SKIPPING A BEAT IN THE BUCKET LIST SONG

Art by Clip, captions by George

Christmas is about to blow your budgets into town on the hooves of Credit Card and Debit. Following that, New Years Evening enters and closes the year under a lampshade chapeau in the carriages of drunken drivers. Probably all the book agents whose ears I seek will be drunk on those ears and worrying about next years shrinking list of publishing houses, so I've decided to stop sending query letters until a new year enters in a stinky diaper. It's been a long time since I've had to dangle a soiled diaper between my fingers while I pee. However, I'll continue to work away at the untitled film script. Even plan to work some on Christmas Eve day tomorrow. 

Just finished reading Japanese author Haruki Murakami's novel, After Dark. That novel, following Craig Lesley's Winterkill, made quite a collision of styles in my literary senses. Now embarking on a 2nd read of Steven Hawking's A Brief History of Time.

If I have any resolutions for the New Year, I'll try to be kinder to troubled people, trying to recall how I felt during those years when suicide was always in my thoughts, and I wished that people would be kinder to me.  It's a rough world for tender consciences.

BOOMER BEATNIK LOSES ANOTHER FRIEND AND WRITER: PHYLLIS JANOWITZ

"Friends and colleagues of Phyllis Janowitz plan to remember her life with a gathering Friday, April 17 at 11:30 a.m. in the English Department Lounge. Janowitz, poet and professor emerita, died Aug. 17, 2015 at Seneca View Skilled Nursing Facility in Montour Falls, New York. She was 84. Janowitz taught creative writing and poetry at Cornell for nearly 30 years and served as director of the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English twice, from 1980-83 and 1986-91. She retired as a full professor in 2009."

Currently, as I've mentioned before, I'm putting together a list of writers Mertie and I published in our tiny microzine, George & Mertie's Place, from 1995 thru 2000. I look some of them up to see how they're doing. Recently, you'll recall, I was surprised to see that Madeline DeFrees died in November of this year. Tonight, I came across the obituary of Phyllis Janowitz. In 1975, she was a visiting poet at the first two week poetry workshop I ever attended a few weeks after I arrived in Cheney, Washington to commence graduate work in Creative Writing. Smart, clever and eccentric, I loved her poetry. She was a joy. We danced one night at a local tavern, a country western bar. Those days I dressed in steel toed boots, Levis and dungaree shirts. She told me, laughing, that I was the first man who ever sang in her ear while she danced with him. I told her she was the first dancing partner into whose ear I ever sang as we danced. We talked of meeting someday in Biloxi, Miss and writing together down there. I was in love with her the whole two weeks, then she returned to NYC and my fickle heart went elsewhere. Very saddened to read of her death. The poem of hers we published follows:

Losing
   1
Little
but it has a
sharp tongue which wounds. Even
so, anything it cuts ends up
lighter. 
   2
In the
error of an
asphyxiation, she
sees a bit late that air's weight may be
required.
   3
Wanting
and waxing are
two exercises she
is good at. And right now waning's
waxing.
   4
He tells 
her she's obese.
She says all she needs to
lose is whatever she most needs
to love. 

THE KIGGINS AND I WERE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER

Appeared in Vancouver Vector (Feb. 3, 2014)

 
When Robert Mitchum died July 1^st, 1997, my current wife and I were living in Spokane, Washington. After Mitchum’s death, I hurried to the Spokane library to find a Mitchum film. I wanted to experience the actor’s craggy, dimple-chinned, celluloid likeness one more time, to pretend, for a moment, he still lived and worked in Hollywood. The only Mitchum film on the shelves was “River Of No Return”, a western. Released in 1954, “River” came out a year before the original Kiggins closed its doors in Vancouver and I graduated high school in Dayton, Ohio and set off for a hitch in the Navy. Also, the Kiggins opened its doors in 1936, only one year before I was born more than half a continent away in Ohio. Our life lines have crossed from the beginning.

Mitchum made “River of No Return” with Marilyn Monroe and Rory Calhoun and a child actor named Tommy Rettig. Every Hollywood cliché and shallowness was packed into that film! It’s a spiritless, good guy versus bad guy contraption, two men fighting over a powerless woman, and not much to differentiate one from the other—some marauding “hostiles” thrown in for good measure. Mitchum, whose star was brightest, was designated the good guy. Rory Calhoun of lesser fame was cast as the bad guy. Monroe acted herself—a helpless female in need of Joe Dimaggio’s protection. Rettig was her child.

Otto Preminger directed the effort and fought with Monroe’s interfering acting coach and with Mitchum’s heavy drinking from start to finish. The acting of all three older actors was about as bad as they could do. Rettig, more stable than his older costars, immediately disappeared from studio films to become Lassie’s supporting actor, Jeff Miller, on TV from 1954-1957. He went on to become a software engineer who died in 1996 at age 54, only a year before Robert Mitchum passed away.

