THE END IS VERY NEAR, SAYETH THE BEATNIK WRITER

Hello readers. More boring news, repetitious, unexciting news. Sitting right now in warm knit sweater, temps outside in the 20s, in New Seasons, having just enjoyed a smokey lentil soup. Writing is done for the day. Three scenes left to produce for the novel's ending. Could take anywhere from 1 to 3 chapters, at least two. Then begins the rewrite to tighten up style and make certain cultural characteristics consistent throughout the book. In the writing, I've discovered cultural traits I wanted to use. Not having the patience to go back and make changes at the beginning, I made notes of them so, during the rewrite, I could make the changes then. For one, I decided to dirty up the culture because of overcrowding and lack of care by the ghouls who now run the global culture. Printed the first 50 pages so that Mertie can begin to read it.

LUGING THE BEATNIK NOVEL TO THE FINISH LINE

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Luge! I had the sensation, yesterday, as I put in four hours of steady writing, that I was racing downhill toward the finish line. I was in a state of grace, knowing that certainly, come hell or high water, the novel will be completed. It's like when I ran the mile and half mile in high school and stood, bent over just beyond the finish line to catch my breath, my body coming back strong, my flesh tingling with the surge of oxygenated blood pumping in my system. Only that was after the run was completed. Yesterday, I only sensed the end rather than the actual end. I wonder if I'll feel any different when its done than when, as a younger man, I finished other novels? 

BEATNIK AND THE SPORTIN' LIFE

I can't imagine this entry will run long. It's Sunday, the Seahawks are playing, and they're behind by 4 points, and, even though the Zags and Blazers won last night, I just do not feel any sort of cleverness coming on that would pad this account of my progress in sports viewing, excuse me, writing. Must keep my priorities prioritized. In the Manning novel, I'm just completing a lengthy scene in which much is revealed to the reader about many of the incidents throughout the novel. Seriously, I'm not very far from the end. Maybe three more chapters or scenes. Only a couple more things to get into the book and it'll be finished.

A BEATNIK GETS ALL MUSHY WITH LOVE'NSTUFF

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Needs dramatic shadowing.

Woody Allen and his films, I love. His short stories too. At one time in my life, his films so often reminded me of myself and my insecurities and my comical woundings (they felt nearly mortal) ... well, that's what good art does, doesn't it, it touches us? I just watched Hannah and Her Sisters for the who knows how manyieth time? One of my favorite films of his, and as the film closed to that wonderful piano playing, "I'm In Love Again", while the camera moves through the apartment to touch on all the relationships and how they worked out ... I got misty, and, next, I think how my first draft of the novel will soon reach its ending after all this long time of work, and how much I'm in love with my wife and our relationship after 20 years together, and my curious Facebook debates with my Southern antagonists who hope to see a second civil war so this time they can win, and, the conflagration of love and war of which my childhood was made when I, feeling the orphan, lived with my paternal grandparents all through WWII ... well ... my feelings well up and splash all over in my head, and my fired up synapses tell all my organs to get busy and create the chemical reactions this robot calls feelings, and I rush to my desktop Mac and sit to spill this rush of emotion out to you who follow this old man, trying to write a book someone other than himself will publish. The dream still lives.