Going through old files

 found The Wooden Angels. It wandered through concepts as I put it down, ending with a confused piece. I still like the concept, so am rewriting it.

Took time away

 I had a short story to capture before it could escape, so left off  Moloch Eaters for now. This one ought to be finished by week end. It's a touching story about marital indifference and bouts of resentment.  

Despair & Bananas

 Putting together a collection for Amazon publication. DESPAIR AND BANANAS. The human condition, a touch of the fantastic - What could go wrong?

Not much to report.

 The Moloch Eaters has been monopolizing my time these days. Here's hoping it will materialize in full in a matter of months, not years.

About The Moloch Eaters

 On my Free Stories blog there is a short story titled The Moloch Eaters. It is actually an outtake of a longer story I am currently at work on. This will take a while to get finished. Not that many read my work and no one awards words of encouragement, but I do what I do. As the Zen master once taught his Zen to the stones since nobody listened to him, I bestow my words on the internet. 

Today I should finish re-editing Beyond the Dark Water.

 I've streamlined the narrative somewhat, plus added new points to bolster the reader's understanding of situations. It should be available on my Free Stories blog this evening or tomorrow.

The Black Rose Writing edition went out of print and the rights have reverted to me.

CDs.

 I found more. This stuff will keep me busy for a good while.

New Access to Old CD Files

My last desktop couldn't access CDs I made of certain files. Instead it treated them as new discs to be formatted for receiving files. So they languished in a box, thought to be useless. Yesterday my wife wanted to get the box they were in out of the way. Just out of curiosity I put one in and opened it. There was Ebeneezer's Ghost and some I had forgotten altogether. To me, priceless. 

On "Beyond the Dark Water"

I originally set out to write my full life story when I began this piece. Then eventually edited it down to exclude mention of most of my brothers and sisters, who mostly are still alive and whom I did not wish to antagonize or argue with. Left with a much-shortened version, I grafted it onto a fictional tale of an adventure with my long-dead brother, who in it visits from the grave. The autobiographical material is all true. The ghost _? Well, I was asleep one night less than a year after his death and I was aware that he crawled into the bed to sleep alongside of me. I felt his warmth until shortly before awakening. I had to dismiss it as but a dream -

What is your favorite music

Beginning when I was a child and working to the present, my favorite artists have been

Hank Williams
Harry Belafonte
Jerry Lee Lewis
Little Richard
Peggy Lee
Don Gibson
Buddy Holly
Bob Dylan
Donovan Leitch
The Beatles
Phil Ochs
Leonard Cohen
John Lennon (solo)
George Jones

Of course, that list is partial. It could expand a hundredfold. But Ave Maria is my favorite song of all time.

Right now - - -

I discovered a ms. that I started about five years ago. Story concerning a man who runs a book store and plies customers with free goodies and coffee. So, I'm resurrecting that one, but already doing a new read-through of Mexican Red.

Reached the end

The final word was typed last night. Today the last two chapters will be gone over and then the manuscript will be given a cooling-off period before a hopefully final edit. I use Grammarly to help correct documents. This program has to be treated like spell check to be certain the suggestions it offers are in line with the actual intent of sentences. As mentioned earlier, future projects may be limited to short stories, except I reserve the right to complete a few long manuscripts already begun.  

About Mexican Red

It's my first effort in western novels. Begun at least two years ago. I generally know what I want to say, but it's a major operation to put all the elements together. Most of my first drafts are comparable to an artist who begins a canvas by drawing stick figures on it and then alters a line here and there until realistic portrayals of people emerge from those simple lines. It depends on the artist how well it turns out.

Years of writing verse almost exclusively has turned my prose into a bare bones operation, making the stories fill fewer pages while telling just as much story as works thousands of words longer. Some prefer long winded writing. It's okay to like whatever you want to like.

Many instances of my language can be nit-picked for not being authentic old west. It's the same with history. Not a history lesson. It's more Hopalong Cassidy than Parkman's The Oregon Trail.

Others may find discomfort in the fluidity of moving the narrative from character to character. I couldn't tell the same story if I did it another way.

So as I prepare to write the final several pages, it would seem it is almost ready to be read. But not so fast. Then it will sit unread by me for a time and then almost certainly undergo some revisions when I revisit a final time or three. Or four or five. And then most readers may hate it. By then I may hate it too. 

  

Because I write so slowly I am able to slip in the occasional short story.

So yesterday I began a short about a man not willing to be conscripted to fight in the Civil War, who heads out west.

Getting Closer

I'm getting closer to the end of Mexican Red. There are a few issues to address before it can happen.

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no more longer works

Once I wash my hands of Mexican Red, I plan to turn out only the occasional short story. Nothing so ambitious even as a novelette. The amount of encouragement I get in return for any of my work does not merit the effort I put into it. I only intend to do the short ones due to an inability to ignore them, once they pop into my head. To the few who encourage me: Thank you from the bottom of my heart.  

Change to my stories on Lulu

Can't say I'm happy how Lulu changed my books and narrowed the selection.
https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/charlesturner

The Dog Headed Folk of Old

Western Novel

I had gotten lost while trying to wind up Mexican Red and nothing helped. So I left alone. Now I am back reworking from page one and having a good time of it so far.

It's Posted

I've posted "A Woman Too Dark" on my free stories blog. Shrug. On to something else.

