THE SILENT BOOMER BEATS A RETREAT

Dear George,
We are pleased to inform you that we would like to publish your piece, "WORKING WITH MEN IN THE MODERN WORLD".  
WORK Literary Magazine

So...another poem finds a nest, and the writer/poet is momentarily happy, but tomorrow is another day with its own moods and writerly problems. Publication date is not yet set. 

the old

Last post, I said I planned to take a break from writer's piston knock and drive to the Washington Coast. I did take that escape for a day, via Oregon's Route 30 through Astoria, an historic town at the mouth of the Columbia River. 

the new

The photos reveal two views from the same spot that I took while stretching my legs along Astoria's riverfront walk. The first represents old Astoria. The next photo which is 180 degrees opposite the first represents the new. There you can see the condominiums that now multiply on every beautiful place found beside the rivers of the United States—starting price $249,000. 

My imagination is always stimulated by sites that reveal the more rugged past in U.S. history. Beside that old fishery wharf, I imagine a saloon where fishermen drank and found solace in the arms of painted women. In my black and white imagination, there's always a bar and a painted woman, but those images, like the old and rugged days of fishing, are visitations from the past. They come straight out of Turner Classic Movies.

Next entry, if I remember to, I'll discuss an interesting lesson in dialogue that I'd have thought I long ago had learnt. (The construction of that last sentence is perfectly legal if somewhat quaint.)

THE SILENT "BEAT" BOOMER AND THE CARROT

Thursday, I sent off a short story contest entry and $15 of my Social Security check to Glimmer Train Press. The contest is for "new" writers, i.e. those writers whose fiction has not appeared in a press run of more than 5000 books. That's just about most of the writers in America. I'm a really old, "new" writer under those terms. Such contests are what's left for writers of "serious literary" fiction nowadays. 

My goal remains steadily before my eyes...to get someone other than myself to publish a book of mine. My own situation isn't so bad. I know personally two novelists whose first books were published by major publishers but who have never—yet—got a second book accepted. Talk about a big freekin' CARROT! By now, the vegetable no longer dangles before their noses. It's stuffed up their _ _ _ _ _! I'm telling you, folks, this writing game ain't for the weak.

There was a time when I earned money for a couple of poems I wrote as witnessed by the two photos. I received money from The Anglo-Welsh Review once upon at time...about $22 in American money. I cashed the cheque and kept one dollar to frame. I'm still proud of that acceptance. The English pittance came my way not too long before I found an agent for that novel I spoke of. I thought I was there, ready for fame and fortune! The bleeding novel was called, at the time, Children Of God. Now it's called Angie's Choice. 

Today, I'm going to forget all my trials and tribulations and, as soon as I pay some bills, I'm going to drive off under the sun to the Washington Coast. Wife is very busy today, and my plan is to stay out of her hair for awhile.

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.

THE SILENT BOOMER'S BEAT RACE AT UPSNDOWNS

How do I write this without my egocentric backside showing? Today I ran a race at Upsndowns. 

Our local newspaper supports a feature called "Everybody Has a Story". It invites readers to send in tales from their lives. I've sent in two and both, though recognized as talented writing, have been rejected. The first was the
reflections of a movie buff, my slow evolution as I gave up American films in the early 1960s and moved on to foreign films. The piece ended with a plug for our local art house, the Kiggins. The newsman in charge of the "Story" feature at the Columbian didn't recognize it as lowbrow enough for the readers of the Columbian. Movies... what average Joe cares about movies? He didn't put it in those terms, but it's what he communicated. The subject matter was too sophisticated for Vancouver.

Minutes ago the editor in charge of "Story" rejected, via email, the second tale about my life through my divorces, practice dating and counseling to find the current happiness I enjoy with my dearest wife. A true story, the editor, bless his heart, recognized its "worthwhile message", BUT he thought it was too shocking for the Victorian morals of the Columbian readership, though he didn't use those terms. He could be right. A passel of people live in Vancouver, Washington (not to be confused with the urbane Vancouver B.C.) who think in 19th Century terms. Okay, I get it, everybody has a story but mine are too polished. Perhaps I must lower my jib and tackle my spinnaker. Okay...whatever...I'm not a sailor.

I think old age has set in. Rejections are a part of submitting works to strangers and for decades I've lived with them, but the fact that I'm 75 going on death must be putting a hitch in my normally smooth get-a-long. BUT...here's the Ups in Upsndowns. Withing minutes—MINUTES—of firing off two ill-considered emails to the Columbian, I got an email response from a senior publication expressing interest in my query about doing some writing for them. They wanted my blog address (this one) and a writing sample. I attached my humorous essay aimed at seniors, called "Exercise and Cabbage Heads". For all I know he's reading this entry right now.

