OLD BEATNIK, CZESLAW MILOSZ & F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Nearly midnight, 7th of August. Thanks to all who have

Black Virgin at Rocamadour

been checking in, but what little is there to relate? Knocking off a chapter a weekday of 10th rewrite of Ghoul World. Sometimes two or one and a half chapters. I'd like to get the word count down near 100,000 words, but that is still a long way to go. I'm cutting out many of my favorite tales and thoughts, but who says main character Charley Manning must spill everything I know? I'm leaving in his romance with Misty Frampton and his sexual dalliance with Beaunita (if that's her real name) though they could go and boy would that shorten the novel.

Roc Amadour

Finished at last 20th Century American Poetry, Vol. I. I think I renewed it about 5 times during two different check out periods. Quickly finished Great Gatsby and have returned to reading poetry of Czeslaw Milosz in Selected And Last Poems 1931-2004. Powerful poem The Rising Of The Sun that imaginatively constructs his leaving naturalism to become a poet, inspired by a visit to Roc Amadour, a legendary religious center. Will I ever be able to remember how to spell his name w/o cheating? Watching DVDs of "Hinterland" and "Garrow's Law" with my dear wife after she comes home from work. So lovely to share so much.

FRED ASTAIRE DANCES TO MY BEATNIK

12:10 pm on a Wednesday. Only 3 days between last posting

dead man

and this one. Sitting at Starbuck's a few blocks from home. The writing has gone well enough for the past couple of mornings. I've been working on the dialogue and exchanges between Charley Manning, his sidekick, Beaunita, and Nathan Dane who writes and makes films about Yetis and Bigfoots. Simultaneously, I'm dealing with old age stuff that impedes good writing, with dizziness, weakness, tiredness (even though I've slept well) and accompanying pinchy bowel stuff that sends me frequently to the can to deliver resounding farts but little else. This condition appears from time to time in its own good time whenever it pleases. I know you don't think you want to know this stuff, but it's the stuff of an old writer dude, still trying for financial reward in his mid-70s. I think of Norman Mailer who was being interviewed as part of a PBS show, and how old he looked. I wondered, at the time, about his ability to continue writing with arthritis plaguing him. I don't recall that what he was working on at that time has ever seen the inside of a printing press, and he's gone now. Finished. His brief time upon the stage strutted away. As if to accent this rumination on Mailer's and my own age, at this very moment, scratchy on Starbuck's speaker system, Fred Astaire is singing Cheek To Cheek to Ginger Rogers. Ah, the coincidence of it all!

ANXIETY'S A BEAT NAMED THE SILENT BOOMER

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I'm learning constantly the intricacies of writing a detective novel, specially one set 250 years in the future. Today, I added another piece of complexity to Manning, details about Beaunita and her knowledge (or lack of it) and how that affects her interactions with Charley Manning and how his knowledge of the case will eventually be connected to the new details in Beaunita's own knowledge (or lack of it) about the case. Obviously, the more complex the novel the more risk of inconsistency and implausibility. The anxiety I feel about the difficulty of complex plotting at my age sometimes nearly causes me, like Ken Kesey did, to quit writing. I'll feel all those details out there in space and the impossibility of me remembering them all. Whew!

The failure to recall minute details at my age certainly increases the risk of writing a major inconsistency into the tale. For one example, I forgot that a sinister character, during an encounter, removed one of Manning's molars while Manning was drugged into unconsciousness. It was a warning about future dental work without anesthesia. I recalled the meeting as several things did happen in it, but I forgot the tooth removal detail as part of that meeting. Not central to the plot, it's a detail not to be forgotten since Manning's physical status means the hole in his gum won't ever heal. He'll require a Wayland Patch.

Sadly, the Ooligan Press query about my novel ANGIE'S CHOICE fell through. They decided that "your work does not fit our present needs". However two other smaller pieces having been published already this year brightens me considerably.