It's Monday. Two rejections of short stories came in last week. Bad news was mixed with good news. A scan of my abdominal region showed no traces of cancer in that region of my body. Interpreting those two news items according to my stated goal to get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine before I kick the bucket, they cancel each other out. The failure to get another short story accepted and increasing the value of my bio is countered by good news as to potential life expectancy.
My wife pointed out yesterday that my greatest success has come in getting poems published here and there over the decades. Speaking of poetry, I just finished rewriting a series of poems I want to put together into a book and enter into contests. Maybe will be called The Alcoholic Life or House Before the Meadow. They were written in a rickety old farmhouse seven miles outside Cheney Washington that I lived in for two years after my third divorce. As to "poet" or "novelist", I counter in my own thoughts with poet James Dickey's success with his novel Deliverance. I was certain my novel Ghoul World would deliver me from the middle class blues. How can a detective caper filled with a future world populated by people who suffer from Necrotising fasciitis fail? I'm thinking of its cinematic values.
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Six hours ago 108 people were reported to have checked into my Facebook page, "The Silent Boomer". The more people who do check into my blogspot blog, the stronger the appeal to an agent to handle a book of mine becomes. Thank each of you who is following this old writer's struggle in the fields of literature even as the number of fields we labor in shrink.
Tomorrow I go in for a full body bone scan.
Outside, it's a beautiful sunny autumnal day. I'm wearing a brand new pink shirt, celebrating Pink Out for Planned Parenthood day, and currently sitting at the Cascade Park Library where I just finished rewriting Chapter -29- of Ghoul World. An extremely long chapter, I took several days to complete it. Today, 143 people visited this blog. It's the biggest number to visit this Beatnik, Silent Generation Boomer's blog about an old writer whose goal is to get someone other than himself to publish one of his novels before he dies. I'm now circulating three rewritten novels to agents while completing the third rewrite of my recently completed science fiction novel. Still to be rewritten is the novel I used as my thesis for a Master's in English (with an emphasis in creative writing). It's called Delinquent Lives. Also, something is stirring in me about an entirely new novel. Who knows? I recently recommitted myself to sending out more query letters to agents. I realized that every time I enter my office, I flinch to see the 4x6 yellow cards upon which I record my queries and their results. Rejection is always a painful thing to experience. Two rejections of queries came my way last week. For the fun of it, I sent one query over the Atlantic last night to a British agent.
