FRIDAY
hello world, havent been posting, been buried in those manuscripts, so far on schedule
had to squeeze in a meeting today (friday) for a novella conference but such is life
otherreason i havent been posting is i get in these moods where i dont think anything is worth the time
i feel like all the news (libya, wisc, obama, etc) is being handled elsewhere, i go back over topical work and
it doesnt stand test of time like reflection on the literary life,and playing the literary wit, but now discretionary
words getting ate up by novel again, maybe this weekend when i get a little time/space i will get a groove on
so far its basically still weekends, mon/tues/wed/thurs was 24/7 schoolhouse, so thats probably what i got to
live with, still pretty long weekend depending on the load that week - what going on here dear regulators
is a constant tinkering with my production schedule, a constant bargaining with life to get some time
to get a little work done, you set up a production routine that gives you daily work, then you constantly
tinkering with it, constantly calibrating it - okay cool, found something worthwhile to say, im out
actually i got something worth saying, was talking w/mildred barya yesterday and she was trying to explain
how she had a revelation about how to get dynamic tension from her symbols, by using them as motifs
motifs i asked, what do you mean, and she explained, and i realized what she was calling motifs is
what i call metaphorical structures,and she was saying something important to understand
she such a sophisticated literary thinker, thats when i enjoy my students most, when they schooling me
but she could see i didnt quite get it and she sent me the following email,
and since then ive had all these ideas of how to employ this in the text
o you work it instinctively but when it gets verbalized like this it is a revelation
this come under the heading of everything you can control control it
she fired me up on this
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On my walk home i was thinking of your novel where you do have a motif working. it's hit me that the John Henry chapters are awesome and/because they have the motifs working in the narrative and also in the symbol of the hammer. But it's not just the hammer but the rhythmic sound, pattern and cadence that keep working and stay with the reader. There's the actual work hammer sound intensified by the worksong--esp where Pollyanne is listening to the CD in the car. the setting has changed, its not the field anymore but the symbol continues because now its in the car and the song playing on the CD. Assuming you were to keep on expanding and weaving it in the narrative given its importance etc, this is where i'd run with it this way: (i'm doing this as an example not that your story at this stage needs it) we could have say Othella pounding cassava or something in her kitchen for dinner and that repetitive sound/act would in the reader's mind ring like the hammer hence connecting the two, and advancing the theme, another time could be her daughter or children dancing, clapping or skipping rope to the rhythm and pattern of the hammer without even mentioning the hammer. another time someone picking herbs or driving horses and the sound of wheels...incidents like that turning up here and there and the reader wouldnt miss the significance and would also see how its affecting the plot and would ask the main qn: why are all these people/scenes connected? what is it in this sound that began with John Henry's hammer (symbol) got to do with them different folks and generations? you're working with motifs to twist, change or further direction and also develop other things elsewhere. in the end you can either resolve part of the story with the 'sound dying' if that sound signified oppression etc If it was resilience and some good thing, you'd bring in the echo. Maybe John Henry is lying on his bed (could be dying) but is being comforted by the echo in his mind, the echo of years coming together...pa, patwa...and that way he dies in peace...whatever it is so the reader then connects all these other sounds and echoes to understand the resolution. And if it was all along a negative image, we could have the folks in the future (Angel and Highjohn) walking on the beach and listening--failing to hear the 'hammer'. or 'hearing it in the waves' in case you want that image to stay. If you wanted to connect the hammer to something about writing, Chamoisseau and Edgar Wideman style, then could be the narrator's pen that is sustaining and producing what the hammer used to give the people....(am thinking how Chamoisseau brought in the writing aspect versus storytelling aspect. Yours could be the work-harmer effect it's done and been to the people and the pen-performance conjuration coming together, the vision complete. It could never be too much bse it would be in different forms...making things richer...
You see how i run away with your story to fill it with motifs? You got me excited.
