Post NaNo

When I got started on the sci-fantasy work, it edged out the western novel, time-wise. It's the nature of NaNo month to rob one's other projects in that way. But it was a helpful respite for the western, because that one was approaching a cliche of an episode, which I hoped to make otherwise. I couldn't think of an alternate course to take before yesterday. Now when I get back to it it will move ahead.

Christmas Sad

Next went sleigh and crew
To the lands of gloom and grue,
For the heart of the season
Knows not spirit's treason;
But ministers to wrath and rue.

Santa, said one elf named Joe,
There's a child whose father says no
When asked if there is love named Santa.
The child has no gift;
He's not on the list.
Oh, Santa, what is the answer?

Santa clucked sadly with woe;
There is no answer friend Joe;
For magic dust I sprinkle
To make their hearts twinkle;
But, I cannot alter the nature
Of despair, of disbelief and failure
If hearts are closed and avenues cut off.
He choked with a sob and a cough.

That one's meager Christmas they served,
That one they lost the nerve.
Another one slept in booze and pills,
Soon to forget his worldly ills.
And when they left the plain of gloom and sadness
It left a stain on all their remaining gladness.

Gwenn's Surname

I am casting about for a better surname for her. Also, a number of names used in the text are changing. Arnold was chosen on the spur of the moment, when I was anxious to get the narrative moving.

GWENN ARNOLD, OR, THE HOLLOW PLANET

Newest title. Riffing on Hans Brinker, or, The Silver Skates

End of November

The month is just about over. When it ends, I intend switching back to mainly working on the western novel and adding to the NaNo project story in the times I get stuck on the first story.

In the NaNo story I have a preteen girl, Gwenn, whose father wrote a book. Being also a scientist, he and his team created the world within his book, in a separate dimension, and a portal to visit there. Gwenn's mother and father disappear in there. Gwenn has no knowledge the project exists, until she has to break into her own house and discovers her parents' secret. Once she enters this world, she learns that inhabitants are wise to her Dad's work and have launched their own project to break open the barrier separating the two worlds. I have written well beyond this point, but you can perhaps see what it is leading to.

NaNo Word Count

My word count is far below the pace NaNo sets for a writer. My justification is, I want the words I write to count. Just forcing it along for the sake of filling pages is in my view doing myself and potential readers a disservice. What the contest did for me was cause me to get it moving along and for that reason I am a winner already. 

Tox World - new title

When I started my NaNo project I just had a thought about a nearly teen girl, whose mother mysteriously disappeared and then she was informed her father had just died. I began with an aim of solving what she suspected were murders. Following her activities for a time lead to a set of circumstances that transformed it into science fiction.

Now it gadz inderessssstingggg

Not for you. You can't see what I'm writing. Trust me. It's - Well, it's words. And it means I am progressing. That's all I can share, just now.

NaNoWriMo

This will be my third time to participate. Project title: FATHER IN THE ATTIC. My name on there is Arlo Clyde 

Roald Dahl

Dahl wrote wonderfully for young readers. I have endured jealousy pangs a few times, coming across some of the passages. 'Why didn't I think of that before he did?' So, on the side, as I work on my novel, I am setting the groundwork for a novel for children. Not to imitate Dahl, or have the temerity to think of it as a competition, but definitely inspired by his spirit. I love the way that he did not write down to the youngsters and was not afraid to broach certain subjects. His humor can infect me again and again, long after I have finished reading.  

On to Chapter Six

Chapter five took a bit longer than the first four combined. Not due to waning enthusiasm, but just trouble with expressing myself. The next part is where the range war begins in earnest and is likely to be easier to write. That last chapter was transitional. It refocuses, winding up to a final showdown.

I Bought a USB Drive

to save my writing in. Somehow when learning to use it, I deleted two pages of my novel - Current working title, Dan Avers' Gamble. But the rewrite proved much superior. I perhaps should do it more often.

Still plugging

Some parts of my book are tougher to write than others. But I make at least a little progress every day. At the same time I take little breaks by doing smaller projects, such as rewriting The Raven, to make it fit in today's climate of online roguery.

Time in a Can

Croce's song of Time in a bottle has me wondering about doing a story in which a man undertakes to put time in a can, for mass production. Mmmm maybe.

