AMAZING MENTAL GYMNASTICS, KEN KESEY

Facebook informed me last night that everyone was waiting with bated breath for my next entry. Also, nowadays, Facebook keeps inviting me to boost my blog entries with dollars. I have refrained from that thus far. Is boosting worth anything? I'm not going to pretend I don't want people waiting for my sci fi novel to come out.

My last entry, if you recall, was about all the balls one must keep in the air—the memory required—to write a novel, specially a detective novel with many mental mazes included within its pages. Sometimes the thing to be recalled is quite simple. Just this morning, my character, Charley Manning, was recalling his last meeting on the sidewalk before his apartment building with Misty Frampton. Then I had to recall whether or not I'd removed that meeting for some other important reason. At last, not able to find the meeting, I kept in his thought about last seeing Misty [for romantic reasons], but I removed the reference to any specific place. That's a simple example how things must be juggled. An example of why Ken Kesey quit writing.

PS: I keep extensive plot notes, but, then I make changes and don't update the notes. The notes become as much of a distraction as the novel itself.

BEATNIK JUGGLING LIKE KEN KESEY, DROPPING BALLS

Writers have to know at all times what each character knows

about what's going on, what they've said to each other, what they're hiding from each other and from themselves, and what the writer wants to hide from the reader until it's time to let them in on the plot. At my age, I constantly make mistakes that have to be fixed. It gets harder and harder to fix them because fixing gets pretty complex. Quite often to fix one thing, the writer has to go back through the novel and fix all the problems created by the fix. Then he discovers that the fixes of the fix create other things that need fixing. A cascade of problems, a flood of them, bursts the dam of reality. Kesey gave up writing because, he said, he couldn't keep all the balls in the air anymore. I'm currently stuck, trying to work out one of those problems. I think I might be dropping too many balls. Some may have rolled off the stage, and I didn't see them fall. Discouraging. I don't want to have to go back through this novel an 11th time.

DE NIRO, SCORSESE, AND A BEATNIK MEMORY OF DESPAIR

I'm on page 288 of remaining 402 pages of Ghoul World. With only 113,812 words remaining, I'm sure to get below 400 pages and maybe below 100,000 words before rewrite is completed. The publisher I intend to send Ghoul World to says they prefer novels to be above 80,000 words.
  
As is obvious to anyone reading Silent Boomer, I've been on a tear for last year. Inspired by Han-Shan, I wrote many more than 100 lüshis. Now back at novel rewrite. Have in back of my mind writing another screenplay but subject matter is cloudy. Could be based on Ghoul World for all I know or another novel of mine, The Porn Writer.

Watched one of my favorite movies last night. Taxi Driver. Before I quit drinking, I often had moments when I felt like Travis Bickle [minus murderous thoughts], alienated, angry, alone and despairing. I used to call it existential angst. Was it so philosophical or was it merely feeling sorry for self? No matter what I call those moods, I was driven once to crash my car on purpose, accelerating while going around a corner so fast I knew I couldn't make it. The act was totally unplanned,  happened in an instant on the spur of that cornered moment. I'm so far removed from those days I can't bring the feelings up anymore. Sometimes, for the sake of my art, I'll wish I could, but do I really? My thought as I accelerated was, "They'll be sorry." The women in my mind at the time shall go nameless. That's everything I know about suicide. How many times have I told this tale?

SILENTLY BOOMING ALONG WITH REWRITE

Facebook informed me today that people who look into "The Silent Boomer" hadn't heard from me in a long while. I see it's only nine days. Many times, it's been longer than that. But I have little to say. I'm still on 10th rewrite of Ghoul World. I'm definitely improving it by shortening it. Tell you what.... When I rewrite this many times, I see whole new ways to structure the novel that would shorten it even more, but, then, character would suffer in the hands of expediency. It's a balance in a science fiction mystery novel between character and plot. I've eliminated 2 chapters but added chapters by splitting long chapters into smaller ones. I began this rewrite with 534pp and 157,025 words. Now at 410pp and 116,525 words with 130pp to go. I see no damage at all to plot or character. Big lesson, eh?

About garbage disposal issues. I think I did not need to replace the last unit. Had I read the instruction booklet, I'd have known that in the bottom of the unit is a little red RESET BUTTON. Cost me $200 to learn this lesson. Education is expensive. Always read your manuals, George. Otherwise, savvy plumbers grow rich. College did not teach me about savvy plumbers with trade secrets. However it did teach me not to vote for lying people with dictatorial personalities. Plumbers learn one thing and college graduates learn another—well—most of them do. Who says college graduates won't love dictators?

SEA LIONS AND GARBAGE DISPOSAL PROBLEMS

Vacation retreat. Lovely and right on the beach. Yesterday, Labor Day, was my first attempt to write after more than a week long break, but my mind wouldn't focus. Having the same problem today. I'm giving up for another day. This often happens to me on Mondays after a weekend of not writing. Maybe my mind is adrift because of the garbage disposal unit that went out last night. Can't get someone to install the one I bought at Home Depot until Thursday. I'm just too old to get down on hands and knees for a extended time to do the job myself. Disposal unit burned up while wife and I were having a heated discussion about cooking. A rare event, the heat. And costly too. I'm 80 years old and did not know until yesterday that a disposal will overheat and burn out if you don't run cold water through it even if it's not grinding on anything. I know one needs to run cold water when grinding up garbage, but...? Nothing else new except we learned that the sea lions go missing from Sea Lion Cave as winter approaches. Still, the cave itself was interesting, and they gave us a rain check we can use next year if we go again. Plus two dollar price cut.