MYNA BIRD BEATNIK

Eighty-six people checked in so time for another entry. I sent off a short story ms to a prestigious competition. I believe I have no chance. A name writer will have the best chance. The press will want to make money on their publication. A name draw will do that. Still, I had fun putting the ms together—stories written in many styles over the years. In truth, I think I've been a myna bird kind of writer. A copycat of styles. I read something and a story pops into mind in that writer's voice. The stories in the ms represent Hammett, Allen [Woody], Carver, Hemingway, Salinger... at least that many voices. Maybe Dickens in spots. I don't seem to have developed a voice of my own. Maybe I'm just an inauthentic character in someone's novel without a voice of my own.

At SIU during my first stab at a Masters In English, a fellow TA [Terry Brown] asked me to type up a ms for him, a paper he wrote on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. I couldn't help myself and began to imitate Swift's style, altering the style of my friend's paper quite a bit. He couldn't believe I'd done such a thing. Looking back, I can't believe I did it either.

I've written 17 stories in the past two months. Reading Carver set them off. Him being a recovered alcoholic might have something to do with my sounding like him and their themes being similar. I seem to be happiest when I'm writing or when I'm in my wife's company. 

BEATNIK'S BIG TOE, F. SCOTT FITZGERALD & J.D. SALINGER

Wow! 118 people took a look at this blog today, and I've not got much to report except a big toe that is infected with cellulitis which "is a potentially dangerous bacterial infection that affects the deeper layers of the skin, including the dermis, or second layer of the skin." Soaking in Epson Salt and using antibacterial unguent and swallowing antibacterial pills. Lesson learned? "Do not pull hangnails off of toes". 

Rewrite of Ghoul World is proceeding apace. Came upon a scifi publisher attached to Penguin that is accepting unagented manuscripts. Rare. Very rare. I must hurry to finish the current rewrite of the novel and send it in to that publisher before the window closes again. I keep seeing the book as a movie. The cinematic effects will be really fascinating. A world of workaday zombies who call themselves "ghouls". 

Current reading? Poetry and  The Great Gatsby for the 4th or so time. Fitzgerald and Salinger—I never tire of them.

SALINGER & HAWTHORNE: STYLISTIC TWINS?

you know who

If what I say today sounds a little blurry, it's because my eyes are dilated. At exercise today, a beautiful new inky floater bloomed in my right eyeball accompanied by a ton of tiny circular floaters. After my cataracts were removed, I was told to watch out for this phenomenon as it might be a sign of retinal detachment. Thus I hurried to a nearby optometrist and had the eyeball looked into. No detachment, but now I have a bleeder on my optic nerve, the sign of a "violent" but fairly common detachment of vitreous matter [floater] from the back of the eye that will now drift in my eye in perpetuity. 

Salinger at war. PTSD in later life?

As to literature, the supposed purpose of this writer's blog. I'm giving up at the halfway point on reading House of the Seven Gables by Mr. Hawthorne. When I was working on my Masters, I was drawn to his writing, but no longer, it appears. His rhetorical flourishes are too much for me. However I was surprised when, as an antidote, I picked up Ten Stories by J.D. Salinger and realized that Salinger's method of writing can be traced back to Hawthorne — the p.o.v. of their narrators', the rhetorical flourishes and asides they employ, the way both take the reader into their cubbyholes, so to speak, to talk to them about their subjects and subject matter. If ever there were a scholarly article, there is one to pursue, i.e. similarities in technique and p.o.v. between Salinger and Hawthorne. I did a quick Google and found none. For reading, I've got Durrell's Judith and, somewhere in the limbo of inter-library loan, Ron Padgett's poetry is plodding its way toward my home. 

Durrell

It's obvious to me now that I can no longer write lyric poetry. My lines no longer sing, but Padgett's poetry may be my out. I've now written 6 or 7 poems in the style I imagined I saw in the Jarmusch movie, Patterson. So I continue to rewrite some of my 8 line poetry in the mode of Han-shan's poetry with an eye to creating a chapbook length work for submission to contests, etcetera, while also trying to create a few original poems. Still in the tube, the rewrite of my science fiction novel Ghoul World to remove some of the cleverness I thought was just too precious for words. And another movie???

BEATNICK BOOMER BETWEEN J.D. SALINGER AND J.K ROWLING

early Salinger

early me

Geoff (find his genius on Amazon.com) Peterson and I were talking long distance this afternoon. The recent PBS special on J.D. Salinger came up. We agreed J.D. might have been a borderline pedophile, but that's not the subject of this post. What came up between us was Salinger's reclusive retirement—a major theme of the special—and notable withdrawal to concentrate on his art, but I learned something from the special I didn't expect. Catcher In The Rye is still selling 250,000 copies a year, enough dough to supply a reclusive writer with all his earthly comforts while he scribbles away. Jerry (to his friends) was able to concentrate on his writing while making a living by it. Isn't that what all writers want to do? 

early Rowling

I've been confused. I'd no idea Salinger had it so easy after Catcher made him rich and gave him the option to become a recluse who wrote. In Rowling's case, she's had the option to give away money she doesn't need and become a well known philanthropist. I'd always thought of J.D's dedication to his craft as a sacrifice, but I've only my personal experience to go on. My experience is of a constant confusion of time in order to make a living and the destruction of several marriages to go on.

J.K. Rowling, Jerry Salinger and I have a lot in common. They wrote best sellers and I wish I could. Why is it, then, that when I say I want to make money writing and buy a condo in Portland, I feel like the beer chaser that follows a shot of the best whiskey?