IT'S ALL ABOUT ENDINGS

Guess who had a tooth removed? And who's a bit giddy with Hydrocodone? You're right. Me. The hole isn't permanent. Going for broke with an implant. But since this is a writer's blog, let me get to the point. Just finished watching What They Had. Ah, the trouble with endings. Elizabeth Chomko wrote and directed this little gem, but she had problems with it. The ending. I think she tried to end the film maybe four times.I recognized at least three potential endings. 

We writers? Don't we always struggle to get an ending right? I see it all the time in films and books. Sometimes, I get so philosophically above the craft that I realize no ending's right. When Mertie and I bought our last home in Spokane, Washington, I recall saying, "This is it. This is where I'll end my life." Then Mertie, my darling wife, decided she wanted to make a little more money. She deserved more money, she said, so we came to Vancouver, Washington for a better paying job. Now, I think this might be where I die, yet, Spokane is always on our minds. If only it weren't for the snow.

So you see? Life keeps going on after the artistic ending of any book, story, film or play. When I'm in that mood, endings trouble any creative endeavor for me. Fact is that for each of us there is only one ending, and who doesn't know what that is?

OLIVETTI TYPEWRITERS AND DRINKING ADVENTURES

Just had to make this entry. I was going through some old files in a filing cabinet I hadn't looked at in decades. I found all these manuscripts that I typed on my old, wonderful Olivetti portable. I gave the typewriter to one of my hippy roomies when I left Dayton, Ohio to head to California. I was skipping out on the rent and gave him the typewriter as partial payment. Those were my drinking days. Such a transaction fits the type, eh?

I never made it to California. I thought my brother had a job for me with his pavement striping company out there. Turns out, he didn't own that company. He was selling drugs instead. His mother, my stepmother, informed me just as I was getting ready to drive away. So, instead, I drove South with a plan to find work on shrimp boats. Ended up in Mobile, Alabama. I almost achieved that goal, but that is another tale altogether that includes my six month marriage to a Southern gal which is another story. So many tales. 

Anyway, the Olivetti was a fine machine and typed very presentable manuscripts. I can date the manuscript to pre-1973. I would get sober in 1976, so I was well gone toward the end of my downward spiral. PS: I don't believe I ever sent this ms anywhere. Thinking I might dust it off and give it a whirl.

KESTREL BUYS (i.e. ACCEPTS) JOE B. TANNER'S PICKUP

 

YES. A CELEBRATION. My short story "Joe B. Tanner's Pickup" is selected by literary magazine Kestrel at Fairmont State University in West Virginia for publication. 

Interesting side note. (Well) interesting to me at least. Last night, I stayed up till 1:30 am rewriting that Tanner story and submitted it to Cutbank in Missoula, MT. Shortened the tale by 400 words. I think slightly improved it. As I say, nothing I create is finished until it's published. 

Kestrel had my story for 5 months. They said don't query until 3 months have passed. I queried them. So in same 24 hours, I queried Kestrel, rewrote and submitted story to Cutbank, and this morning voila! I told Kestrel about the rewrite and offered to send it to them. Awaiting there response.

By the way, both literary magazines accept simultaneous submissions. 

REWRITING GHOUL WORLD

Twenty-five days since my last entry here. This is not as it should be, but I am busy at writing. I have sent out more than 60 submissions in the last 20 days. I labored extremely carefully over a 50 page submission of my scifi novel Ghoul World to a publisher of novels. Took more than 5 hours to get it sounding as professional as I'm able. Hopes were sky high as I sent it off. You know how it is? You think this sounds just right to get their attention. It'll titillate them, and they'll want to read the rest of it. To get the novel ready for their request to see the whole thing, I'm rewriting for the 8th, 10th, 11th time??? Nothing is finished until someone publishes it. Is that the way with you?

I felt the same positive way about three 8 line lushi I sent off to a magazine that reads for half a month and publishes acceptances the second half of the next month. I worked diligently on convincing them my three lushi fit their requirements to a T. The say if they don't get back within three weeks forget it. November 1 will be three weeks, and I've heard nothing. Damn, the markets are filled with good writing, mine among it.

I'VE BEEN GONE SO LONG

Well, hello, Halloween! Hello, too, alliteration. Halloween, like Christmas in Macy's already, is coming close. Again, it's been awhile, and people who look in are dwindling drastically. I was warned. Weekly, at least, posts are a positive position when it comes to blogging. I deserve every ding I get if I don't post more. 

Lately, the writing life is wonderfully wild. Day after day I do it, and I do it at home, weaning myself from the coffee shop clutch. I'm picking up some pale poetry and pampering it with reams of rewriting. Still, too, writing and rewriting those stories that I think are good. PLUS, a big plus, I wrote a new story called Free Love. It's probably not finished. Nothing I write is finished until it's published. I can't cock an eye at anything unpublished without making changes. That means I have a lot of unfinished work on my hands, novels, short stories, essays and poetry. A screenplay or two and a couple of plays. I'm all alliterated out.

FRANK SINATRA AND ME ALONE IN MY CIVIC

It's been so long since my last entry that I forgot how to access blogger. And, when I tried to put Sinatra's photo in here, the process is different than before. What a mess. 

Nothing new to report. My poetry did appear in Adelaide. Still waiting for Zero Dark Thirty poem to appear. Wonder if it is delayed by the plague? 

I'm about 2/3 of the way through rewrite of novel The Porn Writer now. I keep sending out stories and poetry. 

Why do I mention, Sinatra? Lately, I've begun to carry several CDs in the Civic of music from my childhood, teens and twenties. Trying to reawaken an old self for, hopefully, creative purposes. Pete Seeger, Simon and Garfunkel, hits from 1941 when my parent's divorced and I turned 4. Sinatra of course. And Barbra Streisand too, but, you know what? She sounds trite and much too cutsey. Sinatra and the others hold up. I know Dylan ought to be in the mix too, but I don't have one of his CDs. 

As I announced in another venue, my prostate cancer remains in my prostate even thought my PSA made a leap. Just had bone and torso scans that came up clean. Feel energized to keep working after some falloff of energy. 

ROSEMARY CLOONEY AND MY BEATNIK YOUTH

"Hey, there, you with the stars in your eyes...." Ah, Rosemary Clooney and my youth! My age is showing. All I can say is that I'm happily writing again. Busy on rewrite of a novel I now call The Reprogramming of Frank Singletary.

My poems have appeared in Adelaide. I think I already reported that. Still waiting for poem in Zero Dark Thirty. Covid-19 may be delaying getting that literary magazine out. They haven't notified me.

I am quite happy to be writing again. Fulfills me to no end. The other night, I was reading a short story by Hemingway, "Banal Story". It inspired me to start one just like it, only set in our times. However, I was tired, it was late, and I couldn't get very far along. By next morning, the feeling that inspired the story was gone. So. There it sits in a computer file, a couple of inspired paragraphs that may never see the darkness inside a closed literary magazine.