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.

NOT SO SILENT DISAPPOINTED BEATNIK BOOMER

Interesting experience with a poetry submission today. I sent four poems out on New Years

Here, for example was a troubled male...

Day and got them back today from Three Penny Review. Two days. Though nobody anymore comments except through form letters, I was disappointed by the brevity with which they were considered. The four poems take the point of view of very troubled males who have troubled relationships with the women in the poems. So many women these days are offended by such material that they can't recognize the quality of the poems. I will continue to send them out, hoping that someday, someone, somewhere will recognize their artistry. I have written a novel too with such a plot, and one Facebook woman said she would not read such material if she encountered it. Three of the poems were based on women I knew and the fourth was built out of the kind of loving/controlling mentality of some men who put women on pedestals only to try and control them for fear of their appeal to other men. Dostoevsky wrote a wonderful short story on just such a theme. I cannot recall its name. I will share one of the more lyric poems to get a reaction, if any is forthcoming. I was trying to employ the loving/threatening voice of a controlling male:  

A WOMAN LIKE FLOWERS

Oooh, I thinking, what would want me her

When carry I my briefcase life home to rest me?

I think me: a flower wee

To never drop her pretty petals

Even though transplanted into a watery myworld,

Crystal vase surrounding it, like …?

So pretty a world as who would complain of it?

A flower most delicate like orchids,

And always,

An opening to me face of sunflowers.

Rue, as of delicate small petals,

Trustworthy as perennials,

She to bloom under my careful tenderness

As who wouldn't?

O such a beauteous treasure

To sit so up highness on my mantelpiece

And me stare at from my flower-hungry eyes,

Secateurs held loosely in my tendering hand.

BEATNIK SORT OF EXPERIENCE: POOP

Finished for a time the rewrite of a story called "Down Home Man". I have another great short story idea and I've still got a novel to completely rewrite, Delinquent Lives, and I'm working on another poem for Up Your Ass. It's to be called "Two Days" and made up of two oddly contrasted experiences that happened over two consecutive days. Below are the rough notes for day two. It's been a Facebook entry so maybe you've seen it already. Forgive it's length.

Ah, it's great to be old. I had another fascinating experience today. Some would say this will be far too much information. Several years ago I started having bouts of bowel incontinence. I cut out coffee and tree nuts, and I thought I was doing well, but, no, even then, every month or so I'd have an accident. Then the prostate cancer and medicines and specially the radiation treatments can also create urinary and bowel problems, so recently, I've been wearing diapers every morning and leave them on until I get home. This morning we had a plumber over at 8:30am to fix a leaky faucet in the tub in our guest bathroom. He was a pleasant young man and very proficient. We exchanged many pleasantries, and, as he was leaving, I told him, "I think I'm going to celebrate and go out for breakfast. I don't know why. I haven't done anything. You did all the work." We shook hands and he left, and I departed not long after. I felt so healthy that I decided for the first time in months not to wear a diaper [now you all know where this is going]. Intending also to break my vegan diet, I marched out into a brilliant sunshine morning to a newly remodeled Sharis for breakfast. I ordered hot chocolate and from the honored menu a two egg cheese/ham omelet and French toast. While waiting, I was reading a book that a Facebook friend has written, The Triple Diamond Sutra. Humorous as hell and entertaining. The morning was going swimmingly. My interactions with the waitress were pleasant if not informative. Then it came time to pay the bill, and I carried my bill to the cash register, as you do at Sharis, and my waitress was also the one who came to the register to ring me up and swipe my credit card. That's when it happened of course. The credit card was in her hand when I experienced the tiny familiar burp feeling in my bowels that occurs without warning, and I said, "Excuse me, I've got to run to the bathroom." Of course, once I feel that tiny burp, it is already too late. All the way to bathroom, I was offloading a pile of food that had seen better days. By the time I reached the throne room, there was nothing left to offload. What a mess. I had to clean up the toilet, the floor and myself and wrap my soiled underwear in paper towels and throw the whole mess into the trash. Fortunately, the underwear was sufficient to protect my cotton trousers so no stains had appeared in the rear area. Of course, being without shame, I told the new woman at the cash register who was holding my credit card for me all about it. "I had to rush off to the bathroom," I explained. She said, "Yes, I understand those moments." "And I wasn't wearing a diaper," I continued. "What a mess." Later I realized the image my remark must have left in her mind. What can a man make of all this stuff? Yesterday afternoon, a kindly woman, probable thinking of me as a father figure, offers me a cross. Last night the Cubs win their first World Series since 1908. This morning I'm reading The Triple Diamond Sutra at Sharis and, within minutes, I'm shitting my pants. You can't make this stuff up. I'm sure there's a deeper meaning somewhere in all this chaos.

ECSTATIC SILENT BEATNIC BOOMER SYMPHONIZES

So many projects this morning, my head is full. 

Reading the THE COMPLETE STORIES OF TRUMAN CAPOTE which I must soon return to Clark College library. 

A collection of my selected poems altered from third and first person to second person "you" entitled THE WORLD OUTSIDE MYSELF or ... OUTSIDE MY HEAD. 

