SILENT BOOMER BOOMING ALONG QUITE NICELY

I've been writing non-stop on the new novel. I pull my smoking keyboard to the side of the road in late afternoon to take my hour walk...in time, also, to do my cooking chores unless it's a morning crock pot preparation. I'm continually asking my working wife to have pity on the poor writer and his creative burden. When I awake, I don't even want to take time to eat or shave. I've completed 27 pages, but I see far ahead into the many possible ways this book can go. I continually adjust the characters and plot roots. One flesh and blood character has turned into a robot. I continually go over the same pages to adjust for my changing visions. The place and circumstances of the novel are so real to me I find myself putting too much detail in, and I want to keep the reader hoping along. It's best to salt the action with details rather than pour them over it. I've also written two possible openings or one may follow the other. 

It's all pretty exciting. Angie's Choice felt exciting years ago when I wrote it. Speaking of Angie's Choice, another agent rejection came in: 

Hi, George,
Thank you for your query. While your project certainly has merit, I'm going to pass. As I'm sure you know, it's important that your agent be totally excited by/committed to/passionate about your project, and I'm afraid that just didn't happen here. But opinions vary considerably in this business, and mine is just one. I'm sure you'll find others who feel differently. I hope so! I wish you the very best in your search for representation. 

Warm regards, Laney Katz Becker, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin

Agents are always kind. It could be worse, you know? They could send a photo of an agent gagging on the novel. On the more positive side, I've been asked to read a poem at the Peace and Justice Action Fair in Vancouver on the 7th of September, and another poem of mine will be hung with a piece of someone else's art at the Gallery360 Art Meets Literature Show. Theme was inspiration. Another poem or two may soon find a home, and it sounds as if someone will write a feature article about this poet for the Vancouver Vector. If that happens as expected, I'll include more details later...names and etcetera. You can always find my work at Amazon or Author House if you've a mind to. Thanks for reading.

DETECTIVE CHARLEY MANNING COMES ALIVE

Yesterday at Torque, drinking skinny hazelnut latte, I was anticipating next issue of Vancouver Vector, thinking 'bout what happens next in my campaign to get someone other than myself to publish one of my already completed novels.

Day before that sent query letters to agents for Angie's Choice. Plan two queries to publishers. Other than that, what next?

My wife again put her two cents in, praising The Man In The Mirror—my first novel—as interesting and suspenseful, and her being a mystery reader, I'm tending to heed her words. However, getting that novel into file form's daunting. Typewritten ms is yellowed and ink has seeped into the paper, blurring the letters. Optical character recognition (OCR) software doesn't work. I've tried my own OCR and had Office Max try theirs. Checked into a typing service. Nine-hundred bucks to type the ms into editable files. I hear "edible" when my interior monologue says "editable". Does that mean I think that if I put that much money into editable files we won't be able to afford edible goods? 

I tell you...the new novel, the Detective Charley Manning tale, is rolling along quite nicely and, methinks, it's stolen my heart away. I was going to reveal the current opening paragraphs, but I'm suddenly experiencing proprietary twinges toward the ideas that drive the book. I smell publishing success in ways I've never in my long and harried writing life experienced it.

YES...SOME MORE RECENT PUBLICATIONS!

If you want to check out my most recent short story publication which is quite some time back last year, find it at: http://workmagazinearchives.wordpress.com/back-issues/george-thomas-2272012/

Jose Ferrer my favorite Cyrano

Also, I've already mentioned the two poems that appeared in the March 2013 issue of The Vancouver Vector in Vancouver, Washington, but they don't seem to have a link to those poems that I can direct you too. I notice they do show links to everything that each of the various editors has written. Their editorial egos are obvious in that practice and by mentioning their oversight of my poetry in their archives, my ego is also revealed and brought into a duel with theirs for the title of "most swollen".

The Vector's editors might be forgiven their oversight as they are still fairly new at their business. Anyone involved over a long period of time in editing literary magazines and anthologies knows that since most things are published for free in that literary world, the least we could do (when I have been an editor) for our contributors was a short bio note or, at least, a mention of a recent publication. Newspaper people, unhappily, don't share that idea of common courtesy which has been made obvious by the Columbian and by the Vector in recent weeks as I plod my weary way toward a goal of publishing a book before the last of my brain cells wither away and I begin to drool without benefit of the fragrance of a fresh-from-the-oven Ragueneau pastry.

Ah, the ego of writers, specially those like myself who creep about on the edges of recognition and who finds in the slightest sneeze an insult. Cyrano would make much ado about my monstrously swollen nothingness. No doubt he would puncture it with his witty sword.

THE SILENT BOOMER IN THE VANCOUVER VECTOR

Han-shan

Today the 2nd issue of the monthly, The Vancouver Vector, appeared on the newsstands and in the coffee shops of Vancouver, WA. On page 19, two poems from my book, Gray House By Cold Mountain, appeared (thank you Sara Newton). The book is available at Amazon.com as is the book of poems based on my MFA thesis of long ago called Tenderfoot. 

The poetry books may be found at:

The poems in The Vector for reasons of space have been broken into shorter lines than the 8 line form of the originals which take after the poetry of the legendary Han-shan (i.e. Cold Mountain) associated historically with the Tang Dynasty. 

The psychic intensity for poetry seems to escape me these days which is part of the reason I have crossed the imaginary border into the world of prose. Of course, prose also requires intensity to develop its rhythms. Somewhat crippled, I continue on. It's not as bad as I make it sound, but I enjoy the fact I now have a varicose right leg (I think of it as having one foot in the grave) and need hearing aids, and I have no idea why exactly that tickles me.

SILENT BOOMER IN THE VANCOUVER VECTOR

I'll soon have an article published in The Vancouver Vector, a new paper on the Vancouver, Washington scene. It bills itself as a paradigm shift, and I expect lots of modernity within its pages if February 2013 is any example. http://www.vancouvervector.com/

By now, this hopeful entry may be made of lies, hopes and misunderstandings....

WILL A BOOMER NEVER BE DONE

I'm within a few paragraphs of finishing the first rough draft of "Tom Brokaw's Identity Crisis", but today was tired again and couldn't close on the last transition paragraphs, leading to climactic paragraphs. Am not sleeping from excitement of heading over to PIFF at odd times. My schedule is thrown to the four winds. 

Also am currently writing an article for The Vancouver Vector about art house theaters in general with a nod to the Kiggins Theatre in Vancouver. As they describe themselves: 

"Vancouver's historic cinema
completely renovated.
Community focused
independently minded."


The final two paragraphs of my essay on Brokaw and identity crisis as they now stand are as follows:

"From where I sit on the Moon, I now know and accept that few of those old timers will ever leave the comforting campfire. They sat around it as children and sit around it still. It’s never too late to change—I know that. Maybe one or two will see the light before they pass into final darkness, but, for the greater number of them, it’s too late. For my pal of college days…that really makes me sad.  

"When my sadness about my friend grows to much to bear, I can also escape. All members of the human family need safe havens and escape routes. What I do is circle the little Moon planet where I’m situated in my imagination. I go to the far side away from Earth, to the dark side of the Moon. Once there, I lift my gaze to the Cosmic distances. My gaze is filled with stars and my heart is tugged by their gravity!"