MEET ANGIE DAVIS, THE SILENT BOOMER'S HEROINE

I was thinking to myself that readers of this writer's blog, might like to meet my friend, Angie Davis, the heroine of Angie's Choice. Once readers meet her, I thought cleverly to myself, they might want to know more about her. This occurred to me after spending four hours Friday morning endlessly shifting around and rewriting the first eight paragraphs of Chapter Eight and asking myself why I was spending so much time rewriting and polishing.

"When her father died, she'd been in a transitory mood, tired of rootless living and wanting to understand how she could rejoin the human race and remain true to herself. She’d tried to give something of herself to her father, but he was beyond receiving, and when he died, she felt even more distant from the human race. Full of guilt, she had to acknowledge to herself that she was not sorry enough when he passed. Immediately after her father's death, she allowed herself a fling with a jazz-playing saxophonist, an Art somebody, but that ended quickly. Their late nights together in the small clubs and the impromptu jams into the early morning hours quickly wore her down. She knew, then, she'd come too far back to the daylight hours—those hours within which most people lived out their lives—to return to the chaotic life she'd lived in her twenties. After three more painfully drifting years, one more brief relationship and several jobs, she began seriously to consider the idea that a marriage might present a pathway back to normalcy. She had considered marriage only during the longest darkest wintery nights of despair, but that's when she met Curtis Davis." 

Sometime soon, I'll write about all the reasons a writer moves around paragraphs and endlessly rewrites them...maybe. It's actually a pretty subtle process. Some days I'm right on top of the subject, sometimes not.

SILENT BOOMER TAKES A LEFT UPPERCUT TO CHIN!

Thank you so much for your interest in Talcott Notch. While your project has much merit, I'm afraid I don't feel strongly enough to take it on in this tough marketplace. I wish you the best in placing it elsewhere.
Best, 
Paula Munier  Talcott Notch Literary Agency
 

Got photo at:

I always pay attention to a very interesting word in Paula's rejection letter. She writes, "I don't feel strongly enough...." From my own editing experience (and my reading in neuroscience), I assure myself that "feeling" is the only important element in every literary judgment. 

A guy like me (or a gal like Paula) reads something and likes it or not... period! Once the electrochemical computing system that runs the human body and is the human being has made that important feelingization (sic), it can generate an impressive set of  rationalizations for why I felt as it did or it felt as I did.

Of course, my feelings about each piece of writing I looked at when I edited Willow Springs, George & Mertie's Place or Heliotrope were informed by decades of reading the very best and the very worst of literature, and Paula's are based on, she hopes, what might be popular, and, later, the books that last will be the combined feelings of agents, publishers, scholars and readers...Dickens, James Joyce or Tolkien.

That's the situation as I feel it. Feelings are what motivates an agent and an editor, and the feelings of readers make a book a best seller. Feelings made a very poorly written book like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" a powerful tool in the anti-slavery movement that led to the American Civil War. Feelings!

It's the same old story,

A fight for love and glory,

A case of do or die,

The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by.

GROGGY BEAT BOOMER MISTAKES AND MIRROR LAKE

Always something else troubling my publication plan. Today, I woke groggy, tried to rewrite for three hours before I fully awakened, and I have a terrible pain in my right side under the rib cage distracting me. Doctor's appointment Wednesday. Every mysterious pain is always cancer in my imagination. 

Found myself so groggy I mixed up characters again. Called Larry, Curtis and Curtis, Larry. Silly slips, but serious enough to make me wonder about the first six chapters. I fear I'll have to work so meticulously slow, I'll be 105 before I finish the final rewrite of Angie's Choice. 

The video is from yesterday, Sunday, when wife and I hiked up to Mirror Lake. Watch it all the way through. A lovely surprise at the end. The still photo is of several members of the crew that founded Willow Springs at Eastern Washington University. We were gathered for our annual softball game on a wheat ranch near Oakesdale, Washington owned by Carole Mills's parents. She was an early supporter. 
Carole Mills, a wise and perceptive woman, and I once discussed why no sparks ever flew between us. For her part, she said she had "no desire to stick my hand into a meat grinder." Ouch! 

After we graduated, Bill "William" O'Daly took over as managing editor and brought the magazine along, out of the farm country feel of hippies into the glossy world of the university literary magazine.

