PLOTS AND BEATNIK SCHEMES

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This entry will be rough and ready, folks. Today, I roughed out an outline for the final chapters. Something I was told I ought to do for the whole novel. Now that I see how easy it is, I might do it on my next novel. Next novel? Am I kidding myself? The final scenes might be as many as five chapters. Don't know, yet, how many words each step I've outlined will take to reveal. Funny how this writing process leads to ups and downs. I'm stimulated again, and I ain't seen the sun for many a day. I'm learning to love my rainy morning drives. Bottoms up and look out ahead! My windshield wiper's broke ... I guess. 

NOVEL BEATNIK CLOTHING AND SINGER SEWING MACHINES

Grandma (left) and Grandpa Thomas and his mother

Aargh! That's right ... aargh! This morning, I realized, for the sake of plausibility, I had to make a change in the novel. It had to do with Irishers and wild humans. That change led to another change. By using the search and change function, the changes were easy to make, but, now, uncertainty and doubt arise. I'm not sure that my changes aren't creating other implausible situations. I try to think through the novel, but can't think clearly enough. I could start at the beginning again and read through the first 200+ pages just to make sure the alterations haven't made the pants too short for the legs ... OR ... I can plow ahead and complete the suit, wait for the first read through that follows the completion of the whole novel. But, I think, alarmed, waiting might allow other plot complications to build up until the entire novel is distorted. The situation is complicated by the fact I took several days off to drive up to Seattle to practice dancing with my daughter for her upcoming wedding. I'm starting this morning with a cold sewing machine motor. Which reminds me of my grandmother who had a Singer that had a foot pedal. When I lived with her and Grandpa Thomas, I recall her toiling away, pumping that foot pedal and sewing complete novels of suits and dresses. Sneakily, I hope my mention of Irishers and wild humans gets your attention about the novel.

OLD SILENT BEATNIK ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

Joy! Joy! Not much to say today. About to go get Mertie for lunch. The writing went very well this morning as I created a scene between Manning and another being in which much was revealed and much hidden too so that the whole scene is rife with double meanings that the reader will understand later in the novel, and I don't mean double entendres either. It was great fun, but, Jeez, I wish I were younger. This writing would go so much easier and be fraught with much less worry if my brain were only 15 years younger. But, today, the hell with it. I feel joyous.

BIG MOUNTAIN TURNED INTO LITTLE BEATNICK MOLEHILL

The Gordian knot begins to unravel

For several days the writing has gone well. In the current chapter of Manning at page 170, I'm introducing one of several surprises planned for the novel. The reader will meet one of the several kinds of beings that inhabit Planet Earth 250 years from now, but I realized I don't have to show the reader the entire mystery of this character just yet. I think his name might be Neo D'Thal. I can still tease the reader, introduce this interesting character, but not reveal everything about him. What's been so smooth lately is that I can see ahead for several chapters again, and the pressure is off for awhile. This makes writing enjoyable, and I believe that this book could easily be published by someone other than myself and could easily be a movie. 

Tonight, Mertie and I watched Blood Simple, a Coen brothers film. They certainly know how to complicate a plot. Several times in the movie, I could hear them talking about the several possibilities for each scene so that the viewer is under constant tension. It was the Coen's first film, and I understand how professional they had to make it in order to build their future in the movie business.

SILENT BOOMER THRASHES THROUGH ANOTHER STICKY THICKET

The plot gets twisted....

This week has been a good week for writing, but I did learn a painful lesson about plotting. Awhile back, I jammed a different Chapter -7- into the novel, then renumbered all the chapters that followed. I added the chapter because I felt I wanted to complicate the plot at that point and, secondly, to add some danger for PI Manning for the purpose of hyping up the excitement. I thought the novel might be dragging. Well, the plot complication I added created other unforeseen complications that couldn't be resolved in a plausible manner. Each time I moved from one chapter to the next, I'd discover my Chapter -7- complication created many other situations that needed to be adjusted for. The adjustments piled up and each adjustment made other adjustments necessary until the plot became a bog through which my mind could no longer safely travel. This week, I've had to go back and remove Chapter -7- and another later Chapter that was dependent upon Chapter -7- for it's existence. I'm in the process now of rereading and reworking—where necessary—everything after the offending chapter to make sure that consistency prevails. The writer who said that writers must have their plots in order before beginning to write seems to have been correct. I did sit down this week and tried to lay out a plot before continuing, but, goshdarnitall, I just can't see my way clearly through to the end. I like the beginning immensely, and I know, roughly, the ending, but the middle steps aren't clear yet. I just can't imagine, sitting still and waiting to see the plot all the way through. If I do that, I could easily quit writing altogether.

