BEATNICK BOOMER COMES CLEAN IN THE END

Can't believe how my mind bonks around from one pinball bumper to another. I haven't begun the novel that I foresaw while rewriting the short story, "Personal". That tale, novel or short story, is still dangling in space. Instead, in hopes of preparing a novel more quickly in my effort to get someone other than myself to publish a novel of mine before I kick the bucket, I'm now four chapters into a fourth [or fifth?] rewrite of my novel, The Porn Writer. I realized that I'd buried the first meeting between the two protagonists in chapter three, using the first two chapters to introduce the male of the dynamic duo—I thought cleverly—but in a novel about a relationship, the two "lovers" or "protagonists" ought to be introduced pretty quickly, don't you agree? "Yes, I do agree," I say to myself in a literary aside.  

So much to learn and so little time, I think. You might ask, "Why did you wait so long to learn these lessons?" And I tell you that it wasn't until I was deeply into old age that I grew the maturity to rewrite any long work four or five times to get it right. Thus, I never treated any novel as a process of learning. I was just rushing through, being as "cleverly brilliant" as I thought I was when I was too young to know better.

The biopsy of my prostate takes place Wednesday morning. If you've a mind to keep me in your thoughts as I lie face down while yet another thing is put behind me. I've had several days of moping about the possible cancer. Today is a little better. 

REWRITE OF PORN NOVEL COMPULSIVELY UNDERWAY

PORN

I could only stand one day without something to write at. I'm now rewriting an old novel about a guy who turns to writing porn as a way to get published since he's a flop in so many other ways. His writing and the new romance in his life with a mysterious woman lead him into a situation he doesn't expect. Yes, I've put real porn in it, but even the porn [you can easily see, if you've ever read porn] is not the kind of porn that porn dogs want. He's a flop even when writing porn. Only he doesn't know it. My wife doesn't like this novel, The Porn Writer, because of the porn in it. She fears, I fear, that it might get published. Then, her family would know what an outrageous nut she's happily married to. I'm kind of interested, also, in what a traditional publisher would do with The Porn Writer.

SERENDIPITY STRIKES THE UNCONSCIOUS BEATNIKING HEART

I completed Chapter 43 and commenced on Chapter 44 of the Manning novel. Forty-four may be the final chapter, but I'm not certain. I believe 44 might be the penultimate chapter with a brief info-bearing conclusion in a Chapter 45.

I had an interesting creative experience recently. I came to a place in Chapter 39 where Charley Manning had to already possess certain information in order to make sense of something happening there. I soon realized I could easily add a fourth person to a luncheon in Chapter 25 that would allow Manning to know what he must know in Chapter 39. So I paged back to the luncheon to add a character only to discover I'd already added a fourth person to that luncheon, an unnamed character. That caused me to recall I'd added the fourth character when I wrote Chapter 25 for the purpose of giving certain info to Charley Manning, then, I forgot he was there waiting for me when I returned to that luncheon. Even this old writer has  subconscious mojo working for him, eh?

It's nice, also, for a writer to see manuscripts lying about in his home. What would a writer's house look like without them?

PHYSICAL FITNESS AND OLD BEATNIK WRITERS

Today, I've been bent over my laptop for 4 straight hours at Starbucks. My bones and my back ache. I remember when I could sit 8 hours at a time, writing away, with nary a pinch of pain. I'm not the only person to realize this connection between physical effort and writing. Many writers have commented on the physical difficulty of the writer at his laptop i.e. the old typewriter. Let me tell you all, however, "The End" is soon, relatively soon, to be put to the Manning novel. I can feel it winding down in my aching bones, only a few chapters ahead. I can see it out there in the mists in the middle of the moors. Thus, I'm tired and this blog entry is kaput.  

SILENT OLD MEN AND THEIR RETIREMENT DREAMS

The writing goes well. As I continue my pursuit after a best selling novel, published by someone other than myself before my ashes are cast to the winds, I'm reminded of a friend I made in Cheney WA, a member of that quickly fading Greatest Generation. We were members in a local club. Chuck was ten years my senior, had made his living as a railroad telegrapher, a blue collar profession just as mine had been. He was one of the last at his profession. 

another old man's dream

Well over six feet, Chuck was rugged, round cheeked and nicely proportioned, handsome into his sixties and beyond. He'd been a writer too, often publishing humorous pieces in whatever local paper he was reading in whatever town he found himself working.

His retirement dream was to spend his time traveling the American back roads like a Charles Kuralt, then came the blow old timers fear—a crippling illness. Within months of his retirement, my friend came down with Ménière's disease, aka endolymphatic hydrops. Ménière's attacks the inner ear and leads to dizziness so severe that one can't stand upright and suffers nausea much like seasickness. Driving was impossible. Chuck's dream was dead, but he decided to try new operations that did reduce the severity of his attacks and took up painting, and he was good at it too. One of the things I most recall that Chuck told me was, "When I was in my 60s, I could still kid myself I was relatively young. In my 70s that's no longer possible." Approaching 77 myself, on some better days, I might argue with him about that.

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!

HARRY BERNSTEIN TICKLES A BEATNIK'S FANCY

Harry Bernstein

Late at night [it's 3:52 am] sleepless after a funeral in Spokane, I gained new hope for my project to get someone other than myself to publish a book of mine. Inspiration arrived in the form of the story of Mr. Harry Bernstein whose first book was published at the ripe old age of 96.

Actually, I was feeling pretty energized before the trip to Spokane, but finding Bernstein's story added a nice plot twist for this post to the writer's blog I, as the Silent Boomer, keep. Can't wait to get back and get to work again. After struggling for several weeks with a plotting difficulty, a solution appeared on the drive from Vancouver to Spokane which I jotted down and now carry in my hip pocket along with various bits of debris. 

AN OLDER WRITER'S LAMENTATIONS

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One of many problems with being an older writer, besides drooling in my coffee cup, is...

I joined a writers group over in Portland, the chwg or Coffee House Writers Group. The format was ideal. Readers read from 3 to 5 pages, double-spaced, aloud and everyone could comment or not. Further, not everyone read each Saturday. I was impressed by the intelligence and brightness of that group, but after three meetings, I realized that I could only hear about 1/3 of what was being read and little of the comments. My frustration was complete and, disappointed, I had to withdraw to find a group which was more reliant on the typewritten page to work from. 

I've now found that in a Vancouver group, SW WA/OR Write To Publish, and I attended my first meeting today. Wonderful, I thought, but it has the noble ideal of letting every member's work be critiqued each Wednesday. After two hours my antsy self had to dance away, but I'll be more prepared next Wednesday to stick it out. There has to be an upper limit to the number that the group can accommodate comfortably, but time will tell. Trouble is I'm feeling a little guilty because I'm adding one more member to the number of writers whose work will be critiqued each Wednesday.