oct 29
zora neale rides. AI Word by Rdoc
hello world
major breakthru, so my goal is more char
depth. -every page, every paragrapgh
soo i was working on a support char and thought
how im trying to enhannce their arc in the noovel
and i thought - write a short sotry for each one
give them a compelling storyline thenn work iit into nove
soo im starting with jubilation trying to forge the future
annd im thinking rick you just added a couple more
years to thiis fucking thing, good lord willing
and the creek dont rise
Oct 24, the cuse
proabaly wont leave this up
been spinninng whheels trying to figure what to do w/new draft oof novel
just today got a feel foor which way to go
big prob;lemm goot distracted by the hooodoo detective thread
became thhe driving thread of novel
but its noot the thread
the thread is his pprophet of the hoodoo way
and his dimension work
part of want is too write a griotic history
of mmy tribe and ii think ive figured out how
to do that usinng these stories
capture passt present fiuture mythologic
put stories in a sequence that makes griotic sense
okay i got too go, too mmuch focus on
explaining to you what iima do
All the beats tht I have have to be reconcepted
on context oof what exactly - I need to articulate it
his attempt to shape future generations
him trying to forge the vision tht will do it
What amm. I talking about here
the biggest driver is not jubilation
its memphis as a holy city
What is the arc of holy memphis mythwork
what iis the arc of the high hoodoo masking
how doo I dramatize
and will have too bring historicall up to speed after ive done the mythwooprk
okay what iis the arc
what do ii have right now
and what needs to be donen to it
problem is tht its too realworld, too pprosaic
I have too make it a fantasy world
uban fantasy, wizard of pidgeons
but literary, make list of the books I nneed too read in what order
jeus by alexis, oldmann by chameoiseu, X by rushdie, counter arrative,
what is the arc of that
How do ii play that, memphis
as already holy or
him trying to forge the myth of memphis as a holy city
how do his hoodoo hand buddies respond too that
every beat that I have needs work
Okay, major breakthhru, this novellwilll
be told in the voice oof highjohn the conqueror
the mighty coonqueroo
it is I, highjohnthe conqueror, or as I like to roll, the Mighty Conqueroo,. It seems ii have been called, from my rooted slumber, which mean my people are in danger, that’s the only time they call on me, when they in need, that damnn zoora neales doing, she conjure up mi mythwork during world war II, conflated the conqueror out oof those slave john the trickster tles and mi root, said the conqueror was a root tht got soo powerful iit egin too walk and talk like a natchural man, say . . .
That’s what Zora Nele said. Ask her yourself if you don’t believe me. Mambo Zora, sh real fine horse of the Conqueror, real fine spirit child, had a stubborn streak which irritate me but Ida been more irritated she hadnt. My boy Jubilation, he has took a few punches, call himself withdrawing from the fray, they just don’t make them like they used to, horses
I try to determine what has roused me from mi rooted slumber, folk don’t call on me unless the need is great, I detect it almost immediately, a hole in the wall, a tear in the continuum, Jubilation been walking dimensions. Fucking with the Continium.
My boy Jubilation been a challenging horse. Good potential but something missing
MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING HERE, JUST LINE WRITE A STOORYLINE
RIFF WHEN YOU FEEL IT, BUT MOSTLY YOU ROLLING
so what will be dynamic arc of their relationship
Ive had horses that would lose a leg in battle and keep hopping,
mambo lucy comes to mind, god I loved me some lucy
little sprite of a thing, more heart than she deserve
vengeful if you cross her, a little trauma she carry instead
of letting it go but she was just the right woman for the job
told the monkeyfolk we got to stand up yall and they stood
This jubilation he like to walk alongside the river, the Mississippi, grew up on its banks, thinks he can walk away from his responsibilities that easy. He been serving me way too long to believe that. Wats the ppoiint of being from Memphis, mi holy ground, mi holy city, if you can’t endure in the name of the game. Let me get this conch horn ready. Conch you got to place it just right on the llips, ellse when you blow you just get aur ad that defeat the purpose, the conch spose to stir the soul, purify the air you breath into call to arms. Take a deep breath so you can sustain it when you blow it. Cradle it just right. Let it soul.
Jubilation stop a moment when he hear that conch horn again. Like some untriggered ear worm. He skae it off and continue he walkabout
okay the problem is that I want him and this piece to be more magical
to be more multidimensional
how do ii achieve that
I tried too put it all on this tension between him and his boy shine
but it needs a much greater canvas
What do I have to work with
the boys of fot pillow are calling on him
its time to call on the conqueror
why are the forces converging on him
cause they gotta converge on somebody they think
capable of carrying the weight
in this case the ancestral forces
but for me him the ancestral forces are cultural
not familial, I don’t think im go into family
and have to build familial characters / dynamics
we don’t know nothing about Gandalf the grays family
Relationships w/angel more collegial w/benefits? ??