Mid Point

I am at the exact center of my western novel. Still in search of a title. It's educational just to put such a book together. All the historical facts I never knew or used in my writing. Even the seemingly trivial can play a vital part. I came in writing about horses, not knowing something as elemental as the difference between cantering, trotting and galloping. Or the introduction of Levis. I already know there were not so many actual gunfighters, of the ilk of Wild Bill Hickok, but I had to bend the truth here and include some. Anyway, it's a fun project and not really so much work because of it.   

Disruptions to my routine

But am making a little progress daily.

Today I Will Write

Yesterday I spent in mourning for our political process. I was unable to function online, more than minimally. It was a lost day in every sense. This morning I waded through dozens of yesterday's posts, deleting both good and bad. I am about resigned that things are not going to get better, because too many voters no longer know what "better" means. I am clearing out as much negativity from my PC as I can this morning, so that I can write once again. At 76 I am too old to waste my remaining time feeding my mind with daily disappointment. You younger people must bear the burden older generations have created for you. It is up to you to formulate some truths upon which to build new politics. The future is yours - or not - depending on your own actions. You will get no help from we the PERPETRATORS.  

Five Angry Guns

Newest title. Sooner or later I will get it right.

Skeezix

Anybody who grew up reading the comic strip, Gasoline Alley, will remember that Walt, the original main character, found an abandoned baby on his doorstep, in 1921. He named the boy Skeezix, which is cowboy slang for a motherless calf. I didn't know it meant that, until today. As an aside, this is the year the strip turns 100.

Regarding my last post

It wasn't Hemingway or Zane Gray, or even William McGonagall, but I got the tug o' war scene done. On to the shooting contest.

Difficulties

So the plot calls for a man with near superhuman strength to engage a tug o' war against increasing numbers of men, until a gang manages to drag him into a mud pit. Simple enough, you say. But I have written it a few times and have failed to convey the spirit of the event. This is why I can't have nice things. It sometimes takes me days to overcome this kind of a block.

Revisions

I've spent the last days reading over and smoothing a number of passages. Should be ready to move on later in the day.

My original plotline centered on Tim Medina, but has evolved to include three additional characters, each of whom may or may not be able to take one or more of the others. My ms. is nearing the midway point.  

range war's a brewing

I started to write of barbed wire, when a character prepared to string his land with some. Fortunately I had the smarts to check it out first and call it bob wire, instead.

Title

I am tinkering with titles. So far, all I've got is FOUR FOR GLORY. Keeping it in mind, but exploring further.

How long is the typical western novel?

Researching book lengths, I read that the typical western can be 45,000 - 75,000 words. Also, I noted that there is a bit of a resurgence in readership, after a steep decline a while back. I suppose I should have learned this before I started but it doesn't really change what I am doing.

The Reverberating Past

When I began to contemplate a western novel, which notion began to germinate many years ago, I felt my ignorance would derail the project before it got started. I thought my knowledge of the old west came solely from novels, history lessons, films and radio programs. But now I am in the thick of it and I realize that my age is on my side in this. I recall a life without electricity or running water, and at times no home to live in, even. Growing food, picking cotton, often surrounded by animals. But even greater than that, the notions and ways of the past were reverberating still. I was born in the 1940's and there were persons alive who were born in the 1840's. So it's not so far fetched that I could complete my story.

Biography as it appears on another site:

Undiagnosed Asperger's robbed him of life experiences for over fifty years. His love of music and books kept him centered. Unwavering love of living kept him from going bad, despite the rejection he felt on all fronts. He blamed an abusive step father for his life failures. Then he pursued and won the hand of a good woman and had an anchor holding him in place while he fought his battles. Their marriage resulted in a fragile bond that lasted through his remaining days on Earth. His writing a biographical novelette opened his eyes to Asperger's. He could release his step father, but only partially, from the blame he had placed on him. Additionally his condition had been assuaged somewhat by conditions of a job he worked in the final twenty three years of active employment. Desperation for money made him show up each day and there engage strangers face to face every working day. He experienced the art of conversation, expanding incrementally from job based commentary to personal exchanges. His conversation was repetitious and boring, mostly. Aware of his shortcomings, he developed strategies that helped him skirt problems that arose. By the time he left his job, he was honored by one and all. He retained friendships and visited many from retirement. Not knowing how to sell a novelette length semi autobiographical work, he turned to a novel of a man's odyssey from a life of debauchery to a more conventional way of living. A work he has completed and is now looking to get published..