Presumptuous

Not so much. I am attempting a short story concerning a black American woman. Trying essentially to be inside her head. Will it work? Not really. But it might make for a good story anyway.

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Still Working

It's tough to keep it together in placid times. The uncertainty right now makes my thoughts even more flighty than before. But I do make a little progress every day on different projects. I hope any who visit here are well and will continue to be so. 

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Staying with short stories for now.

I started on Four Angry Clowns today.

Perhaps I went too far

I have the first draft of Penny and Drew and The Nearly Perfect Zoo. There were several options on which way to go, particularly at the end. I chose the hazardous way, the kind that means no editor will touch it. It's an essay concerning the welfare of animals, including humans. The human condition and how to upgrade it forms the conclusion. Because I diss war, poverty, racism, and come out for MeToo, to the young, it brands me a rebel. I may be forced to self publish or even offer it for free to those willing to share it. I have a few people to show it to before I make any decisions.  

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Zoo

As mentioned earlier, I work on other projects when I feel I am not able to do justice to my western novel. I've spent the week at work on a middle school children's book. It's beginning to take shape. I think it would be best for me to stick with it for now. It's a story that will require an illustrator of far greater proficiency than what I possess. I hope to get it to a publisher who will accept for publication and assign a really good artist, who is good with animals and people.

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Whenever I get stuck -

Whenever I get stuck on Mexican Red I do other writing projects. For instance, a children's story, tentatively titled, Penny and Drew, and Their Nearly Perfect Zoo.

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Quote by Madeleine L'Engle

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

Western TV Shows

A listing of my top favorites:

Have Gun Will Travel
Gunsmoke - first three seasons
Maverick
Cheyenne
The Life and Times of Wyatt Earp
The Rifleman

Lesser favorites:

Wanted Dead or Alive
Rawhide
Tales of Wells Fargo
Bonanza
Branded

A mess of a show with a couple of great episodes

The Westerner

Western Stories

I love the novels and films that feature grit and determination. Some of my top favorites are

High Noon
The Outlaw Josie Wales
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Jubal
3:10 to Yuma [original with Glenn Ford only]
Last Train to Gunn Hill
The Last Posse
Yellow Sky
MacKenna's Gold
The Ox-Bow Incident
The Cowboys
The Shootist
Rio Grande
Stagecoach [original only]
The Three Godfathers [John Wayne version]
Westward the Women
Tom Horn
Dances With Wolves

There are more.

I did not really love

The Magnificent Seven and its sequels
Once Upon a Time in the West
Shane
The Way West

A Listing of Top English Language Writers

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I have to mention Kirk Douglas.

Aside from entertaining me over my entire lifetime, his thinking was remarkably similar to mine, though not as dark. I had forgotten his part in ending the Hollywood blacklist, generated from McCarthyism until reminded on a TV newscast. He hired Dalton Trumbo to work on Spartacus and boldly listed his name in the credits. Shortly after that, the list vanished. 

Vengeance Valley

I shouldn't knock other writers, particularly successful ones. However, I believe Luke Short wouldn't care too much about what I think. When I began work on Mexican Red, his Vengeance Valley was readily available in a used book store. I began to read it to get pointers on how to do the western novel. I recalled beginning it and not finishing it over 20 years prior. This time was different, as I needed that information. But I simply could not enjoy it enough to get any further than the first time. A few months later, I found it as a movie with Burt Lancaster and tried to watch that. Same result. However, I view this as a personal quirk since both book and movie are making the rounds after lots of years. It would be nice if I could have a fraction of that success.

Ulysses

The other three parts are on youtube. I suggest getting a hard copy and following the text as the voice reads.

Mexican Red

I've reached a section in the rewrite where it sort of goes off the rails. I'm struggling to work it out. If it bothers me this much, potential readers will be disappointed.

poem for mama

In October of 1969, I realized I had overlooked my mother's birthday. Brother Sam and I were living in Kansas City, she in Texas. I hurriedly dashed off a poem, modeled from the lyric style of Van Dyke Parks in his fine album, Song Cycle. Sam illustrated it and made a book of it. I may or may not possess the book, but I recall the words.

rose garden
in it roses
pink yellow and red
roses for mama
cut from their soft bed

i thought upon her april birthday
i would send to her a flower bouquet

july -
july -
three full months went by -

mom its me
fretfully
staid the full days go by
ill be there to see you by and by 

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haiku

as winter descends
the grey haze shivers the earth
patient are the roots

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Toying with an idea

I am the inept sort who cannot seem to get it. I know how to self publish without using my own money but I don't know how to market my work and am too poor to hire outside help. So I have set a limit to how long I can afford to keep trying, as I am 77 years old. Perhaps I will start a site, likely a blog, and publish and offer my work for free. There could be a Paypal donation button. There is nothing set in concrete, but it could happen.   

Hollow Planet completed

Except for trying to place it, I have done all I can for this one. So I have to make it happen next for Mexican Red. This latter work I am all but certain will be done through Amazon. Still trying to figure how to navigate all the information to make it happen. I am incredibly clumsy with that end of things.  

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Catch 22

Too Rattled

Between bad news events, family issues, and holiday-hangover, I was forced to take a hiatus from writing. But tomorrow I swear it will be my #1 priority.

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You Can't Win by Jack Black