BEATNICK SILENT EATS & SCRIBBLES AS THE JUICE RUNS OUT

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Recently I came across an article in an AARP publication. A writer mentioned that retirement took all the edge off "writing for publication". His youthful "juices" were dried up. I feel the prune juice running out of me too and may soon need diapers. The dude in the AARP publication had made a living with his writing whereas all my poetry and short story publications have been in the literary world of non-paying little mags & small presses. My goal "to get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine" before I die is all out of whack according to Jung who said that one ought to make money first and become philosophical in later life. I may have mentioned this in a previous post. Who knows? Seems to me I've been philosophical all my life, seeking the meaning to existence in my off hours.

An interesting aspect about writing speculative fiction concerns too little or not enough. Manning, as you know, is set 250 years in the future. I gotta surround the story with a future culture and that means I gotta decide how much information about the future to present to readers. Enough to keep them interested or too much and they get bored and quit reading?

By the way, I'm currently lunching on a smoothie: carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, frozen strawberries, banana slices, a touch of prune juice, vanilla almond milk, protein powder (since I left out walnuts) and three packs of sweetener. I swear, Granny Thomas, you can't mix up anything bad tasting when you chop it down to its atomic size.

SILENT "BEATNICK" BOOMER REVIEWS A BOOK

If you're interested, you can read my miniview or mini-review of Douglas Spangle's A White Concrete Day, published by GobQ Books in Portland. I enjoyed the book. Read more on Powell's website. You can also find the book at 
Mother Foucault's Bookshop
Broadway Books
St. Johns Booksellers

It's all good and right here in the Greater Portland Area. 

PS: "Greater Portland" refers to Vancouver, Washington just across the roll on Columbia River.

BEATNICK BOOMER BETWEEN J.D. SALINGER AND J.K ROWLING

early Salinger

early me

Geoff (find his genius on Amazon.com) Peterson and I were talking long distance this afternoon. The recent PBS special on J.D. Salinger came up. We agreed J.D. might have been a borderline pedophile, but that's not the subject of this post. What came up between us was Salinger's reclusive retirement—a major theme of the special—and notable withdrawal to concentrate on his art, but I learned something from the special I didn't expect. Catcher In The Rye is still selling 250,000 copies a year, enough dough to supply a reclusive writer with all his earthly comforts while he scribbles away. Jerry (to his friends) was able to concentrate on his writing while making a living by it. Isn't that what all writers want to do? 

early Rowling

I've been confused. I'd no idea Salinger had it so easy after Catcher made him rich and gave him the option to become a recluse who wrote. In Rowling's case, she's had the option to give away money she doesn't need and become a well known philanthropist. I'd always thought of J.D's dedication to his craft as a sacrifice, but I've only my personal experience to go on. My experience is of a constant confusion of time in order to make a living and the destruction of several marriages to go on.

J.K. Rowling, Jerry Salinger and I have a lot in common. They wrote best sellers and I wish I could. Why is it, then, that when I say I want to make money writing and buy a condo in Portland, I feel like the beer chaser that follows a shot of the best whiskey?

BEAT BOOMER MEETS DON BROWN IN INFERNAL COMPETITION

Brown's book jacket photo

My wife has read the first 100 pages of the Manning novel and finds it  sufficiently mysterious to intrigue her. Since she reads mysteries by the cartload, I feel her judgment comes from competent and well grooved synaptic responses. Speaking of mysteries, I tried to read Dan Brown's Inferno and bogged down before I got through the first page. Far be it from me to cast aspersions on a writer of such popularity, but I thought Brown's writing was extremely purple. My wife, however, liked Brown's recent book too so I best be cautious what I say about Dan Brown's writing style. 

My wouldbe jacket photo

As for the style of Manning, I find I'm learning to reign in my style in order to get to the point. Sometimes, the more words I use the less clear my meaning. Often, when I look at a purple passage of my own, I see that I haven't focused enough to understand what it is I want to say.

I have to be careful of jealousy at another writer's success as that has not proven to be of much help to my own efforts toward success, and, if you will recall, the whole point of my last years as a writer is to "get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine". I believe I'm writing such a novel now. Only time will tell.

SILENT BOOMER BOMBS ON BEATNICK PLOT

Here be Iam...clearly not keeping the every other day rule for blog-keepers, but I'm hard at work, writing away. Writing an adventure slash mystery is a fascinating process.  

The hard part about being an ancient sentient like myself is that I've got to write a lot down so I can refresh my mind about what's gone before. I've got reams of notes.Today, looking ahead, in order to clarify the future, I wrote down several coming moments, discovering that plot elements require causes and create effects. I tried listing, separately, actions which Manning must take and the conditions that necessitate those actions and what conditions must follow after those actions. Actions are precipitated by the knowledge a character must have in order to do that deed and actions also precipitate further actions. Actions have consequences.

This problem is all about dividing the plotting process into categories of some kind. The categories are hard to describe and list. For example, I write down "Manning meets with McDaniel's representatives". Simple enough. Then, I've got to provide a clear reason for the meeting. Who called the meeting and why? McDaniel's or Manning? What does "who calls the meeting" reveal about the sorts of knowledge each party has in order to meet? 

More than once, I've written an action into the plot that can't happen unless other things have happened before it. The actors must possess certain information that will precipitate the situation or the action can't occur. Sometimes a character will do something he can't be doing if he really knows what I've written that he already knows...and vice versa. If one is not careful, some ridiculous things can happen. Maybe even this last paragraph is hard to follow, eh?

SILENT BOOMER, BEAT-TIRED, MAKES OBLIGATORY POSTING

Last year I took a course in blogging and self-publishing. Learned that one ought to make an entry every other day, keep it short and include a photo or picture to grab the attention of browsers. I'm perfect on the picture bit, far from perfect on frequency and not even close on length. I can only hope that reader interest substitutes for brevity. 

I'm into the ninety-something in pages typed into the computer from the yellowed, hard copy of the The Man In The Mirror manuscript. Manning continues unabated and slow, and, tonight (throat irritant warning) I nearly gassed myself to death, making dinner. Made a skillet dish of seitan and cabbage to spoon over rice or potato. After browning the seitan in teaspoon of olive oil, I added two teaspoons of dried thyme, some garlic and red pepper flakes, but as soon as I dropped the thyme into the hot skillet, smoke ascended from the pan, and I began to cough. Am still coughing, hours later. 

As I write Manning, more than ever, I see it in movie scenes. Nothing like my previous mss. Being a movie buff, I suppose the transformation was inevitable. I could easily do what is called a "treatment" in the movie business. 

Speaking of movies, tonight, wife and I viewed Corpo Celeste. A brilliant Italian film with several references to the work of my favorite director, Federico Fellini. Like all my favorite movies from the 60s and 70s, the film ended in delightful ambiguity. Magnifico! Even more delightful, I have found myself discussing the evil/good false fantasy world of modern movies with several brilliant youths fully involved with the computer life. They give me hope, and I won't be around to feel it. 

SILENT BOOMER BEATS HIS THOUGHTS INTO A STEW

No more to say today than, "Happily, the plot thickens. The tasty Manning [working title] stew simmers and burbles in a rich sauce of suspense and delicious snippets of spice and herbal delights." Stay tuned, readers. Someday the stew will be served, I'm pretty certain:

He swiped his cashcard through the payslot which automatically transferred money to the TriMet and hurried back through the ghoulish stares to find a seat.

A well lit and open ride all the way. Detectives of old, he was thinking with a smile, wouldn’t know what to make of private dicks—that old term he loved—who rode light rail, would they?