Garden season begins
I’m elated to have my novels now more orderly and interconnected
I’m still surprised by how much literary writing I accomplished in my spare time during all those years I was employed elsewhere. Much of it, admittedly, was in a shotgun fashion, or as I’ve also said, along the lines of graffiti, while hoping for the big break that would give me the space for a more concentrated approach.
Still, it led to a rich stream of material. In that regard, Jack Kerouac was a huge inspiration.
Releasing Hippie Drum as an ebook at Smashwords.com in 2013 was an indispensable defining moment for me. I was no longer bashing my hopes against a brick wall of commercial publishing, which was ever more resistant to experimental fiction. Six more novels followed at Smashwords, plus the fiction available at my own Thistle Finch online imprint.
As I’ve already noted on this blog, my novel What’s Left led me to rethink and rework almost all of those earlier novels. For one thing, as I now see, it was drafted and revised entirely after my retirement from the newsroom.
I’m deeply grateful to an insight from Smashwords founder Mark Coker that one of the advantages of ebook publishing over printed paper is that revised editions are much easier to accomplish, and more economical, too. That – and my own ability now to create my own covers, rather than hire a designer – encouraged me to drastically recast those earlier volumes.
There’ no way to express the elation I feel in now having most of those novels stand in two distinct, orderly cycles – Freakin’ Free Spirits and Living Dharma – each with a continuity of events and central cast of characters.
There’s the relief, too, of having finally been faithful to this material and its inspiration. I can now move on. It belongs to the world, the way a parent feels about grown-up children.
Continue reading “I’m elated to have my novels now more orderly and interconnected”
Checking out the linens
We let our bunnies run free on the first floor during the day. They love to explore, as Pepper is here, but they also love just hanging out in their favorite spots.
Why presidential hopefuls brave the ice and snow
Its first-in-the-nation presidential primary has the Live-Free-or-Die state in the headlines these days. We want to meet and evaluate them all. It ain’t always easy.
The state’s presidential primary originated in Town Meeting Day, which is traditionally conducted on the second Tuesday in March each year. Since everybody had already come out for this unique form of grassroots democracy, it made sense to add one more item to the warrant, as the agenda is called, rather than make yet another trip to the town hall. (Besides, being winter, we’d have to heat it.) As other states have tried to jump into the spotlight, the presidential part has moved forward on the calendar. Theirs, though, don’t have organic roots like ours.
Contrary to what some candidates label their appearances, a real Town Meeting is not a political lecture or Q&A opportunity but rather a community session for debating and then voting on local government decisions for the year. Everyone can speak up and be heard. The town and school budgets are major considerations.
Now for some other perspectives on the Granite State:
- New Hampshire is bigger than it looks on the map. Rotate it 90 degrees and you’ll see it’s larger than Massachusetts, New Jersey, Hawaii, Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island. It’s slightly smaller than Vermont. When water is included, Massachusetts and Hawaii jump ahead.
- Small-business owners comprise 96 percent of the employers in the state.
- An estimated 87,000 residents, mostly in the southern tier, commute to jobs in Massachusetts.
- It’s the only state where seatbelts are not required and one of only a handful where motorcycle helmets are not mandatory.
- The state has no income or sales tax. Property taxes make up much of the difference.
- The state ranks dead last in its support of secondary education.
- New Hampshire has the longest running state lottery in the continental U.S. Originally, the numbers were not drawn at random but based on results from the Rockingham racetrack.
- Dover, settled in 1623, is the nation’s seventh-oldest permanent community.
- The first potato crop in America was planted in 1719 by Scots-Irish immigrants in Nutfield (now part of Manchester).
- Although the state has only 18 miles of ocean frontage, the 6,000-acre Great Bay 10 miles inland is one of the largest estuaries along the Atlantic coast. It’s crucial for sustaining fish populations in the ocean.
~*~
Ever been to the Granite State? What can you add to the list?
Yeah, laa-de-dah
Kinisi 13
TAME
TALE
TALK
TAPE
TAKE
TALC
Gingerbread village
Sometime after the Twelve Days of Christmas end on January 6, we take our gingerbread decorations outdoors for the wild critters to discover and devour.
Here’s part of a village inserted into a pile of snow on a tabletop.
Looks like it belonged there all along. The squirrels, however, will soon be scampering off with the pieces.
Abundance versus scarcity in my life
Perhaps you’re familiar with the abundance versus scarcity question. You know, do you feel you’re blessed with enough – or do you instead feel you’re always lacking.
I’m programmed from early childhood to feel the latter. My parents were children of the Great Depression, after all, and handed the attitude down.
It tends to make me something tighter than frugal. Generosity doesn’t come easily, I don’t open up to others easily, either – not even to ask for help. It’s a long list of negatives.
As I returned to this concept recently, I’ve been feeling a lot more sense that I have more than enough in many ways, even on a very limited budget.
So much for material goods.
Curiously, it’s time where I’m feeling the scarcity kick in. There’s just never enough. Not for what I’m trying to do.
I’m realizing, often after the fact, how much that outlook crimps my relationships.
This is, ultimately, a spiritual matter. The one place I find time opening up is within the hour of mostly silent Quaker worship. Not that it’s always easy, not even after all of these years I’ve been doing it. But it is always refreshing and renewing.
To think, I started meditating to get naturally high, as in stoned. But somewhere along the way it became a practice to simply get natural – to breathe and get grounded again.
Oh, but I’m still on the internal clock, even there. How on earth am I supposed to cope with Eternity just around the corner?
All under Cassia’s spell
I keep thinking of What’s Left as “my latest novel” or “my newest,” even though other works are appearing after its publication.
I don’t mean to be creating confusion, but here’s my take.
One way or another, my earlier novels addressed the hippie era, which I still believe remains misunderstood and misrepresented. It’s too important for that. And, yes, it’s still hard to define.
What’s Left started out to put those stories in a broader perspective but, revision by revision, the book moved in a much different direction. Quite simply, Cassia and her generation took over.
It became the most difficult writing project I’ve ever undertaken and forced me to completely rethink my approach to fiction. Remember, my career was in “just the facts, ma’am,” journalism topped by Beat-era literature.
Unlike the earlier works, in drafting this one, I had a structural model I wanted to pursue – one that remained intact.
What I hadn’t anticipated was how much the focus would shift.
Many of my favorite parts were created in the final revisions, especially as other members of her generation became fully fleshed out characters, as did the Goth side of her mourning through her adolescent years.
That also meant ripping out a lot of other material, which either became background for my own understanding or was vastly condensed by the final version. The Red Barn’s been quoting heavily from those discards, just to add to your own understanding of the project’s scope.
Whew!
Unanticipated? The paranormal fourteenth chapter is one of my favorites, even though I’d never done a ghost story before. By they way, they wrote it, not me. I simply recorded the dialogue.
Found in translation
Now on the sixth day:
bulls eight, rams two
– Numbers 29:29
Everett Fox translation
Sounds like a National Football League forecast, apart from the improbability of the score itself. Besides, it’s set for a Saturday, not Sunday.
Still I was amused when that line popped out at me from the page.
Now, for a little perspective, here’s how Robert Alter renders the text:
And on the sixth day eight bulls, two rams, and fourteen unblemished yearling lambs.
It’s all part of a series of proscribed daily sacrificial burnt offerings.
Any Chicago or Los Angeles fans out there?
Jnana's Red Barn 