Elmer Ford

I have fun with names when I write. In my most recent work, I call one of the characters Elmer Ford. Unfortunately for Elmer, his encounter with me was not so fun for him. After he mistakenly killed three men for being cattle rustlers, he was hanged. Oh, well. I enjoyed creating him while it lasted.

Chapter Three

Changing gears - a manhunt and a trial this chapter.

Closing in on chapter two

When I was a boy we listened to western series in what was tagged by later generations, The Golden Age of Radio. My brothers and I walked to a theater on Saturdays, where the kiddie matinee featured many films about Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and The Durango Kid. Some Saturdays the family drove to a drive in theater, The Motor Inn Drive In, in Fresno, where we saw, among other films, High Noon, Rawhide, Westward the Women, and The Three Godfathers. Eventually I went on my own to see Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, and such. Many novels I read were by Max Brand and, later, Louis L'Amour.

So, I have a long history with the western genre. Yet, I was reluctant to try my hand, until just recently, when I took the plunge. I am not blazing any new trails with it. The theme is traditional. I wouldn't attempt spaghetti and in fact only truly love one spaghetti western: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

I am hopeful this work will lead to perhaps a series, featuring one central character. More later on - 

Bonobos

Besides writing the western, I am collecting stories for a short story book. I've had more positive feedback on the lead story than any I have yet written.

New progress

I am cleaning up Chapter One some and blocking out Chapter Two. The first chapter has lots of action. Two is more placid, focused on characters.

Angry Indian

I'm studying ways an Indian can kill the five cowboys who murdered his horse. They are setting up a camp and he is crawling between the rocks nearby.

Latest Project

Nearing completion of Chapter One of western tale about Tim Medina. The name is mild, but the man is not. Rootin' tootin' action more traditional than work influenced by Spaghetti Westerns. I have enjoyed several spaghettis, but most of them suck.   

An End and a Beginning

Sam Paine is finished, all but some tidying up of the last few pages. About time.

I'm calling my cowboy Tim Medina. Sorting through stereotypes before I begin. I want him to be the rootinest tootinest hombre of them all. Since I never wrote a western story before, this should be quite an experience.

Tuesday Fever

I woke up about two hours early, this morning, with writing on my mind. I produced more today than in all the last two weeks. My brain is weary, or I would yet be at it. Closing in on the final four pages. Hopefully, tomorrow. I don't have a title yet, for Sam Paine, but hopefully one will come to me real soon.

Writing Theories

I have no writing theories at all. After much painful effort, I read it over a number of times. I read it to see if it flows the way I would expect of a story and if the pieces fit. Once I have done the best I can, I move on. Who was it - Maugham? - stated that there are some rules to writing, but nobody knows what they are. I certainly don't know. 

Block Cleared

I had to quit writing about Sam Paine, for a time. I wanted the developments to be reasonably possible, but could not find an angle. Now I have it on track again and it should be fairly easy to build to a satisfying finale. 

Yep Arlo

Amiable Arachnid

Arlo

Further Arlo

Sex Tapes

Arlo philosopher

Amiable Arachnid

Arlo - a selfie

In San Luis

This tells a personal true story, about a time I decided to hitchhike from Los Angeles to San Antonio. Coming out of San Diego. I caught a ride with a guy who had stolen his brother's car with the intent to work in the fields, loading trucks with lettuce. He told me I could work there also and he guaranteed I would then be able to drive home in a brand new car. He took the mountain pass at 110 miles per hour, on average. A cross wind made the car bounce sideways, making me consider myself dead and waited for us to hit the mountain and possibly careen down hundreds of feet. He accelerated and his skill pulled the car out of it. We were in the clear, until the engine locked up across the border from San Luis, Mexico.