Want to mention an interesting project that friend and poet/song writer, klipschutz, and his pal Jeremy Gaulke have begun. It's a pocket size poetry chapbook, they call fourbytwo. They are trying to develop a zine that is financially sustainable as well maintain a certain level of quality. I like the format, and the poetry, of course, is exceptional. Follow the link to see what it's all about. 

BEATNICK SILENT WRESTLES WITH GRANDMA GYMNAST'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Grandma Gymnast Johanna Quass

I can't say it often enough. The question Who Knows What? is one of the most important questions when writing a whodunit. Repeatedly, I find myself having to make readjustments and plot alterations in order to keep myself and the story honest. What reader wants to find out at the end of a whodunit that they've been lied to by the writer and misled by certain dishonest details in the plot. It's getting tricky for an old brain like mine to keep things straight, in that Charley Manning, the PI in my tale, at this point seems not to know who he's working for. Neither does the reader. This plot complication is interesting to me, but keeping the question of Who Know What? straight in my head gets pretty twisty as I strive to achieve it. Read it when it comes out. You'll see what I mean. If that 87 year old grandma gymnast, Johanna Quass, can keep working the parallel bars at her age, I've got no excuse for not making my novel consistent and honest for those readers who read the novel that someone other than myself will publish. Then comes the movie. 

Nasty old guy that I am, I wonder if Johanna still has an active sex life? 

ANXIETY'S A BEAT NAMED THE SILENT BOOMER

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I'm learning constantly the intricacies of writing a detective novel, specially one set 250 years in the future. Today, I added another piece of complexity to Manning, details about Beaunita and her knowledge (or lack of it) and how that affects her interactions with Charley Manning and how his knowledge of the case will eventually be connected to the new details in Beaunita's own knowledge (or lack of it) about the case. Obviously, the more complex the novel the more risk of inconsistency and implausibility. The anxiety I feel about the difficulty of complex plotting at my age sometimes nearly causes me, like Ken Kesey did, to quit writing. I'll feel all those details out there in space and the impossibility of me remembering them all. Whew!

The failure to recall minute details at my age certainly increases the risk of writing a major inconsistency into the tale. For one example, I forgot that a sinister character, during an encounter, removed one of Manning's molars while Manning was drugged into unconsciousness. It was a warning about future dental work without anesthesia. I recalled the meeting as several things did happen in it, but I forgot the tooth removal detail as part of that meeting. Not central to the plot, it's a detail not to be forgotten since Manning's physical status means the hole in his gum won't ever heal. He'll require a Wayland Patch.

Sadly, the Ooligan Press query about my novel ANGIE'S CHOICE fell through. They decided that "your work does not fit our present needs". However two other smaller pieces having been published already this year brightens me considerably.

SILENT BOOMER BOMBS ON BEATNICK PLOT

Here be Iam...clearly not keeping the every other day rule for blog-keepers, but I'm hard at work, writing away. Writing an adventure slash mystery is a fascinating process.  

The hard part about being an ancient sentient like myself is that I've got to write a lot down so I can refresh my mind about what's gone before. I've got reams of notes.Today, looking ahead, in order to clarify the future, I wrote down several coming moments, discovering that plot elements require causes and create effects. I tried listing, separately, actions which Manning must take and the conditions that necessitate those actions and what conditions must follow after those actions. Actions are precipitated by the knowledge a character must have in order to do that deed and actions also precipitate further actions. Actions have consequences.

This problem is all about dividing the plotting process into categories of some kind. The categories are hard to describe and list. For example, I write down "Manning meets with McDaniel's representatives". Simple enough. Then, I've got to provide a clear reason for the meeting. Who called the meeting and why? McDaniel's or Manning? What does "who calls the meeting" reveal about the sorts of knowledge each party has in order to meet? 

