in my head. Sometimes, I change no more than a word or two. Poetry, of course, is a different matter. Frequently, if I've looked over a poem often enough, I can't find a way to improve it's lusture in my mind's eye. 

Yesterday as I walked by the Columbia River, I had an idea for another book that might catch a young agent's attention! But, for now, I want to finish the rewrite of Delinquent Lives. I also have recently finished a short story which I might send off to a short story contest if the entry fee is not too large. 

REJECTION, SUBMISSION...AN OLD FAMILIAR SONG

Yesterday, agent Molly Jaffa replied to my query email for my novel, Angie's Choice. She parried my query with an amicable and brief rejection email thrust.

Dear Mr. Thomas,

Thank you for thinking of me for this. Though I truly appreciate the chance to consider your work, I don't quite feel that I've connected with your material enough to be the best possible agent for it. Please know that this business is highly subjective, and that what doesn't work for one agent may work perfectly for another. I wish you the best of luck as you move forward with your writing career.

Best,

Molly Jaffa
Folio Literary Management

Photo from Writer's Digest article.

So much for my thinking I sensed a like mind for that novel. The lonely business of spreading one's queries over the shrinking field of literary agents continues. Will one bloom every appear in that poisoned field again? Despair is never far away when one embarks on the nearly hopeless task of seeking an agent.

My sights are now zeroed in on Mr. Paul Lucas with Janklow and Nesbit Associates, another young face in an old agency. So many agents are young faces nowadays. Endless photos of unwrinkled, unworried faces. Does this mean that agencies are hiring younger agents to tell them what's what when it comes to younger readers? That would be the smart thing to do...a changing of the guard...which makes this old, weak in the haunches, 75 year old's task appear even harder. However, Mr. Lucas has got a nice, intelligent face, doesn't he, and good luck to him.

Meanwhile, I continue the rewrite for my novel, Delinquent Lives, with input from the meet up group Write To Publish, and I'm hoping to see one or two poems appear in a local anthology. More on that later.  

THE BEAT BOOMER'S WRITING LAIRS

Black Rock

I was impressed years ago when I learned John Updike maintained an office away from home so that he could treat his writing like a regular job where he would show up and "do his writing". Thing is...one must already be successful as a writer to afford an office away from home. With my poem here and short story there success record, I've never reached that degree of financial success. I've always had to go away from home like a coffee shop beatnik or, in the Cheney years while working on my MFA, to The Fireside restaurant where the waitresses were friendly.

Torque

For a short time, while my third wife worked, I stayed home and wrote in the mornings, five and six hours at a stretch. I had an agent at the time, Ruth Cantor in New York, who was handling a book of mine. I thought I was on the verge of a breakthrough, then the marriage collapsed like a punctured bag of hot air, and I fell into a long period of psychological work that improved my life tenfold but did nothing for my writing (ha!) career.


Currently, I'm enjoying another spate of good writing and have published a few more things lately but still no money, never any money. I've included two of my favorite places to write away from home. I stay home, usually, in the morning these days and go out in the afternoon or late morning to write and/or read. They are the Torque downtown at 501 Columbia Street and Black Rock on 164th Avenue in east Vancouver. The Black Rock was designed to feel futuristic and it does and it draws quite a number of young people. The Torque looks like the sort of place that humans hide in to escape the aliens who've taken over the Earth...a warehouse for real. It's got plenty of plugs and an open airy feel that is very stimulating as if it weren't stimulating enough to be the target of prowling aliens.

Happy writing, friends, old and new!

THE SILENT BOOMER RUNS AFOUL OF THE CRITIQUES

A friend of mine, Carl, told me it would happen, and it finally happened. I took a solid piece of writing, Pavlov's Other Dogs, to my writing group, and my female critiques didn't get it and didn't like it. It was working at so many levels, even I surprised myself when I rediscovered it amongst some old writings of mine. One woman did catch the correct feeling from the work. She said it was "disturbing" and that was exactly how it was meant to strike readers. So I succeeded in that.

Poor Pound Puppy

Basically, the tale dealt with discipline and abuse. It was about a housewife house breaking a mongrel mutt from the pound to the point that the dog was conditioned to believe (learned) that abuse was play. In the end the young dog was so berserk, she put him down. She drove him crazy. The sarcastic distance of the embittered narrator whose offhand remarks reveal a man damaged by abuse himself escaped his critics. They were disturbed that the narrator referred to the pound puppy as an "ex-con, so to speak". They wanted a sympathetic orphan dog and sympathetic and undamaged narrator. They wanted, I fear, a straightforward tale of maudlin woe that they could feel sorry about. In sum, they were more interested in the fate of the mongrel dog than they were about the son and stepson who the mother/stepmother had also "housebroken". She trained one with excessive and unlimited love and the other with stern discipline, and one became a drug addict while the other struggled with alcoholism, but all of that human knowledge is left out of the tale so that the tale doesn't become another "poor me" tale of human abuse. 

