BEATNIK BLOGGING ALONG BLOGGING

THE TORQUE

I've got this 13000 word long story, Lit. Noir, in a style reminiscent of early Woody Allen. I like it, but the rewrite, the third rewrite this time thru, felt like a slog. Do all rewrites at my age feel this way, I wonder? I've never felt this way before. Rewrites were just part of the overall fun. Thirteen hundred words? Who'll publish anything that long anyhow? Serialized in 3 issues maybe?

Photo is inside the new Torque location. Lovely place to write, looking out at the river thru the long window on the left. 

My list of publications will soon increase by a single poem. First published in 1985 at Bellowing Ark, the poem "Willingness of Seeds" will be reprinted in the Perfume River Poetry Review from Tourane Poetry Press. Editor Vuong Quoc Vu got hold of the poem during a moment when I nearly was involved in a chain letter exchange of poetry with other poets, but after I sent one poem out to Vuong, I withdrew from the process. It's the same old story. To take time off for anything but writing, rewriting and, now, submitting my work, plus finding time to read every night [what about my wife besides], it was hard for me to select and pitch in 20 names of friends required to keep the process going. I did not know who Vuong was, but Vuong liked the poem a good deal, and I felt immediately humbled and appreciative of his comments. If you look on his websites, you'll find some powerful poetry about his mother and himself in Vietnam when the bullets were flying. Besides that event, several of my poems have been at Cutbank for a long while now. I'm imagining/hoping they're being looked at with some interest. Wouldn't that be nice? One of the poems is entitled, "With Hugo In Montana ".

WHADDA THEY WANT FROM THIS OLD BEATNIK?

Find photo here!

Whazzup? Whazzup here is more of same. Rewriting short stories, sending a few of them out as I go along. I'm getting the idea that when a literary magazine editor says he or she wants something "different", I don't know what they mean because I can't read minds. Do they want something different from what is the current trend in MFA programs and literary magazines? Or are they receiving the sort of fiction writing that was around 30 or 40 years ago that was coming out of MFA programs, and they're tired of it? Unless I have that data, I have no idea what "different" means. Sometimes I'll send out something so different that I've never seen the style in any literary magazines. Nil acceptances of those, thank you. Literary styles can come and go and come back again. My current goal is to write something so entertaining that a lot of people enjoy reading it and lots of sales follow. I sure think my novel Ghoul World has entertainment value, even movie appeal. So far. No takers. Whadda they want?

Well, that "anonymous" novel I was reading and not responding to? I've grown to like it so I'll tell you it's Netherland by Joe O'Neill. It teaches lots about plotting. My wife, who reads more than I do probably won't like it. I told her the novel includes tons of information about the game of cricket, for example, even details about how to care for a cricket field to make the grass come out okay. Detail oriented novels leave her cold. She wants "raw gut" emotion. That's why she fell in love with me, she tells me. We talk about our raw gut emotions with one another. Goodness sakes, I'm happy!

BEATNIK BOOMER STRIKES OUT AGAIN...AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT

Not much to say, here. Today I finished one more rewrite of another short story, then did a complete rewrite of another very short story and came up with a better finish for a third story I'd already finished the rewrite on several days ago. 

See Hemingway influence here? Died age 55. Alcoholism.

What I wanted to say in this entry is something about an impression I have about a couple of published writers. I just finished Whistle by James Jones. Now I'm reading a book written by a writer whose name will not be mentioned. The second book won a Pen/Faulkner Award sometime within the last 15 years. That's a prestigious award offered by the top people in the world of MFA programs for one group. The award winning book is all you "expect" it to be. It's well researched and offers snapshots of many people in many fields of work and play, all of whom talk and act as if the writer knows about or has researched those fields. Phillip Roth, anyone? It's glib and polished and well constructed compared to Jones's novel. You can see that Jones put his poor damn passion in his book for better or worse while the award winning book reveals an easy handling of memorized tactics for writing an award winning book. And talk about a pile on of praise offered by magazines and newspapers? In short, the novel so far bores me. It's got no pizazz. No passion in it. Cooly intellectual, I'd say, and that's all I'm saying here. Detachment? Is that the modern mood? Of course, I haven't finished it yet. Who knows how I'll feel after I finish it? Just before Whistle, I  read Asleep by Japanese author Banana Yoshimoto [in translation] and it took me 2/3 of the book before I was dragged into an interest in it. I guess I sort of feel saddened by the fact that the passions of my youth for the men who fought WWII is no longer in style. We've all died and gone to heaven.

4X2 or FOURBYTWO BOOMING ALONG IN BEATNIK TIME

The 8th issue of FOURBYTWO is out from the hands of Klipschutz and Gaulke. If my scan of its contents seems askew, that's in honor of the skewedness of the layout of this particular issue and also of the "poems as in process" of  some the poems by James Schuyler (Pulitzer Prize in 1981 for The Morning of the Poem) included herein, plus the variety of the  typefaces for the various poems by Klipschutz, Rene Ricard (also, like Schuyler, deceased) and Schuyler. Of the three, only Klipschutz (latest, A Visit To The Ranch) is not deceased. The poetry as always is interesting and entertaining. Who could ask more of poetry than that?

As for myself, recently long lost in novel and short story and screenplay writing, poetry has fallen by the wayside, it's little vowels scattered and broken by the winds of fiction. All I have to report is that I'm plugging away at the short fictions I hope to imprison together into a book probably by the end of the year. Other stories are drifting into my imagination to be written for the first time. BUT, will I? At 78, I almost think I hear a gallop of creativity thundering over the far horizon, coming my way. Or, maybe, it's only the sound of my horse drawn hearse. 

BEATNIK BOOMER BOUNCING TWIXT PIZZAZ AND BLAHS

ASKING: Find this at this link:

Still reworking the short stories to make a book of them. The project could easily take a year. By submitting them to market as I go along and getting another publication or two my query credentials will have more impact. Have been on "Haunted By Henry Miller" for several days. I'm depersonalizing the narrative, not giving proper names to the characters involved. They are referred to as "the young husband" or "the college girl" and other impersonal nouns. The strategy seems to intensify the feeling of manipulation in the story.  

Have sent queries to several more agents for two novels: Ghoul World and The Porn Writer [aka Programming Frank Singletary]. I switch back and forth between the two names, depending how I feel about the agent I'm querying. Another case of how emotions direct our behaviors. Found a solid list of agents looking for science fiction. Will send Ghoul World to all of them eventually. I feel empowered the more queries I send out. 

I'm very upset that the pictures I put into this blog don't show up on Facebook. Anybody know why this change? Probably a battle between giant corps in which we munchkins become single bite size hors d'oeuvres. 

Ever since we moved to Vancouver from Spokane, I've not had the sort of relationships that nurture me as those did in the past. I feel most alive when I communicate by writing. Among people and sober as I am, I often feel unimportant and detached.