As I watched “River” again in 1997, the film revealed itself to be the sort of villain that seduced and ruined movie theaters like the Kiggins all across the nation in the 1950s. Theirs was a loveless match to begin with—a dying studio system’s formula film and a fading theater. Embarrassed by recollecting my early taste in films, I wondered what I’d seen, as a 17 year old, in Robert Mitchum. Other of his films are much better like "The Night of the Hunter".

The “River of No Return” was no different than your average formula film today. The major difference between a bad film in the 50s and a bad film today is that the special effects weren’t computerized in 1954 and the bad guys these days are rotting people rather than rotten characters, fairy tale ogres and demons, popular villains from comic books and animated fish while the good guys are little people, fairy tale spirits, comic book heroes, cartoon autos and toys…and animated fish.

Watching “River of No Return”, I was forced to remember why I’d grown tired of Hollywood films and what led me to seek out claustrophobic, seedy art houses and shadowy black and white foreign films in the 60s to take their place. I remembered, with a touch of bittersweet nostalgia, falling out of love with Doris Day next door only to fall head over heels in love with dames like the Kiggins in every gyp joint and fog-shrouded port on the Atlantic Coast from Key West, Florida to Nantucket, Massachusetts. I recalled why my heart pounded for the prostitutes who frequented the dark dives that lined the narrow, cobbled streets of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico where I was a lonely gob, and why my psyche chased Eurydice through the Carnival streets of Rio de Janeiro in Marcel Camus’s 1959 film, “Black Orpheus”.

Had I foresight, I’d have known from the first time I entered an art house and got my initial whiff of the exotic and smoky perfumes of ambiguity and ambivalence how my insatiable curiosity and my taste for something different guaranteed that the Kiggins and I were fated to meet and fall in love on the streets of Vancouver. It’s too late for passion now. The refurbished Kiggins, with a face lift and wearing new shades of lipstick and eye shadow, is a real vamp and seducer while my exterior resembles a faded shirt left overnight in the dryer. Still … if the physical attraction is missing, we can be soul mates. Can’t we?

e.e. cummings AND BEATNIK BOOMER FEEL A LOT

Today is a disturbing day. A day of dizziness, and I can't get started on my science fiction screenplay, plus fecal incontinence threatens. Instead of sturm und drang, I'm suffering from shite and stress. Ah, well, it's a good excuse to put this writing day in the can (double meaning there) and unwind, maybe finish reading Craig Lesley's Winterkill. He lives in Portland, you know, just across the river from where I type this. He was born in 1945 and is 8 years younger than me. Makes him 70 or approaching 70 or leaving 70 for 71, depending upon the month.  

Plotting my science fiction movie has been giving me fits. I want certain things to happen and certain feelings to be aroused, but I can't quite focus on the necessary steps. I'm trying to imagine, instead of writing toward (as in fiction) certain frightening moments, but I can't grasp them imaginatively. A blank. It's old age and a failing imagination, or a case of plain old writer's block. 

Speaking of feelings, a friend of mine put the e.e. Cummings' photo and screed on my Facebook page, and I'm sharing it here. Feelings are wonderful. Younger, I suffered for many years with the near absence of emotions. Severe depression. A cold dead sensation. Without emotional guidance, a man makes awful mistakes, tries to make decisions based on rational premises. Only sociopaths are successful at that.

BEATNIK ENTERS A MOVIE THEATER WITH JAMES CAMERON

Only four days between last entry and this entry. Still waiting for an intelligent agent to seize on one of my novels and sail with it... when next to me on a long bench at the Starbucks in Kelso someone across the bench from me knocks over their coffee cup and a tsunami of coffee heads toward computer to the left of my own—commotion, confusion, lights, camera, action—as someone experiences one of their most embarrassing moments while another feels pure terror...but, as noted earlier, I'm now onto a film script for a scifi movie, having decided it might be more fun, because novel, than writing another novel. Enjoy the use of the word novel in two of its historically connected forms. 

Having usual steep learning curve when attacking a new procedure...script writing. Long ago, in the 60s, I did have a TV script agent-forwarded to the Bob Hope Chrysler Theater. The script was returned for being too short. As I rewrote it, the Chrysler Theater's lights went dark. Missed again, have another drink—my reaction in those days.

In order to proceed with a semblance of professionalism, I Googled "script writing" and came up with far too many suggestions about how to write a script, some of them frankly contradictory. Then I Googled "horror film scripts" and found James Cameron's first draft (May 28, 1985) for Aliens. How better to learn than to read a pro's script, eh? I read it through yesterday afternoon and this morning. I recognized he followed roughly the form most experts recommend, but, at times, as his excitement mounted, he'd slip out of form and go for the gusto, he'd forget about camera directions and write prose. Typos sprinkle the script. Then I noticed a comforting thing about his "scene description" elements. Many of them were cliched emotional directions. I could see the child in James Cameron, getting carried away and appealing to the child in his viewers, in some cases, appealing to the youths who are drawn to his movies. This was comforting to me, to see a great movie maker and how his sometimes immature emotions are laid bare by the script he's writing. Fingers crossed, emotions tingling, I embark on the script writing ocean. And, he's a vegan.