The tale no doubt has some flaws I cannot see because its beauty blinds me, but not one of the critiques gave the story an overall approval rating. Instead, to be kind, they stuck with small details. The negative effect of their comments was considerable upon this poor writer's spirit, no matter how mightily he wagged his tail. Two did ask if the young dog couldn't be made more sympathetic. One wanted the tale told from the dog's point of view. An interesting theory I did consider, but then I'd lose the ironic tone of the damaged narrator overarching the whole affair. In fact, I was not fully aware of his damaged spirit until the critics rubbed my nose in it. For that interesting information, I give the critiquing a hearty thumbs up.

We learn in spite of ourselves!

WHAT A CREATIVELY WRITING OLD COOT READS

The following is a selective list of books I've read over the last  two years. I'm an eclectic reader. I don't understand all that I read, but I do credit myself for trying! Some are rereads:

Franny and Zoe by Salinger
Breaking The Spell by Daniel Dennett
An American Trilogy (all three novels in Philip Roth's trilogy, the 60s so real)
Foundation by Asimov 
Deeper Into Movies, Pauline Kael 
Axis sci fi by Robert Wilson
She Left Me In The Middle of Nowhere great poetry by pal Geoff Peterson (on Amazon)
The Drunkard's Walk, science by Leonard Mlodinow
"Evolutionary Social Psychology" in Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology, ed. by David Buss
365 Days by Ronald Glaser (Vietnam vet personal history)
The Falling Man by Dan DeLillo
Greatest Show On Earth and Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins (both evolution) 
Pentimento, An Unfinished Woman and Scoundrel Time by Lillian Hellman (memoirs and interesting insider look at the McCarthy Era)
Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut 
Feathers by Thor Hanson (a book about the evolution of feathers) 
The Darkness Around Us Is Deep (poetry of William Stafford)
Darwin a bio. by Desmond and Moore
Harmony scifi by Project Itoh
Idoru  scifi by William Gibson
The Emotional Brain and The Synaptic Self  both by Joseph Ledoux (neuroscience which has influenced my writing and my understanding of the human condition)
Einstein: his life and universe by W. Isaacson (excellent book which capsulizes his theories as well as Einstein's bio)
 

The writer among his books

That last Einstein book is very representative of how reading works for me. For a fraction of a day, I almost grasp his theories. By the next day, the knowledge is lost among the synapses. The older I get, the more advanced is this process of forgetting, and I do not like it one bit!  

As I said...if I remembered a fraction of what I read, I'd be a man of wide and deep knowledge, a man for all seasons, but, genetically, that was not to be my fate, so I read and recall mere fragments and am forced to build my flawed picture of the Cosmos and my place in it from scraps and personal suffering. When I was younger my most anguished moments of self-knowledge came when I knew I would never have the understanding or reputation of a genius. Laugh at me—I finally did—but when I was a youth and often in my cups, that knowledge was a source of ceaseless anguish.

NO J.K. ROWLING, THIS SILENT BOOMER, BUT...OKAY!

It's Friday. Making progress this week toward my goal. Continued with the rewrite of Delinquent Lives, sent off inquiry to agent for Angie's Choice, participated happily in the Write To Publish meet up on Wednesday afternoon and attended the Ghost Town Poetry open mic on Thursday night, hosted by Cover To Cover Books and Chris Luna where I read two poems, one recently written and the 2nd scrubbed up from a series I wrote while living on the scabland outside of Cheney at The Hermitage. Some very interesting and entertaining poets there of all ages.

My Hermitage

At age 75, I'm feeling more comfortable about writing prose and reading aloud at open mics than at any time in my past. Finally, I accept I'm a good enough writer to be published, but the question of this blog is will that happen? If some of my efforts do end up, as is my goal, at a publishing house other than a self-publishing venture, the end result might be very interesting, but I'm remembering to enjoy the process rather than anticipate the end. 

No doubt what I'm writing will never be another Harry Potter series, but I'll settle for a smaller audience, and I don't have to become a millionaire, though it would be nice if I could send some additional money off to charity as J. K. Rowling has done. Should I promise, right here, that 10% of any profits I might make will go to a charity? 
                                    