SILENT BOOMER GIVES UP KNIVES FOR BARBITURATES

The photo is of the first four issues of Eastern Washington University's biannual literary magazine, Willow Springs. Richard Le Compte, John Naccarato, Miriam DeShazo, Tom Smith and I founded the magazine back in 1977. The others were in their 20s, I in my 30s. We had dandy battles about content. A long time ago that was. All the world of art and literature lay before us to conquer. I'm far inland of the invasion beach, and the enemy shows no sign of surrender.

Making fast progress on the rewrite of Angie's Choice. Into Chapter Seven and liking what I read. Good structure, suspenseful elements, solid characters—this is a publishable novel, certainly. Made another intelligent change. At novel's outset, Angie's suicidal over recent SIDS death of infant daughter. Originally I gave her suicidal thoughts about a butcher knife? This rewrite, I thought, "What yuppie woman plans to slit her wrists with a butcher knife?" Now Angie's suicidal thoughts concern prescription barbiturates. Naturally!

Women (and men) do think about butcher knives when they're fighting with a spouse. A Vancouver man is presently on trial for killing his girlfriend with a knife. One of my ex's snatched a butcher knife out of a kitchen drawer and threatened me. I laughed. I knew she didn't have it in her to harm anyone, but it was admirably dramatic. Much of my life was painfully dramatic in those days. Wives had to amp up their own gestures in order to share the stage with my grandiose performances.

BEAT COFFEE HOUSE FOR OLD BEATNIK MALE

Last night, drove to Portland to the Three Friends Coffee House on 12th Avenue to listen to Chris Luna (Vancouver's poet laureate), Dennis McBride and Mat Brouwer read poetry. Enjoyed their work. Specially appreciate McBride's sarcastic, in a monotone voice, sentiments. His delivery says it all. Didn't stay for open mic. Maybe some other time. A solid venue. Thanks to Chris Luna for telling me about it.

Screeching halt and change of direction: again I'm considering my age and my goal to get one novel published by someone other than myself. I've decided to briefly halt rewrite of Delinquent Lives since Angie's Choice is the novel most ready to go. Over the years, I've looked at the first three chapters of Angie as, at times, I've submitted it to agents or to publishers directly. It's plot is solid and the characters action ready. All I need do with Angie's Choice is run through the entire novel one more time to polish it to PERFECTION. Aha...humph...yes. Anyway...this being done, I can relax and keep Angie in circulation with a peaceful mind while I bring Delinquent Lives up to snuff...or...who knows...I've got a whole new novel on hold that might appeal to a younger audience.

BEAT AS EVER, THE BOOMER TAKES A SPILL

You're not going to believe this...or maybe you will. I'd feel horrible about it, except I've read of major authors who fell into a similar ditch. 

Elderly Man Falls Down

 

I was looking over the early pages of Angie's Choice in preparation to sending  another sample chapter or number of pages (as requested) to the agents I was querying when I found a glaring error. I'd combined the first name of one of my major characters and the last name of another male character. On page two of the manuscript no less. If you've been following this blog, you know that I've been sending out these Angie's Choice samples for several months now. Oh, no!

My hope is that I made the error relatively recently. I always find something to change every time I make a new submission. I'm hoping that I only recently momentarily confused the two characters. I hope that's the case. Otherwise, my error, spelled a-s-s, has been hanging out there for a very long time. I'm chalking this kind of error up to the brain fart of a old man from the Silent Generation. My wife who reads voraciously tells me she catches such errors in books all the time. I don't think she was lying to make me feel better.

PS: the internet photo is titled exactly as I entered it.

THE SILENT BOOMER LIFTS A HEAVY BURDEN

I now hold that Pandora's box, the 2013 Writer's Market, Delux Edition in my sweaty little hand. One and 7/8ths inches thick. A heavy burden. So many markets to try...I feel I'm a gem thief, looking for a fence. I'm in for it now with so many opportunities for rejection. I know the routine—50 out and 1 accepted. Maybe in my old age, the odds will improve. I'm also writing essays now. That puts me all into game...poetry, short stories, essays and novels. Maybe I ought to try my hand at greeting cards while I'm at it:

Paula Munier, agent extraordinaire

Jack be nimble.
Jack be quick. 
We hear you've scorched your _ _ _ _
On a candle wick.
Get well soon, old Jackson,
And, dad burst it, remember...
You're s'posed to blow it out first! 

Still and for all that...my goal remains to get one of my novels or a book of essays published by a legit publishing house before they all go bankrupt or I drop dead in the process. And, darn it, I've got that novel idea turning over in my hectic head.

The photo is off the internet of one of the two agents I'm currently querying about my feminist novel, Angie's Choice. Her photo reveals a puckish personality, don't you think?