BOOMING ALONG WITH A BEATNIK IN MY HEART

I'm not making the suggested every other day entries in my blog. That pace is supposed to keep people interested in my bucket list quest to get someone other than myself to publish one of several novels I've written over the decades and recently rewritten... before I die. I'm still sending out queries while I continue to work on a nameless, so far, science fiction screenplay. Looking into buying software for script writing, but some appear to be so loaded with goodies they'll create a slowdown while I learn yet another software program. Slugline is quite simple, but it must be downloaded into a more complex script writing program to prepare it for electronic submission. Frustration, then I came across a simple macro-enabled format that will give me what I need to create a script for electronic submission... I hope. I'll have to become more familiar with macros. I've used them in the past, but not recently. I've had some really powerful internal moments lately that feel like the attitudes of a successful writer. Now... will that come true?
 
Reading: just finished Yukio Mishima's  Confessions of a Mask and have commenced to read a change of pace novel, Craig Lesley's Winterkill. Mask is a first person interior monologue while Winterkill is presented by a third person narrator. The first is full of confessional abstractions, the other full of concrete details. Thank you for checking in on my progress whoever you are, and if you're on the same quest as I am, good luck to you.  

SILENT BOOMER EXCHANGES SPAGHETTI FOR TURKEY

Have been doing nothing for the last several days except play games and eat because it was turkey day for those who aren't vegans and spaghetti day for those of us who are, and Mertie and I had family over from Spokane and down from Seattle to feed and partly house. Looking forward to tomorrow and return to sci-fi script I began two [?] weeks past. But I also had the emotional energy for a novel enter my brain tonight and perk up my synapses. If it's still with me tomorrow, I might try to type down the beginning scene for it. It would open with a half-ass suicide attempt and continue from there, backwards and forward in time... maybe. Today, I sent out two queries for my novel The Man In the Mirror and a question about my novel Angie's Choice to a small film company, wondering if they'd like to read it with a movie in mind. Hope everyone had an enjoyable and dietary Thanksgiving. Jeez, we ate so many bagels and pieces of pie with ice cream made with almond milk that our dietary regime blew South with the wind. Current reading is Yukio Mishima's Confessions of a Mask, basically a confessional novel about his homosexuality in the 1940s and 1950s.

SILENT BOOMER AS EDITOR, PUBLISHER AND HUMORIST

From 1995 through 2000, wife Mertie and I published, and I edited George & Mertie's Place, a monthly microzine that appeared February through December. Lately, I've been putting together a list of those poets and writers who appeared in our microzine. In doing so, I've come across cartoons that "Art Clip" and I put together in arrangements that tickled my fancy. The two items on the left are samples of my work in that vein.

The list of men and women we published during those years is quite interesting. At the time we published them, I never paid much attention to who they were or their reputations. I was interested only in what they wrote. As I've  compiled the list, I've Googled a few names and am very pleased to discover more about them. I had no idea of the extent of the work they've done and still do. I've sent off some emails to a few, merely to touch base and see what they're doing now. Quite exciting. Sadly, one of those we published was Madeline DeFrees whose name I did know of at the time. I discovered that she died on November 11, 2015...8 days ago.

FOURBYTWO ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP BOOMERBEATNIK

Ten days between entries here. Sorry. Last night and this morning, this old writer got to work and submitted five short stories for consideration at five literary magazines. Also sent two more queries about my novel, Programming Frank Singletary. Feels productive. My reading at this time is the anthology, Cutbank 83, which I received as part of my unsuccessful entry into its recent short story competition. Some of the work within its pages fascinates me. A style I don't yet understand, but I'm willing to understand, at least as willing as Copperfield's Barkis ever was. I believe some young writers might be trying to write stories as robots might write them or by revealing their tales through the eyes of a person without free will. Not sure. Just a guess. I'd like it to be true as it's about time writers align ourselves with the facts. I may be too old to catch up or on.

Also, the most recent FourByTwo is in my hungry clutches. As usual, the look of the little magazine is classy and the poetry sassy. That word choice and rhyme are almost so awful they ought not be connected to the fine thing that FourByTwo is. I'm showing you a couple of poems that are by klipschutz. The other poet is Michael Earl Craig. Craig, by the way, hails from Dayton, Ohio, my own birthplace. Most of the time, I select for sample the poet who is not klipschutz, but this time I went the other way. This is not a comment on Craig's work. It's just that I thought klipschutz ought to have a turn in this blog. Money is becoming an issue for them. Doesn't it always?

