ON THE ROAD WAS LONG. FIRST ROUGH DRAFT IS DONE. FIREWORKS!

My friends, it's time to leave the library where I'm writing and get my car out of the parking lot before my two hours expire and I get a ticket. Going to walk down by the Columbia River and drink in the 63 degree weather and the feeling of being done with the first rough draft of Ghoul World. I cheated the finish just a little bit and before I start a rewrite on page one, I do have to go back over closing paragraphs to tweak out the exact feeling I want to end the novel with. My feelings about this being the final day of rough draft are a little ambiguous. Still I'm calling this the last day of rough draft.

THE OLD FART BEATNIK LIVES AND LOVES

I'm smack in the middle of the last section of the novel. I thought I'd be done by now, but what I'm writing so interests me that my imagination is constantly adding to it. I wish I'd thought about writing science fiction when I was younger. I can't tell you much about the concluding scene because it contains so much spoiler stuff. If you think evolution is interesting, be sure and read my novel, Ghoul World [aka the Manning novel] when it comes out. It touches on some of the same stuff. 

As I write this, I'm sitting in a Starbucks in the World Trade Center, Portland, waiting for the PIFF film, NUOC 2030, to begin upstairs at six pm. Spent an hour, earlier, walking in the cold drizzle of Portland's streets. Better, if you ask me, than snow, and, like a smart kid, I wore the raincoat Mertie bought for me when we first moved to Vancouver to wear during my rainy walks. I'm loving life pretty much right at this moment, thinking about my wonderful wife. 

GHOUL WORLD IS THIS BEATNIK BOOMER'S TITLE OF CHOICE

Just finished the penultimate chapter. I enter the last chapter, see the final scene before my eyes, at last. First draft, of course. Tentatively, I'm going to end the novel on a sad note, but if the team that makes my Manning novel into a movie wants to make it a happy ending there's plenty of room for that too. I don't care. Just pay me well. I'll happily go along. I'm easy after a lifetime of turning my nose up at writing profits. 

Seattle lost. Brady is among the best quarterbacks—if not the best ever. What a way to lose too. I didn't watch. I can't take the stress anymore. I identify too completely and my spirits rise and fall with wins and loses. I've tried to understand why some people so completely identify with sports teams while others don't. Like almost everything in life, self-worth plays a part. It drenches the sport follower's psyche with gloom or celebration. The less self worth one has, the more important the outcome of his favorite team becomes. I'm pretty sure I'm onto something there if I'm any example.  

Ghoul World is, at this moment, my chosen title for the Manning novel. 

PS: Just met Gabriel in Starbucks today, a young man with a Phd who has returned to US and PNW from Korea. I see much success ahead for him. He writes tech pieces at this time, with a book on his mind.