At least two stories I want to alter from first person narrator to a third person point of view or an omniscient pov. 

Finish the rewrites of stories for collection into a book MANY VOICES, ONE HEAD. 

Create a very sotto voce symphony based on the silent communication and states of people texting or Facebooking. Of course, I can't write music, but I see all these people in my head silently staring at screens in the middle of noisy confusion and how a symphonic passage expressing that situation might sound. Is this because wife and I have bought season tickets to VSO the past three seasons?

Start and finish another poem for my poetry book UP YOUR ASS that might begin with:

The word came through on Facebook that Ray is dead at 84. 
His prostate cancer finally took him away. 
You feel certain you're not going to live much longer yourself. 
Why is that you wonder? It's raining today, a fitting state...
the world coming down to celebrate your state of mind....  
et cetera and something along those lines but made more poetic by arrangement and stress.

Ah...where to begin? Decided to work on the rewrite of another story for the collection of fiction MANY VOICES, ONE HEAD.

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. 

BLOGGING BEAT BOOMER BEATS HEAD AGAINST WALL... AGAIN!

The query for Angie's Choice I sent by mail came back today, the one that reminded me of how much work it took to send off a query in the old days. I sent it off to the Zoe Pagnamenta agency. She answered within two weeks. NO! I had high hopes for it because of the methodology of the query. Don't know why printing out and mailing my query and sample felt more hopeful. Emotions are mysterious things even though they command our every deed and thought. I need to push the sci fi novel, Ghoul World, more forcefully. I let it languish, but it's a very interesting idea that ought to get at least a moment's attention somewhere.

On a positive note, yesterday, this writer's blog which also goes to a page I manage on Facebook , The Silent Boomer, received 221 hits. People are watching to see what might happen to me in my quest to "get someone other than myself to publish a novel I've written." Or "to produce a movie I've written."  Thanks to all who follow my journey. Many days now, I think it's time to fold up the writer's table and leave the dusty old bazaar to other scribes much younger than myself.

One very interesting thing about writing a movie script. The length of a 90 minute film takes from 90 to 120 pages. I've discovered that my elderly memory is able to keep track of 120 pages more easily than it tracks a plot and subplots through 400 to 500 pages of ms. I've already got several story lines in mind for films that I can't share because they are quite interesting. On my death bed, I'll tell all. 

e.e. cummings AND BEATNIK BOOMER FEEL A LOT

Today is a disturbing day. A day of dizziness, and I can't get started on my science fiction screenplay, plus fecal incontinence threatens. Instead of sturm und drang, I'm suffering from shite and stress. Ah, well, it's a good excuse to put this writing day in the can (double meaning there) and unwind, maybe finish reading Craig Lesley's Winterkill. He lives in Portland, you know, just across the river from where I type this. He was born in 1945 and is 8 years younger than me. Makes him 70 or approaching 70 or leaving 70 for 71, depending upon the month.  

Plotting my science fiction movie has been giving me fits. I want certain things to happen and certain feelings to be aroused, but I can't quite focus on the necessary steps. I'm trying to imagine, instead of writing toward (as in fiction) certain frightening moments, but I can't grasp them imaginatively. A blank. It's old age and a failing imagination, or a case of plain old writer's block. 

Speaking of feelings, a friend of mine put the e.e. Cummings' photo and screed on my Facebook page, and I'm sharing it here. Feelings are wonderful. Younger, I suffered for many years with the near absence of emotions. Severe depression. A cold dead sensation. Without emotional guidance, a man makes awful mistakes, tries to make decisions based on rational premises. Only sociopaths are successful at that.

SILENT RAGE EXPLODES INTO GASEOUS ELEMENT

First, let's get the worst out of the way first. 
I've nursed this cursed blame with lips pursed
Till I almost burst. Feels like I'm whipped with quirts,
And I don't know if I durst in verse
Complain, but my heart, to do it, thirsts:

Angry at Google in Vancouver

Google is a bastard company. I've been blogging on Blogger for decades, long before Google scarfed them up. Now, I play hell getting to the Blogger page where "thesilentboomer" resides. They continually try to force me onto Google+ and keep me away from the society of Facebook. I can easily get to "thesilentboomer", but only as a viewer. To get to where I can post a new post, I've got to stand on my head, repeat the "Star Spangled Banner" twice from last word to first while whistling "Dixie" through my keister. The whole thing really smells. 

But, more importantly, writing has gone very well for nearly 5 days. I mean rewriting has gone well. I'm only one chapter, chapter 28, from completing my second rewrite. As you recall, I removed chapter 7 and began a rewrite to make all things consistent with its removal, then, after I discovered a plausible explanation for the events in chapter 7, I returned it to the mss and began another rewrite to make all the other chapters consistent with that returned runaway chapter. Also, I've stuck to a rigid schedule of a page a day of transferring my first novel, The Man In The Mirror, from hard copy to editable files.

PS: I should mention that chapter 28 is, probably, only about half way through the finished book. Still a long write to go.