Lost in San Luis

lost almost drunk in old san luis
somehow i just can`t find the border
i hitched i got stranded in the land of ease
im walking and asking in english for the border

one day i was leaving san diego
with my thumb he drove with lightning speed
we almost died in the high sierra
that car lost its will and stalled in the heat near san luis

he said i`ll pay we`ll play in mexico
a stranger set us on the dusty street
it was cerveza for me and my amigo
he vanished in a manner not altogether discreet

lost almost drunk in old san luis
somehow i just can`t find the border
i hitched i got stranded in the land of ease
im walking and asking in english for the border

men sit at ease on the wooden walk-way
and one will point his finger to the north
should i load the lettuce trucks or merely segue
because i need to see my momma back home in fort worth

lost almost drunk in old san luis
somehow i just can`t find the border
i hitched i got stranded in the land of ease
im walking and asking in english for the border

Arlo for sure

mo Arlo

Arlo again

Bought Two Books Today

I bought two westerns. A new one and a Max Brand from the 1920s. I grew up loving western books and movies. I want my next project, after Sam Paine, to be a western story. Like the comic strip about Sam, I am not certain I can pull it off, but I want to try. 

Arlo 7

I Write

My stories more often than not have a negative bent. Death and tragedy control the outcome. I suppose this has the sort of huge impact that causes readers to back off and editors to pass them over. No matter. I write what I experience. I no longer have faith in the human experiment. The golden ages we sometimes experience are tempered with violence and increasing war making capabilities. These days war strategies and fighting have become cottage industries. Governments are warming to space militarization. Meanwhile, the masses are increasingly marginalized and impoverished. 1984 meets Brave New World.     

Progress

My story of Sam Paine has reached a point in which Sam is on the verge of escaping. He missed the opportunity to do so with money in his pocket. If caught before he achieves certain objectives, he will be returned, no questions asked. 

I can only write in short bursts. So I revisit the work countless times per day. Since I am retired, time is no big consideration.

Arlo 6

Arlo 5

Arlo 4

Father's Day

I last saw my father at the age of three. Fifty years later, I learned he was murdered for his car, in 1948. After ten years spent with an abusive step father, I was left totally fatherless. Author Phillip Wylie became a sort of unknowing father figure to me, for many years. I grew up not caring enough about my father to check on him, for he and my mother had a rough relationship, before she ditched him to join the Okie flood to California. I think I was over forty before I began to feel a need to know the man. It was a feeling of being left unmoored on one of two pillars, the other representing my mother. I don't think one can feel complete without knowing both sides that contributed to their origin. I salute my father on this day. I hope he had a good time of it in the short time he had after we left him.

Arlo 3

Arlo 2

Arlo

About the comic strip failed idea

I know this room is inadequate by modern nursing home standards, but I felt compelled to make it Sam Paine's room, if the comic had shaped up.

It's Taking Shape

I rarely have used wealthy characters. Sam Paine is wealthy but he's been shafted. I gave him a character that can be identified with by most right thinking people and so far have not found reason to kill anybody in the storyline. We can only hope. His wife is not wicked, but she and their daughter have been corrupted by the daughter's boyfriend. It's so far more of a righting a wrong tale than of revenge or murder. 

Most comic strips go rather static

after a bit. Converting my comic idea to prose has freed it to an expanding plot that takes it beyond the confines of a nursing home. Lest it be confused with the plot of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, there is no Indian, no stolen good times in a bus, no protagonist similar to the one in Cuckoo's, no facing a tragic ending. I have a personal aversion to that book, based mainly on the final pages, anyhow. My character is no antihero. He has a life and a personal fortune and this will tell how he gets it all back. Many antiheroes do the same things as the other antiheroes, say the same things and in the end their originality has become stereotypical. So I avoid such a character if at all possible.    

Not Defeated

I had to admit defeat in the comic strip attempt. I have no trouble making up the props, but the characters require a fluidity that carries a storyline that I can't get right. I am at the point at which I found myself as a teen. However, all is not lost. In the moment of defeat, I realized my storyline would make a swell novel. So I began converting my material to prose.