The people at the Write To Publish were very accepting and positive about my novel, and I took all comments to heart and gave them considerable attention when I got home. As I said earlier, I've made several very acceptable major alterations in Delinquent Lives for the sake of clarity. Smart thinking about structure and style is everything I can hope for from participating with fellow writers in a workshop. Thank you, Linda Triling.

                                                                                     

A GOOD MORNING'S REWRITE AND AGENT MOLLY JAFFA

This morning I awoke to a productive morning of rewriting of Delinquent Lives, but after a time, I felt impelled to send off another agent query letter for another novel of mine, Angie's Choice. I resent the constant drain of writing time required to do all the "business" of becoming a published writer, so it's been awhile since I took the time to do that because Angie's Choice is ready for publication. In fact, once upon a time, Angie had an agent.

First I looked for potential agents. I used an October 2012 Writer's Digest. In that issue, several agents encouraged writers to send them work. They asked for it and I'll bet they were immediately overwhelmed by queries. I specifically looked for a female agent interested in women's writing since my heroine is a female. 

Next I went onto the websites of the agencies these agents work with to look for submission guidelines which I follow to a "T". Next, I brought up a master query letter for that specific novel, Angie's Choice, and worked it over to make it more exactly suited for the person I sensed on the other side of her written profile and comments, then, I copied and pasted the finalized letter into an email. Next I included ten pages of Angie's Choice (exactly as the agent requested).

Just to add reality to this post, I've included the name of the agent, Molly Jaffa...a nice name with a literary allusion in it. Think Molly Bloom!

The whole process took one hour and forty minutes of my valuable time. With a sigh of relief, I returned to rewriting Delinquent Lives after lunch with my lovely wife.

TAX TIME FOR THE SILENT ONE AND HIS "WRITING BUSINESS"

Yesterday I did our taxes. I had to claim I had a business last year because I bought some of my own poetry books to give away and, thus, I made 15 dollars and paid 4 dollars in taxes. Authorhouse (my self-publishing outfit till now) reported my earnings, as they should. I charged my business cards to this new Business of Writing, and some paper products, and so I lost 33 dollars last year in my business as writer.

The six years I edited and published George & Mertie's Place, I had a business license and did keep track of business expenses, and I had to hire a taxman to do my taxes because there was also depreciation on a computer and some software I bought to format the microzine. We never broke even selling good literature. I'm not going to go into all that business stuff this time (unless I write a best seller) although I could say that my laptop is used exclusively for my writing and claim its purchase as a business expense.

I'll tell you one thing that I did learn those years I published George and Mertie's Place. Businesses everywhere can sure write off a lot of stuff, and they get many state tax breaks, yet we hear some business people who are always complaining their states aren't business friendly. That's about all I'll say because this is not a political blog.

THE SILENT BOOMER KEEPS ON KEEPING ON...LEARNING

Delinquent Lives is an odd cuss. It was my 1980 thesis for a Masters Degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing, typewritten in triplicate with carbons. I was fortunate to have Patrick McManus sit in on that master's defense. I think he liked the novel because he asked John Keeble, in my hearing, if Eastern kept an agent on call for writers. McManus, of course, has forgotten me, and why shouldn't he? I've gone on to ignominious silence since that day in 1980, decades ago when he graced my master's defense. 

Patrick McManus from Celebpictu.com.

Ignominious silence? The publishing of creative writing is so much changed, one hardly knows where to begin. How I'm ever going to get someone other than myself to publish a book of mine before I become senile is a challenge not faced by anyone since the days when  Shakespeare needed a Queen Elizabeth to fund the production of his plays, but that's not my topic today. I mean to talk about learning about writing...even at my advanced age.

Briefly, Delinquent Lives is told through two limited points of view...one an adult male, the other a young "emotionally disturbed" teen. The married adult male has taken a lover. She is always in his thoughts. He talks to her constantly. 

Over the first 80 pages I've struggled to separate his normal thoughts from those moments when he's talking to "Mona" (that's the lover) in his thoughts. Then I realized I'd prided myself on making the mental gymnastics cleverly obscure...you know...artsy-fartsy? 

This morning, I rolled back to that first time in the novel when my anti-hero is talking in his thoughts with Mona and entered the following passage: "Paul had conjured Mona. He often did. It wasn’t unusual for her to be there in his head, near consciousness, listening to his thoughts. He was always talking to Mona. He told her just about everything." 

From now on, when those quotes show up amidst Paul's thoughts, I'll be able to make a quick reference to his lover that explains for the reader what the hell is going on. What idiot convinced me that obscurity was the key to writing good fiction? Kafka, you bastard!