In shearing off these rel because
building solid chars / dynamics will cost me
ima lleave him strictly in the spiritual realm
Okay back to the progression
notes from phone
Whoolespirit telling the story I took
of mingus’ autobio, beneath the underdog
in which his spirit is the narrator
trying to guide and unruly mingus
whom he refers to as - my boy
Ive tried that many times
but it aways felt forced
Walkabout he find himself avoiding Person and realize its the Queen Mother he avoiding. You not taking this bushwizard bullshit serious are you. Yes I am, he reply. How can I not. Never knowed the Queen Mother not to be serious. I ask him is it death that bother you or is it defeat. The hoodoo adept does not fear death. I tell him a story, quietly, while he is sitting in my tree. My tree that he has claimed, I tell him about the muddy stream. Ii tell him that’s you. Do not be afraid.
He repeats it at a reading on the foot of Beale. Claims its his. I let it ride, he claims the Vision is his too
okay THE VISION AND THE TRAVELING
HE IS TRYING TOO CONVY THAE VISION SO THAT IT LIVES FOOR GENRTIONS AND GENERSTIONS
FIRST AS WITHDRWAN FROM FRAY
HJC, MOTHER MEMPHIS, THE BOYS OF FP CALLING HIM
BUT WHEN TIS THE CULTURE STARTS CLLLING HIM HE CNT RESIST
HOW I THAT CONVEYED
THEN HOODOOS START GETTING MURDERED
HIS BUDDY SHINES DOING BUT NOT APPARENT YET
SHINE IS DOING THIS CAUSE HE WANTS TO DRAW OOUT THE CONQUEROOR
DOES THE CONQUEROR KNOW THIS
WHY DOES HE NOT COME FORWARD
SO WHEN IT’S THE CONFRONTATION AT THE CROSSROADS ITS NO LONGER SHINE AND JUBIL, ITS SHINE AND THE CONQUEROR
IS THIS THE THE FIRST TIME THEY’VE MET FACE TO FACE
WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER FOLLKLORICS HO DO I DEEPEN THEM
IS THE WHOLE KILLING HOODOOS SUPERFLUOUS
AM I KKEEPING IT JUST BECAUSE I PUT A DECADE OR TWO INTO BIUILDING AND WEAVING IT ???
FOR THE MOMENT KEEP IT, QUIT AGINIZING
IT WEAVE TRADITIONAL MEMPHIIS
NOW MEMPHIS IS EASY
ITS MYTHICAL MEMPHIS I WANT
HIM TO LIVE IN, HE IS NOT ON THE SAME PLANE AS EVERYBODY ELSE
HE LIVES IN THIS MYTHICAL MEMPHIS
AND HE TRYING TO MAKKE HIS REALITY THE RELAITY
HOW DO REAL MEMPHIS AND MYTHICL MEMPHIS INTERACT
WHAT DOES LIVING IN MYTHICAL MEMPHIS ENTAI;L
HOW DOES IT AFFECT HIS DILY GRIND
FIST HE GOOES TO HIS TREE TO TRIGGER IT
THENN THE CURVE SPOSE TO BE IN HAPPENING REALLIFE
THEN IT IS REALLIFE, THE WOOODSHED
AND IT’S THE REAL WORLD THAT’S MYSTICAL, WHATEVER THAT MEANS
I’m reminded here of that story about a muddy stream, everytime it try to cross this desert it begin to evaporate and must retreat. But on the other side of that desert there is a mountain damn near touch the sky and stream just know its Fa is to get to mountain. A voice within say submit to wind if you want to cross, but stream resist, I fear I will lose myself, but mountain still calling. So stream submits to wind as moisture carried effortlessly across the desert until deposited in a bracing river of ice melt running down the mountainside into the ocean - o what an experience the ocean must be,
The hoodoo adept is always prepared to go. He would however like to feel like he got his work done before he depart. You there God? Sorry. Me again.
Folk see him walkabout and on’t realize that’s not really him, that’s just his traveling spirit. His home spirit is on the river, wrestling with his demons, the page, beset with visions, multiplying fans of possible futures. The Daylight Dreams of Rickydoc..
