REWRITING, REWRITING & REWRITING

Two interesting events, coming up for me later this year. August 25th, I'll be a featured poet at Barnes & Noble's "Last Tuesday" poetry event, hosted by David Hill. I'll be reading material from my more modest book, Tenderfoot, created from my poetry thesis. Then June 20th, a Saturday, I'll be selling both my poetry books at a Book Fair at Gallery 360 in Vancouver. Their gallery is right on the edge of the the Farmers Market and gets some spill over on Saturdays from the market.  

Today, Easter Sunday, I finished page 311 of final rewrite of about 400 pages. Spent 3 hours to rewrite 5 or 6 pages today. It was a big transition scene. PI Charley Manning meets up with Doctor Cable Christiansen at the Biotric Research facility in the nation of ___________ . Leaving it blank as I don't want to tell readers too much. Ran into the old memory problem. That's why I took so long to make so few pages of progress today. The two ghouls had to exchange a lot of information as they were strangers to each other. This necessitated a long chapter with lots of details. Found I'd put in the same detail in several different ways so had to go over and over and condense, cut and paste, but, by gosh and by golly, I'm getting near the end.

PHOTOS, THOUGHTS AND WRITER'S BLOGS

One of the ideas that came up in Mickler's workshop on blogging and self-publishing was that a writer's blog ought to appear about once every other day and ought to include at least one photo to draw the attention of readers. This blog has been silent for several days because I've been too busy writing to have anything of interest to say. Now I've reached a rough patch, a writer's block (?) or something. Perhaps the governmental shutdown has created the block? 

Yesterday, my wife and I did go to a Chris Luna poetry reading at the Lan Su Chinese Gardens in Portland. He was accompanied by Beth Karp on piano. Very fine presentation. Here's a couple of photos from the interior of the Gardens. 

Today, the Humanist's presentation is on whale evolution. It's fascinating to me that whale ancestors left the ocean and, later, returned to it via evolution. Getting ready to go, looking forward to it. Wow!

THE SILENT BOOMER READS ALOUD!

Two sketches of Carl in Mobile Alabama

I moved forward another step in my goal tonight of pulling myself out of obscurity and cowardice, reading four poems from my self-published books at an open mic event on St. John's Road, hosted by newly appointed Clark County Poet Laureate Christopher Luna at Cover To Cover bookstore. Full house. Many readers and many good readers too. One young man, Matthew gave a spirited reading that entertained everyone. His first reading. 

I felt good about my performance and the poems I read. Let me repeat that the names of my two poetry books are Tenderfoot and Gray House By Cold Mountain and both are at Amazon.com or Authorhouse. I also summoned the courage to leave a packet of my two books, with a promotional letter and Silent Boomer business card in the afternoon at Cover To Cover books. Progress. First poem I read tonight follows:

EXPLORATION BY CANOE

The savages had left them.

By accident, by searching, hidden
in bushes, we found them—
canoes of animal skin.
Where water was stillest, we pushed in,
then worked out where it ran swiftest.
Someone had lost our maps—
by a not knowing, we got along.

This river we've not seen the end of

empties to a sea we've not tested,
a sea horizon we must think beyond—
over its edge another place to go or,
up, an endless black the stars gleam through
like small hopes we feel inside of us that say, 
Yes. Our boats are working out a long journey.
From this river, the sea's imagination away
and beyond that the endless black or…
over the edge in our animal skin canoes!

Thanks for reading!