THIS BEATNIK, HIPPY, SILENT GEN NEWS

Sixty degrees outside and the lucky ol' sun beaming down. Me inside all morning, crafting and whooshing off query letters to agents for my several novels. I'm trying to pay attention to one suggestion that an agent mentioned in an interview—personalize the query if you can. That takes some time consuming research, and, a man my age, how much time do I got? A writer's gotta be almost as creative in writing query letters as he is writing the novels, the poems, the short stories themselves. 

Even though I don't smoke, I took the photo from an online magazine called The Daily Sheeple, an alternative magazine, it says, to help the sheeple "wake the flock up". So it says. I decided I didn't want to know more, even though the alternative news might be tailored for this writer, hissef. I'm not a sheeple, and I'm far too wide awake for my own good as it is.

BEATNIK BOOMER GETS OIL AND PROJECT CHANGE

Here I sit at McCord's Toyota, getting our Yaris an oil change and tire rotation. Here's my next set of writing tasks. A movie script. I've got a good central idea, and I picture Morgan Freeman in the film too. It'll be science fiction, and, of course, that means some technical problems and plot difficulties to overcome in order to create plausibility. What I'm doing now is writing down ideas and problems and certain interesting moments in the plot and asking myself questions like: "Why does X kill Y?" "What is Morgan Freeman doing in that town?"   "Where did he come from?" "How do I show the viewer this complication?" This is the fun part for me. For Ghoul World, I was aflame with imagination for about 3 days before the hard work of writing came into play. Then it took 2 years to get 555 pages done and rewritten three times. Photo is me in McCord's. 

CELEBRATION! TASK COMPLETED AND ROCK'NROLL TOO

WOW! WHAT A MORNING! I'm sitting in the cafeteria at New Seasons where I just finished the third rewrite of Ghoul World. I'm having a salmon cake patty and kale lunch with a diet caffeine free Pepsi and listening to a guitar/drum duo playing the music of the 50's and 60s. Right at this moment it's "Can't Get No Satisfaction". Awhile back it was "Jailhouse Rock", and I'm rocking out inside'nout. Soaring like in the old days, but, this time, don't need no alcohol or drugs for the emotional high. Now they're playing and singing, "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay". GREAT!

181 PEOPLE CHECKING OUT THE SILENT BOOMER

Today, I rewrote two chapters of Ghoul World at Starbucks on 164th. Only 3 more chapters to go and the third rewrite of my science fiction novel will be completed. I hope I'm able to take a break after that and concentrate on sending work out. Besides the novels, I've got several short stories I'd like to send to literary magazines. I'm also considering putting together a short story collection, but I'm afraid the style of many of my short stories isn't in favor at this time. Walked today in the neighborhoods east of the Fred Meyer on 164th. Snapped a couple of photos of the autumn colors while I walked. 

One day, recently, 181 people checked on my writer's blog, The Silent Boomer. Not bad. That number continues to grow. Thank you, one and all, who are taking an interest. There are times when I tell myself it's silly of me to be trying to succeed financially with my writing far after most writers' prime is passed. Here's an interesting thing I consider when I send out query letters for my novels. Should I not tell a prospective agent about my blog where my age is revealed or should I tell them about my blog which reveals, also, my steady process of pursuing my goal of getting someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine before I sink into the dust? Which would most appeal to a potential agent?

BEATNIK EATS PRIME RIB AND READS POETRY OF MARY OLIVER

Yesterday, I did not write. It was my 78th birthday. For one meal I stopped being a vegan and had a prime rib, medium rare, at Black Angus. Wife, meanwhile, ordered french fried sweet potatoes and grilled asparagus. When we got home, she was still hungry because the sweet potatoes were too greasy. She ate barely one or three. Frankly, I like the homemade tomato soup I made two dinners ago more than the prime rib. Surprised me. Also for my birthday, we spent the whole day together. In the morning, we walked at the Lloyd Center, a mall, Mertie shoe shopped while we were there, then we ate lunch at the Veggie Grill, walked some more and went to see the movie Steve Jobs before Black Angus. Mertie thought the movie was depressing, but we both found it interesting.

Today, I finished rewrite of Chapter 43 of Ghoul World. Five more chapters to go, and another rewrite will be done. Walked at the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail again and came home. 

Currently reading some work by Neal Cassidy. Finished a book of collected verse by Mary Oliver. She is quintessentially a woman. I mean by that she's written some poetry that a man would not be able to write. Of course, I can no more prove my evaluation than I can high jump the Moon outside my window. 

BEAT BEATNIK BOOMER, SILENTLY COLLAPSES

Nine more chapters of rewriting of Ghoul World remain. The senior dizziness departed after three days of it. Felt better today as I made revision decisions. Learned something new about self today. I'm on the 3rd rewrite of Ghoul World, and as the final 9 of 48 chapters appear before me, I'm growing bored with the process. Same thing happened near the end, during the 2nd rewrite of Ghoul World. What does this signify, I wonder? 