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okay mildred, i got it now, that was an impressive performance, good looking out
TUESDAY
this weeks manuscript load, i kid you not, thats shadow assisting me, whats deep is ima get thru them
whats further deep is this what i do for a living, bust manuscripts, unlock creative potential, make writers
i get paid to do this, aint that some kind of wonderful -
only problem is when you get weekly loads like this you dont go but so deep, some
novel manuscripts sit on desk for months until i get time to actually read them
so, woke up this morning usual time, approx 2 am, after reading manuscripts in bed last night till i fell asleep
so i gathered up my manuscripts w/intent to get back to work then i thought, no - 3 hours noveltime 1st
went to computer and did customary morning news/facebook/et al check, decided no more than an hour
now 3 oclock - a 3 hour shift will be 6am, take nap, then manuscript crunch = daily 3 no matter what
couple of quickies i ran across today: Former Majority Assoc for Equality has scholarships for whitemales -
says their 9 member board has 3 women, 1 hispanic and 1 afroam - quotas, cant get away from them can you
newrepub says walker gop types trying to emulate southern economic strategy of race to labor bottom
to make their economies comfortable for corporations looking for thirdworld quality exploitation
5am addendum: its so amazing, you put the hours in the work gets done, slow and arduous but it gets
done, you actually see it growing, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph - its like magic
feel like im really living again, how did i ever let myself fall off the game i do not know, i swear, never again
only thing that knocks me off my game is an act of god (and application process apparently)
MONDAY
i wouldnt call it my most productive weekend ever, when you starting from a deadstop like that
it take a minute to get into gear, but it just goes to show, i got to get on the groove and stay on it
plan is be ruthless about weekends and catch up enuf to do my daily 3, thats the plan
SUNDAY
SATURDAY ADDENDUM 3:12 am
number one, im working, got my groove on, my soul feels good, so anyway, im writing but what
i got to get to is where i can do 3 hour mornings, plus the weekend, thats what im talking about
so anyway, working on this memphis scene takes place on a street in riverside area that i remembered
was a dead little commercial strip but i couldnt remember the streetname, was calling it modder but
i knew that wasnt right, so i thought, wonder if any memphis street maps online, googled it
and google maps came up, ive never used google maps, it was amazing, found the street, outer parkway
and its like im walking thru the neighborhood, can damn near touch the buildings and im thinking wow i
can research any place on the planet with this, i got this scene in timbuktu, i cant wait to google map it,
then i think what about my syr house, google maps damn near let me walk up on the porch, that was kinda
unsettling - fortunately its not real time, that would be too spooky, look like it was summer, but still . . .
there was two of my neighbors on there, walking their dog, thats just wrong
ohwell, ima use it for what i need, but its something to keep in mind, 21st century dont care nothing about
your privacy, big brother and all his kin watching you - be alert
SATURDAY
didnt do no schoolhouse yesterday, didnt do no work either, transitional shutdown one hopes
been out of the game so long i got to get my groove back on, today will tell the tale
i have concerns - the republicans are on it, there are sincere budgetary issues w/attacks on union but
whats salient here is that they using this opportunity to try to cripple a democratic force for 2012 election
damn near the only powerforce the democrats got, this after that supreme court ruling
that corporations and unions could buy elections, like that was equal opp corruption
they trying to cripple unions even further now, and cripple fledgling recovery to disadvantage obama 2012
also obama best check them in the house budget 'compromise' - they say they will let his cuts count for a 2
week extension and thats being called a compromise, but if obamas cuts have been used up what
happens when its time for the 'real cuts' in 2 weeks hence, got to watch them, man, they snakes
when they was in power they tried to turn the government into an arm of the republican party
they quit playing fair a long time ago - aint nothing but a traveling medicine show
THURSDAY
fuck this
i cant take it no more, i have been away from my novel too god damn fucking long
im shutting down shop, i got to have the weekend and the weekend start on friday
that mean ima be behind again next week, 24/7 on the money, but if im 24/7
on the money for the schoolhouse during the week, and the weekend too
what do i get, when do i get to work, on my novel, my literary destiny
i aint been seriously novel crunching for damn near 3 weeks, or more, that dont
work, that dont fucking work, life is kicking my ass, treating me like ima loser
you know rickydoc dont play that, fuck this
absolute fuck this
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