Sam Paine

I grew up on comics and cartoons, aside from the novels and biographies I enjoyed so much. The attraction was strong and it made me want to become an artist. My brother, Sam, was just naturally one. But it was a struggle for me and I gave it up by my teenage years.There have been sporadic reversions, but nothing so earthshaking as to brag about it. But now I have a concept for a comic strip, which means I need to come up with comic strip art. I made a drawing off Van Gogh's bedroom painting for his room, removing the table in the corner and giving it a chest of drawers. I have a face for him, but the body work is lacking. Still much groundwork to be done. There is a little levity in it, but it is no humor strip. It's the adventures of a man sent to a nursing home to live. Because he has most of his wits and gets around pretty well with his cane, he is no happy camper. I have the first week scripted, but need lots more for when I decide to share it with a syndicate. It's a tough market to break into, but I have to try. The character's name is Sam Paine, at this point. Sam, because my brother sparked the interest in doing a strip about the elderly. Paine, because he is expected to have a spirit similar to that of Tom Paine.

anthologies that include some of my stories

Riley Stevens

Riley Stevens carried murder as one bears a secret condom in the wallet, always available to him, never gaining the opportunity to use it, like a bomb with no place to explode. He left the subway on a midsummer morning, traveled up the steps, to be one with the sparse traffic moving along the Bowery sidewalk. As a visitor to the city, he made it his mission to see everything he possibly could. 

Foreword

The bitter heart writes bitter songs, creating fragile beauty of almost indescribable sadness. He who sings the songs learns by osmosis the state of the writer, but if he sings and is himself the writer, there can be no redemption. The darkness that is his soul’s dwelling place is forming a rising pool that in the end must engulf the singer, who will drown in the silent blackness, the bitter heart to write no more.

A Germ Named Orphie

Yesterday I worked at anthropomorphising a germ. It regards itself as "he" despite the fact there are no hes or shes in germ-dom. It bears a special attachment to a nine year old named Olive, who is oblivious of Orphie's existence. I got about a page in the rehab waiting room, in a spiral notebook. I hope to expand on it later today.

submitted

I submitted Spelville Story Collection today, to the first publisher.

Chimp

I'm about to wrap up the story about the chimp. Oh my goodness. Oh, well. Maybe I can come up with something a bit more genteel, next go around.

Shadow Planet Twarr

Price: $4.99

In this comic and action-filled tale of alien invasion, we meet Xmil and his Uncle Sneezer. We stand by to watch the amazing feats of Mohaw, the fugitive from justice, who befriends and aids our young hero. And then there is the advance crew, from the Shadow Planet of Twar, come to dismantle Sneezer's watering system and set the stage for a full-fledged invasion.

Bonobo

The working title of my next. When a man retires from his job, he walks out the door with a test chimp named Grape, with nobody noticing. They live together and all seems fine, until Grape's criminal activity manifests itself and becomes a liability for the man. Well - we shall see how it all works out.

Gearing Up

I was pleased to help old Darryl out. Emphasis on "out?" You will never know without reading it. I am writing as I can. Busy helping the wife after her surgery. I picked up a bug, probably in the hospital cafeteria. Life is tough on an old man, but it was also tough on a young man. I am contemplating setting a mellower tone in my next writing. Topic in the air.

Darryl again

I couldn't leave the poor old guy hanging like that. So I have been adding to his story.

Collection

Some years back, I put together a collection of all my writings. It encompassed virtually all, from the beginning, when I didn't know what I was doing, to the present of that time, where I was starting to get better. Much of the material is totally inept, but I wanted a permanent record of my progress. Brother Sam designed the cover and it is still available through Lulu and possibly Amazon.

Another day or two and

The tale of Darryl, 75 yrs old and newly homeless, should be wrapped up tomorrow or Tuesday. 

springtime in houston

its springtime in houston my friends
the time the hot weather begins
the blue jays fuss and they bother
azaleas early martyr
sending blooms like comets to die
in lovely streaks before the eye
we make obeisance to the sun
like cats we make the hot tin run

Long Pause

Personal events have prevented me from moving forward. For about a month or two progress will be sporadic. I have not lost the drive to produce my brand of literature. It makes me feel guilty to lay off this way. I will be back and continuing.

Darryl

Short story, about a man of my age, 75, suddenly become homeless. I am able to draw on my own past for background and color.