Driftwood is hard and the call of destiny unforgiving but he persist, riding the infinite paths of possibility, A wrong step, just one, and he has lost his way, wandering blindly thru dimensional folds until he hear, faint in the distance, the call of a rooster on Bostons Cobble Hill, where escaped slaves have made the area a precarious sanctuary, still echoing when a well dressed colored man suddenly crumple into the doorway of a row house there. Dear God, he murmur, not now. He knows now there will be no slave insurrection, not of his doing. O my wretched people, he call out in counterpoint to the roosters call, O my sorely used brethren, O my sorrowing sisters. He curse his failing body, forcing it to rise once again in primal response to the roosters call, faint, ethereal, otherworldly, wondering how close it is to morning that he can hear that war cry greet the day and how nice it would be to see the sunrise one more time and whatever on earth made him think that words would ever be enough.
TRIED SOMETHING HERE, PPROBLEM IS I THINK MY RIFFS WORK AS IS BUT I GOT TO DEEPEN CHAR WORK IN EVERY SENTENCE,, EVERY PARA, WHAT I TIRED HERE IS A QUICK RIFF ON DAVID WALKE, ONCE AGAIN GOT TO GIVE THEM ALL MRE CHAR DETH, AND I ALSO TRIED TO COLLAPSE TIME, PART OF THE PROPHETIC AESTHIC THT TREATS PASTPRESENT FUTURE AND MYTHHOLPPHIC IN THE PROPHETIC MOMENT ???? I DO THIS OFTEN WITH HISTORICAL CHARS, DID IT WITH TUBMAN
OKAY HOW DO I DO THE GRIOTIC THREAD, HOW DO I DRAMATIZE IT, I WILL HAVE ALL THESE STORIES AND IMMMINDFUL OOF THE EDIITOR THAT SAID ITS ABOUT STORIES IT NOT A STORY, I THONK OF ALL MY REJECTIONS THAT’S THE ONE THAT HURT THE MOST
SO THE THING IS HOW DO I MAKE THE PROGRESSION COMPELLING
HOQW DO I FORCE THE READER TO CARE
Jubilations eyes open, slowly, sluggishly, a minute or so to focus - the river, hiis throne, an overcast day thick with Mississippi funk. Feel like you been sitting there forever, river carved grooves carving grooves in your ass. Your bugshit fucking life. Just another conjuration / confabulation. A particularly vivid work of fiction. Just another Text. Just another Lie. You try to rise and are unable to move, by and by you impose your will and after what seem like an eternity you shift on your throne. Another eternity you raise your arm and a spider web snap, Anansi dangling, dancing, spitting angry curses, furiously weaving another.
I NEED AN ENNTUURE SEQUENCE OF THIS THREAD,
THIS IS HIM WALKING THE DIMENSIONS
HAVING IT FOLLOW THE DAVIDWALKR BEAT WITH MY LINER NONLINER THING ???
WHICH II WILL CONTINUE TO DO
At the Hole in the Wall, tucking into some rice and beans and plantain a delegation of the hoodoo future approach his table. Sheree and Danian and Jamey and Troy and them. Bolanje. Ari and Jacksen. We have heard music on the river, Baba. Are you playing again. What you are is packing. Sitting there on the river like that, no wall to your back and feeling like prey. You Glocked, aint you, son. Other folk give up theirs I will give up mine.
Last walkabout perhaps. Outer Parkway especially hard on him. When he was growing up it was a vibrant inner city business spot, crowded with folk shopping, eating, barbered and beauty parlored. Now it’s just a ragged line of abandoned buildings falling in on themselves, overgrown foliage seeded with trash and populated with the drifting haints of what once was and could possibly be. No holy ground. No sacred space. Just a tired little innercity neighborhood with no dreams left.
At the corner of Person and Florida he nod at a porched couple and are qreatly exhilarated when both nod back. At the Hole in the Wall, he confront Countryboy and the Diva. I am no tool, he snarl. Lord Legba drop the façade. Please fool. Who aint a tool. My Lady Oshun place a calming hand on Legbas crooked shoulder and bestow a warm appraisal upon the Conqueror. Was this not your choice, my Champion. Do you regret your service.
THIS AGAIN IIS THE NUCLEUS FOR A THREAD, ONCE AGAIN IT WORKS FOR ME BUT II GOT TOO STRENGTHEN IT ENUF TO CONVICE MI DOUBTERS WHO FIND ME STYLEE UNSATISFYING
Confrontations at the Crossroads, Riverside Drive
Cast your vision, young hoodoo, as far as you
can see. Determine the challenges the tribe
will face. Prepare the tribal soul to meet them:
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