Disappointment. My novel takes place in a world where a type of necrotizing fasciitis infects all humans. They now call themselves ghouls to distinguish themselves from Irishers (red heads) who are immune from the disease. I just learned that The Maze Runner somewhat employs a plague that creates zombies. Of course, my Earth people aren't zombies. They're just rotting. In the final stages of the plague, they become irrational and dangerous, but this is when the disease begins to attack the brain after a lifetime of merely rotting flesh.

BEAT UP OLD BRAIN FARTS

This old age thing is a bear. I have many days when a mild dizziness creates a curtain between the page I'm staring at and my ability to concentrate on the work I'm doing and bring words to that page. It's very discouraging to deal with. I'm having one of those days today, and I'm about to quit for the day. I'll give it one more shot after I take an AllerClear. Sometimes that helps. I also have exercises that help, but I need to be home on my bed to do them. Acceptance is called for in this situation.

THE QUERULOUS PROCESS OF QUERY LETTERS

Outside, it's a beautiful sunny autumnal day. I'm wearing a brand new pink shirt, celebrating Pink Out for Planned Parenthood day, and currently sitting at the Cascade Park Library where I just finished rewriting Chapter -29- of Ghoul World. An extremely long chapter, I took several days to complete it. Today, 143 people visited this blog. It's the biggest number to visit this Beatnik, Silent Generation Boomer's blog about an old writer whose goal is to get someone other than himself to publish one of his novels before he dies. I'm now circulating three rewritten novels to agents while completing the third rewrite of my recently completed science fiction novel. Still to be rewritten is the novel I used as my thesis for a Master's in English (with an emphasis in creative writing). It's called Delinquent Lives. Also, something is stirring in me about an entirely new novel. Who knows? I recently recommitted myself to sending out more query letters to agents. I realized that every time I enter my office, I flinch to see the 4x6 yellow cards upon which I record my queries and their results. Rejection is always a painful thing to experience. Two rejections of queries came my way last week. For the fun of it, I sent one query over the Atlantic last night to a British agent.

BEATNICK BOOMER HAPPY ENOUGH WITH FEATURED READING SELF

The reading at Paper Tiger Coffee last Wednesday, went very well, I thought, and thanks again to Joyce Colson for inviting me to be a featured reader there. I read poems from my checkered past with women and about women I've read about too or whose stories I've heard something about. All mixed together, of course, to protect the innocent. The fine line drawing to the right is by Christopher Luna who I was so glad to see at the reading. He's been very kind to me and appreciative of my work. I enjoy that he refers to me as the Henry Miller of Vancouver. The poetic lines around my head are from the last poem I read that night. 

The third rewrite of Ghoul World is speeding along. Couldn't be happier with how it's turning out. No more responses to work or inquiries I've sent out. Fingers forever locked in a crossed position.

I've met a young writer named Lindsey Kurtz and heard from her about a local prose-writing group here in Vancouver. So am connecting via Facebook with her and her writing friends.

SILENT BOOMER TO BE FEATURED POET AT PAPER TIGER ROASTERS

This coming Wednesday, September 16th, 2015, the Silent Boomer will be the featured poet at Joyce Colson's Paper Tiger open mic event that occurs at Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters at 7:00 PM. Location is at 703 Grand Blvd. Vancouver, WA. It's an every third Wednesday of the month occurrence. Don't forget...open mic and good coffee too. George is going to concentrate on poetry about women and the psychology of some damaged women he's known and on some of the ways that men relate to them. Some poems will be pretty scary.

THIS AND THAT...A LITTLE BIT OF

Holy Jumping Jehoshaphat! Last two days of rewrite of Ghoul World, I've done two chapters each day. Will begin Chapter -15- tomorrow. Moving right along. I thought Colbert's second show was stronger than his first. His sendup of Trump during his first show was silly and juvenile, nearly, but his second night's political bit sounded more like the style he originated at Comedy Central. More sophisticated. Oh, listen to Mister Sophisticate, George Thomas, or Silent Boomer or ex-Beatnick hippy, and whathaveyou. 

Had a great time at the recent National Beat Poetry Festival: Portland PDX version. I mean it was grooving and moving, loud and packed.

For our 15th wedding anniversary, my wife, Mertie, took us to

Jimmy Mak's jazz club to listen to jazz and eat dinner. She did this because every time we've walked past Jimmy Mak's since arriving in Vancouver, I've said, "We gotta go there sometime." So, she got us there. What a sweetheart she is. I got her Crystal earrings and a Glen Campbell DVD because, lately, she's been saying, "We gotta have some Glen Campbell in the house." Secondly, because the 15th wedding anniversary is the glass or crystal anniversary. I've used Mak's in my Ghoul World novel, but the club in my book doesn't look anything like the real place, but, of course, it's two hundred years from now. 