More than once, I've written an action into the plot that can't happen unless other things have happened before it. The actors must possess certain information that will precipitate the situation or the action can't occur. Sometimes a character will do something he can't be doing if he really knows what I've written that he already knows...and vice versa. If one is not careful, some ridiculous things can happen. Maybe even this last paragraph is hard to follow, eh?

BOOMER GOES OUT TO TORQUE AND BLACK ROCK TO WRITE

A very productive day today, but not a lot to say. I finished another section of Manning earlier in the day and realized some interesting plotting to develop and a clue to drop to see how alert my readers are of what's gone before. I just now finished typing three more pages of The Man In The Mirror while my sweetheart was doing Bikram Hot Yoga up on 164th Avenue. This hot yoga stuff turns her on, relaxes her, makes her feel very good physically and mentally. She's always claimed there is something about physical routines that work wonders for her. She used to love Tai Chi, but that instructor was not of her political persuasion, and he would not let off, talking his talk, so finally, after years, she quit showing up. She's a very loyal person. She wouldn't quit on anyone without making an effort first. Oh do I love her! Walked by the Columbia today. Overcast, winter coming, and I took a few pictures of the I-5 bridge. Handed out a couple more Silent Boomer cards to baristas also where I do some of my writing when home office gets gray with overcast. Hello, there, if you're looking in.

THE SILENT BOOMER STILL PLOTTING ALONG

Each day my progress on Delinquent Lives slows as I recognize all the intricacies built into the original and all the connective tissue that will have to be laid down to make for smooth transitions. Currently as I cut and paste segments I have to hope I don't lose my train of thought right in the midst of a cut and paste. My mind is not what it used to be in following small details.  

Obviously, I'm approaching the reconstruction primarily to make the novel more readable for the lay reader who I imagine as very bright but not interested in a novel like Joyce's Finnegan's Wake. The idea, remember, is to create a book that an agent might see his/her way to supporting, to write a book someone other than myself might publish. My friend Carl Tropea read Finnegan's Wake many moons ago, back in our hippy daze. I still recall how he enthused about it. I tried to read it myself but never finished it...as far as I recall.

I'm wondering how much my decade of not writing and working mostly on algebra has contributed to my seemingly clearer vision of the process of writing? Perhaps the alterations my brain went through to understand the schemata of the algebra problem altered my brain as far as it comes to patterning. Is that a correct use of the word schemata?

I'm so far back into the thorny writing thicket that I sent away for Writer's Market 2013 a couple of days ago. I also used Len Fulton's International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses in the past. I haven't mentioned those useful books because I was pursuing markets closer to home with the ambition to build local and expand later with a more recent record of successful publications of my poetry, short stories and essays. As I talk about these matters, I almost believe I'm going to succeed. I hope it's not like imagining I'm going to win the lottery whenever I weaken and buy a lottery ticket about every two years or so.

It's raining and 60 degrees outside today, and I'm writing at the Black Rock.

REAL BEAT BOOMER PLOTTING ALONG HIS WAY

the whole scene

Of my four completed novels—The Man In The Mirror, Delinquent Lives, Angie's Choice, The Porno Writer—the book I'm currently rewriting, Delinquent Lives, is the most difficult to disentangle. I've been forced to sit down and graph the plot. 

a detail

When I wrote this book, I didn't rely on plot. By switching back and forth between two limited points of view, I saw the book as developing by giving the reader bits and pieces of information about each of the two main characters that would add up to a full psychological profile of them and justify how they came out as the novel concludes.  

Delinquent Lives does develop along a chronological order, but I've used so many flashbacks, I can see where a reader might be put off from reading to the finish. Continuity is problematical. I was letting my love of Fellini's "8 1/2" influence me. Fellini believed his audience had the knowledge to understand what he was doing, but reading a book is different than watching a movie.

I can see the psychological rationales to most of the decisions I made about scene placements, and I tried to make each event have it's own intrinsic tension, but as I rewrite all these years later, I discover scenes and information whose necessity I have to question. Again and again I learn that an old cat can learn new meows if he's motivated enough.