Ups and Downs, everyone!

BEAT BOOMER PLOTTING ALONG

I got a surprise yesterday when I realized that Delinquent Lives, the book I translated with Readiris OCR software was missing chapters. I feared I had many more pages to translate one page at a time in a very slow process, but, then, among files dedicated solely to my creative work, I found the missing material already translated in a subfolder under the novel's title where I had not expected to find it. I was relieved because this meant I didn't have to translate all those missing pages. However...in my rewrite, if you recall, I have already caught myself being too clever for my own good. 

Looking at this new material, I see that my cleverness must be corrected again and, this time, thoroughly. My chronology has always been twisted in order to maintain what I've thought of as my clever opening. My plot has to be repaired. A complete rearrangement of early material is called for. O, no! The Nightmare Rewrite is upon me, the kind of complete rewrite that at my age (feeling rushed as I am by the grim reaper) I shrink from, but if this book is to be the one that somebody other than myself publishes (and it could be this book), then I will have to rearrange several early chapters and fragments of chapters. I will have to put my chronology in order.

I take a deep breath. Where will I find the time to keep rewriting Delinquent Lives, making these blog entries, court agents for Angie's Choice, attend the writer's group I enjoy, send off short stories and poetry to competitions, cook suppers for wife, read a book now and then, do the laundry, keep the house straightened up and manage to write fresh material at the same time? And what...if...after all this time and effort, nobody likes the book?

SILENT BOOMER MISSES A CATCH!

Well, here I am, awake in the middle of the night and blank space before my eyes so I'll keep you up to date on the search for an agent to represent my book, Angie's Choice. Unhappily, Mr. Paul Lucas got back to me in less than 24 hours. He tells me that he's a busy man and I believe him.

Of course, I don't know how

close I came!                

Thank you for the opportunity to read your submission. Unfortunately, you have come to me at a time when I am inundated with requests for assistance and representation.  The need to allocate my time effectively forces me to decline participation in many worthy projects, and I regret that must be the decision in the case as well.

I am very sorry not to be able to help you with this project but please accept my best wishes for you in your search for representation. 

Best regards,
Paul 

Paul Lucas  Janklow & Nesbit Associates

I'm thinking next time I'll send off queries to two agents at a time. They get back to me pretty fast. An interesting phenomenon happens every time I send out samples of a novel. I rewrite whatever number of pages they request as a sample. I can never look over a page of my writing that I don't think it can be improved. I don't know whether that's a sign of low self-esteem or just a sign of a too ambitious critic in my head. Sometimes, I change no more than a word or two. Poetry, of course, is a different matter. Frequently, if I've looked over a poem often enough, I can't find a way to improve it's lusture in my mind's eye. 

Yesterday as I walked by the Columbia River, I had an idea for another book that might catch a young agent's attention! But, for now, I want to finish the rewrite of Delinquent Lives. I also have recently finished a short story which I might send off to a short story contest if the entry fee is not too large. 

REJECTION, SUBMISSION...AN OLD FAMILIAR SONG

Yesterday, agent Molly Jaffa replied to my query email for my novel, Angie's Choice. She parried my query with an amicable and brief rejection email thrust.

Dear Mr. Thomas,

Thank you for thinking of me for this. Though I truly appreciate the chance to consider your work, I don't quite feel that I've connected with your material enough to be the best possible agent for it. Please know that this business is highly subjective, and that what doesn't work for one agent may work perfectly for another. I wish you the best of luck as you move forward with your writing career.

Best,

Molly Jaffa
Folio Literary Management

Photo from Writer's Digest article.

So much for my thinking I sensed a like mind for that novel. The lonely business of spreading one's queries over the shrinking field of literary agents continues. Will one bloom every appear in that poisoned field again? Despair is never far away when one embarks on the nearly hopeless task of seeking an agent.

My sights are now zeroed in on Mr. Paul Lucas with Janklow and Nesbit Associates, another young face in an old agency. So many agents are young faces nowadays. Endless photos of unwrinkled, unworried faces. Does this mean that agencies are hiring younger agents to tell them what's what when it comes to younger readers? That would be the smart thing to do...a changing of the guard...which makes this old, weak in the haunches, 75 year old's task appear even harder. However, Mr. Lucas has got a nice, intelligent face, doesn't he, and good luck to him.

Meanwhile, I continue the rewrite for my novel, Delinquent Lives, with input from the meet up group Write To Publish, and I'm hoping to see one or two poems appear in a local anthology. More on that later.