BETNICKING WITH THE STARS

Honesty is painful. At my Barnes & Noble reading, no one showed up. I read well several of my best poems. If that doesn't attract people, there is nothing I can do about it. I'm wondering how long I'll stick to the open mic forums.

The third rewrite of Ghoul World is preceding at about a chapter a sitting, sometimes sliding over into two days, but I'm encouraged by the work. Will begin Chapter -9- the next time I sit down to write. No new rejections to report. 

Lastly, TV's "Star Trek: the next generation" taught me an interesting thing about plausibility. I'm always worried about being plausible, right? In the Star Trek segment I watched, the Enterprise fakes out an adversary by allowing them to destroy an unmanned ship, thinking they are killing a starship full of their enemies that the Enterprise is charged to protect. Starships are shown time and again to have the power to monitor another starship for "signs of life". It's SOP to monitor another ship for life. Yet, just to accommodate a plot line, an Enterprise adversary's starship doesn't seem to have this power. Why do I fret over such things? Maybe readers don't care as much as I do? 

SILENT BOOMER ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH

Approaching third rewrite of Chapter -6- of Ghoul World tomorrow. Finished rewrite of Chapter -5- today. I hope I can do this a chapter per work day and finish in a month and a half. Probably,if experience is any indicator, I'm looking at six months. I realize all this is very boring to report. Don't go to sleep. 

I'm struggling, this morning, with the mild dizziness that often plagues me all morning long. It clears up in the afternoon... most of the time. By the time it clears, I'm ready for my afternoon nap. Writing into and through the dizziness is difficult. The sense of the affect of my writing escapes me. 

Will take off on Wednesday when Mertie and I will celebrate our glass [crystal, paper] wedding anniversary. Every anniversary with my lovely wife sets a new record for marital longevity for me. September 2nd is also my granddaughter Shelby's birthday.

BEAT BEAT BEATING ON HAVEN'S DOOR

Didn't sleep well last night but hammered out the 3rd rewrite of Chapter -2- of Ghoul World today, this morning. That's all this dude has to report. About time for my walk in hazy Vancouver, surrounded by discouraging PNW fires. Tomorrow, at seven pm, as I've pointed out numerous times, I'll be the featured poet at Barnes and Noble in Vancouver. Looking forward to it. Nice of Rainy Knight and David Hill to invite me.

Got a nice rejection letter for a short story I submitted to a contest. Invited to submit again. Was it just a polite form letter or a special sort of rejection letter that was a real invite? Monetary concerns twist and distort all communications. I know the story is well done. I've worked it over a couple of dozen of times over the past decade. All I see nowadays in it are small quibbles with my language that aren't strong enough to change. They're the sort of quibbles that can go back and forth, endlessly.

PETE SEEGER TICKY-TACK? NO MORE.

Just finished my walk. 85 degrees outside. Tomorrow, back into the 90s. Spent between 4 and 4 1/2 hours, as promised to myself, sending off 4 queries to agents this morning. Three went out for Programming Frank Singletary and one went out for Ghoul World. Even as I rewrite Ghoul World for the third time, I intend to send out the second version. It's good enough to go as is, I think, but another rewrite won't hurt. If someone likes the current version, that's all to the good. As a younger writer, I don't think I'd do it this way, but my age rushes me a bit. 
Part of my walk, as usual, was through an expensive neighborhood to the north. I look at those homes and would like to see us in one of the smaller, one story homes there [$500,000]. Of course, she might reject such a move, being the woman she is. When I was young, and city neighborhoods were Pete Seeger ticky-tack in my head, I could not entertain such an ambition. I was full of hate for the middle class, but my hate turned out to be my hate for my bourgeois self that I feared made me very ordinary and unable to achieve success in the creative world. Now, here I am, 77, and still striving. Speaking of success, my wife and I took along audio books to listen to during our drive to Yellowstone. We listened to a mystery by a woman author who shall go nameless. Not a name I recognized, but my wife has read other of her books. The writer was making stylistic "errors" that I've been upset at myself for making, yet, there her work was, on an audio tape. The story line was intriguing. I feel that Ghoul World has a solid story line. We'll see.

WALKING IN YELLOWSTONE TOOK MY BREATH AWAY...LITERALLY.

Four am on a sleepless morning, Still kicked back and not writing on a self-imposed vacation. Went to Yellowstone with my wife where I found the altitude exhausted me from time to time. I appreciate all of you who continue to check in to see if my goal—to get someone other than myself to publish one of my novels—has been accomplished. I'm still looking for an ambitious agent and struggling occasionally with the idea that my goal is a futile one for someone of my age. Anyhow, my goal for this coming Monday is to query more agents and, on Tuesday, to begin rewrite of my sci-fi novel, Ghoul World. Am contemplating taking a course at the Northwest Film Center in script writing. Maybe I could find a young gun to co-write the script with me. Or not. Other than that, I will be the featured poet this August 25th at Barnes & Noble in Vancouver. Stop by, buy a book, any book, at B&N.

