BEAT BEAT

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There are days like this in everyperson's life when s/he wants to quit writing at last for good. Confronting the very small odds that one, even if one writes pretty well, will find an agent who will find a publisher, let alone a movie producer who'll produce the film s/he wrote the novel Ghoul World to reach, is daunting. Sigh. Specially if one's age suggests his/her thoughts may be out of date. But here s/he sits, poised at a Barnes & Noble with laptop open ready to go to work. 

MILOSZ, NOBEL PRIZES AND THE BEATNICK BOOMER

That's Milosz.

People who checked in on this blog have triggered me to do this entry. Eighty-two looked in yesterday. I have more or less finished with writing the eight line poetry for the book Wrestling Hanshan. I plan one or two more read throughs before looking at contests to enter it into. Am submitting them in groups of five to lit. mags. I have written 120 of them. That may be too many for a book. Some contests limit total number of pages. Thus one read through will be to mark any that would go first if I had to trim the length and another to get an idea how it sounds in my head start to finish.

Off Topic: today I bowled two games at a local alley. First time in four or more years and following the radiation treatments. I bowled 99 and 102. The first time I bowled I was in my early teens, and I failed to break 100. Never since that time until today have a failed to break the century mark. In my heyday, I could break 200 on a semi-regular basis. You can see the arc of a life in my bowling experience. I was too weak to control the ball and missed my spot nearly every time, although I did get two strikes in a row, the only marks in my 102 game.

The other day, I was writing in our local Barnes & Noble, and I want to support them, so I bought a collection of the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, Nobel Prize winner. Beautiful stuff, and I can understand some of them. They touch me. Buy books at your local book stores, small and large. Amazon will do okay without us.

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? 

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.

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.

REWRITING, REWRITING & REWRITING

Two interesting events, coming up for me later this year. August 25th, I'll be a featured poet at Barnes & Noble's "Last Tuesday" poetry event, hosted by David Hill. I'll be reading material from my more modest book, Tenderfoot, created from my poetry thesis. Then June 20th, a Saturday, I'll be selling both my poetry books at a Book Fair at Gallery 360 in Vancouver. Their gallery is right on the edge of the the Farmers Market and gets some spill over on Saturdays from the market.  

Today, Easter Sunday, I finished page 311 of final rewrite of about 400 pages. Spent 3 hours to rewrite 5 or 6 pages today. It was a big transition scene. PI Charley Manning meets up with Doctor Cable Christiansen at the Biotric Research facility in the nation of ___________ . Leaving it blank as I don't want to tell readers too much. Ran into the old memory problem. That's why I took so long to make so few pages of progress today. The two ghouls had to exchange a lot of information as they were strangers to each other. This necessitated a long chapter with lots of details. Found I'd put in the same detail in several different ways so had to go over and over and condense, cut and paste, but, by gosh and by golly, I'm getting near the end.

SHORT ONE WHILE I CATCH MY BEATNIKING BREATH

Got photo here!

I'm falling behind in these entries, but the final rewrite is taking a longer time than I expected. Has it been 3 or 4 weeks, and I'm only on page 152? If 3 weeks have passed that's less than 50 pages a week. Or less. However, I'm still very pleased with how well the novel reads. It appears to be a very publishable novel. So, I'm halfway to my goal of getting someone other than myself to publish a book of mine. It's an interesting novel and it makes room for lots of sequels... probably one of the prerequisites for publishing these days. Now, a lady has sat herself down next to me at Barnes & Noble to talk on her phone at the counter where I'm working on this blog entry. So I'm done and out of here. Off to my walk at the Vancouver Mall. It's raining, you see. On and off.