NOT BEATNICKING OFF. DONE.

I stole this picture here:

Third rewrite is done, Programming Frank Singletary. Finished yesterday morning then drove into Portland to attend the monthly lunch with Humanist of Greater Portland men. All old timers, we talked about the various ways to maintain erections after prostate removal. Laughing, we said we were relieved no younger members were at the lunch. They'd be traumatized. 

I haven't mentioned that my novel, Angie's Choice, was rejected for publication in a contest I entered. It was 9 1/2 months in process. 

This morning I've tried to do some poetry rewriting to put another poetry ms. together. A practice run for self-publishing on Amazon, but I wasn't inspired. My heart wasn't in it. I must get busy on rewrite of Ghoul World. Think I'll take a course in screenplay writing at Northwest Film Center so I can turn the novel into a screen play too. It still needs work, I'm sure. Tighten up the tension.  

This morning I also gave myself permission to take it easy for a month or a couple of weeks, kick back and read. Can't seem to do it. Think I fear my mental powers further declining.

SIGH OF RELIEF BOOMS OUT

Still, I'm working on the final chapter of Programming Frank Singletary, but I'm over the hump, the anguish subsided, and happy to be saying what I want to say at the end of a pornographic novel about sexual obsession. Should wrap up this rewrite within a day or two. 

Also, reading with respect and affection the most recent FOURBYTWO, subtitled, elsewheres. The poetry of Klipschutz and translations of several German poets by Scott J. Thompson are inside. Thompson's translation skills from the German are beyond my talents to evaluate but reading the English versions is satisfaction enough for me. Below is one of Thompson's translations of Georg Trakl's (1887-1914) imagistic poems:

SLEEP
Be damned, you dark poisons,
White sleep!
This most eccentric garden
Of twilit trees
Full of snakes, night moths,
Spiders, bats.
Stranger! Your abandoned shadow
In the sunset,
A sinister corsair
In the salty sea of anguish.
White birds flutter up at night's edge
Over collapsing cities
Of steel.

THE WIFE OF A LIFETIME

Hopeful today even though I'm still  rewriting the last chapter of Programming Frank Singletary, the uncomfortable tale of a dysfunctional relationship between two badly damaged human beans.

Find these photos at following link.

I think I'm emerging from the anxiety that had me blocked in such a way I couldn't see my way clear to the end of this novel. I still don't see my way clearly to the ending, but hope that I will has returned.

The very act of writing is critical to my mental health because when I'm blocked, unable to go forward, I'm frantic and in pain. I believe this is a childhood thing when I felt so many things I was unable to articulate. I could only feel and twist in the wind. The act of communication is critical to my mental health. Which makes me feel grateful all over again for the wife with whom I can share most anything. I have not one secret from her. I've shared the most shameful things from my past with her. 

BEAT ME DADDY 8 TIMES TO THE HEAD

Find photo here:

AAAAARG! I'm still on rewrite of Programming Frank Singletary. Who would of thought it would take so long when I began? I'm wondering if my unconscious is heeding my oft spoken wish about writing something beautiful? Of course, a graphically precise novel about dysfunctional relationships in which things very close to rape happen is not the sort of novel that most people would call "beautiful". Still, if it's writ true enough, it might have a "truth is beauty" of its own. The past week has been terrible at times. I've nearly regressed mentally to the heavy drinking past when I'd experience weeks of anguish, thinking everything I wrote was garbage. I had days, back then, when I could not bear to read my own work without twisting in the wind. Everything I wrote, I was convinced, was garbage. However, currently, as I slave away at one or two paragraphs for a couple of hours, and I see they are becoming more closely related to reality as I know it...I continually see improvement. Only problem, now, is will I be able to rewrite my entire cannon of novels before I die. I awoke in the middle of the night last night with the awful knowledge that the novel, Ghoul World, I've put so much hope into is badly flawed. It's set too far into the future, but if I bring it toward the now, then many other problems present themselves. I already know I must improve the beginning or Angie's Choice. Oh, woe, is me—the plight of the aging novelist.

BEAT TOO BEAT TO BEAT THE KEYS

Yeah. Me again.

Today is no better than my last entry. I'm stuck in rewrite of last chapter and don't know why. The heat? Anxiety? Old age? Ejaculatory dysfunction? Maybe the original ending, deep in my subconscious, is making a play to remain unchanged?

SILENT BOOMER PLANS TO END IT ALL

Brief note about current writing project. I'm still trying to complete a third rewrite of Programming Frank Singletary once known as The Porn Writer. I imagined I'd be done in two shakes of a lamb's tail. Had two chapters left but have hung fire on them for weeks. In fact, I'm altering how the novel ends. The original ending [see below], I thought of as existential and clever. Now, I'm hoping to make it more realistic and positive, I suppose. 

"Jesus Christ, what a mystery I am to myself! Penetrated with shame and emptiness, I lower my head and stare at the floor. So this is how I live, who I really am, I think, as I bend to pick up a small square of paper which lies on the floor, half under the mattress. Some writing on it. In an odd mood, I tell myself, Pretend this is a message left by the great big bang evolutionary force of the universe specially for me. I begin to read...."   THE END 

Wow! Writing is so mysterious. After reworking this ending paragraph, I'm now leaning toward leaving the ending as is. Of course, it's obviously a way to start a novel. Guess, I'll stop now, go for a walk and ponder the imponderables.

DAVE HILL, RAINY KNIGHT, JOYCE COLSON, HURRAH!

photo source

The poet is doing better than the novelist. He's got two readings booked. Isn't that a nice word, booked? Thanks to moderators Poets Dave Hill and Rainy Knight, on August 25th, I'll be a featured reader at Barnes & Noble's "Last Tuesday" poetry group. Lots popping at the store this July month too. On the third Wednesday, September 16th, by invitation of moderator, Poet Joyce Colson, l'll be the featured poet at Tiger Talk Open Mic at the Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters on Grand. One of the nice parts of that venue is that for one month, I believe, my poetry will be on display and for sale at Paper Tiger Coffee Roasters. Hope to see a few people there.

I don't know if anyone is noticing what's happening here in the Pacific Northwest. Day after day of 90 plus degree temps. Maybe I'm in Arizona and don't know it. A pal of mine down there reports temps of 107 and higher. Whew! Good thing I like to write in coffee shops. Most usually have "conditioned air". Yesterday, Mertie and I ventured to the coast for the day. Cooler there by 10 degrees, but still warm in late afternoon.

IN EVERY OLD SILENT BOOMER IS A CHILD

Art about imagination found here:

If I don't improve on the number of entries I put up here, I may lose potential readers of this writer's blog. I notice all the single visits or the odd two visits as readers check in to see if I've put up new material. Actually, nothing much is cooking except my hopes arise anew as I think of new ways to improve the four books I'm rewriting currently. For example, I'm considering changing Programming Frank Singletary to a third person narrator rather than the first person, Frank, who now narrates the fiction. As far as rejection letters or acceptances? Still no new events. I've decided to put Chapter One back into Ghoul World. The chapter goes a long way toward informing the reader of how the Rotting Plague works on human biology. Odd, that I read something into one rejection letter and IMAGINED that removing Chapter One would answer the complaint I IMAGINED was being made. Tonight, my wife and I were watching a science fiction movie, and I noticed the writer made a mistake I continually am learning to avoid...extra words and illogical reality. The piece of dialogue went, "I felt almost like I was drowning." If the character "almost" felt like he was drowning, then he couldn't have felt as if he was drowning. He either felt like he was drowning or he didn't. I told Mertie the line should read, "He felt like he was drowning." She suggested, even more forcibly, "He was drowning." The character was not describing an actual near-drowning event. The remark was a psychological remark. Another word I overuse is "just" as in "I just wanted to get your opinion." Wouldn't, "I wanted to get your opinion" work just as well. Granted...I do see occasions where "just" is justified, just between you and I [me].  

GALLERY 360 BOOK FAIR A TRIUMPH

They bought my book, Tenderfoot

I sold four books at the Gallery 360 Book Fair put together by Peggy Bird and promoted strongly by Clark County Poet Laureate Chris Luna. Mertie came down to Gallery 360 to take a look and bought 9 books from one of the other book sellers...children's books for her nieces and nephews in Spokane. We're losing money, but who cares, as long as writers and poets get the money. We're heading to Spokane during whatever week of July holds the 13th... Mertie's birthday. 

The young man, above, opened Tenderfoot and began to read the following poem: 

SKATING THIN ICE

 

Stepping from the landlocked trees to ice,

On thin, steel blades, the skater leaves

His two sure feet and sails;

     He skims the grey-smooth ice on out

To places where the firmness softens and water's deep.

There, black holes gape and bubbles rise

Through thick, black water like thoughts of gods.

     That far out on flying edges,

The skater's body quails with soaring fear,

And shore fires cast a fitful light

On small musings that freeze like cubes of ice;

     That far out

The rugged shore and threadbare trees

Seem dreams that edge a frozen universe

Where bubble thoughts drift up through thick

Black air on spumes of mist to burst away,

     And water's deep.

I told him I thought the poem was about taking intellectual risks, about thinking like an atheist...or something like one. 

Still no news on the novels and short stories I have in circulation. Down to two chapters on the rewrite of the novel Programming Frank Singletary that was once upon a time called The Porno Writer.