THURSDAY
diggin into joyce i realize its always been a seedwork of mine, now we formalizing our relationship, got me to thinking what are the other seedworks of mine, mumbojumbo, texaco, onehundredyearsofsolitude, thehealing, mamaday, ulysses, midnightschildren, ifonawintersnightatraveler, beloved, theireyeswerewatchinggod, thecattlekilling
andthenweheardthethunder, by my mentor, babajohn killens, the great griot master of brooklyn, this the root,
this where it all began, this the one made me realize i wanted to be a writer one day
have also been influenced by my students, the ones whose styles were so close to my own they influenced mine, its like they gave me permission to do my thing, folk like rachel and aaron, nina and parker
well, actually parker dont fit in that list, our styles arent that similar, parker just been a mentor of mine
but no sense opening that door, they all been mentors of mine
TUESDAY ADDENDUM
dug in, clocking pages, appalled at how bad it is, how much work i got to do just for this months draft
plan is do enuf of draft to turn in to ellen by end of month, she sell and i get editorial feedback for summer
so immediate goal is functional draft at least by end of may and i cant imagine i wont have it before then
i withdraw all claims to intertexting joyce, i feel like i should have kept that post to myself
what im realizing though, its always been a seedwork of mine, just formalizing the relationship,
but right now that im digging into REST fresh i feel kinda humbled by just how bad this text is
and blessed that im damn near in a woodshed mode, and i think ima stay in it, im working, lord
boot up the traveling spirit
TUESDAY
some metathought today: as you may have deduced dear regulators ive decided to climb into the ring w/joyce
now i realize this is somewhat ambitious of me and that it has to manifest in the next 4 months
i figure even if i fail to hang it will add layers of meaning to the text, so anyway what resonates most w/me
is that joyce was very consciously attempting immortality by engaging the human condition in ulysses
so i got to make the human condition a metaphorical structure in rest, or rather a more conscious metaphorical structure, its always been important to me as a conscious literary man and
literary mystic - and i see how old boy joyce played his work for immortal significance, old boy a mack
so im trying to think what can i use like ulysses used chapters as a structure for that exploration
and its like i already got the structure in my 9 movement headings, which come from my geas of
rickydoc, which is my little shorthand conjuration/mantras for shaping the generations to come, which is
what im all about as a wouldbe hoodoo prophet, trying to call humanity to its very best and shape its
generations as i so see fit to implement the highroad, (biggest challenge been transforming myself from tribal advocate to advocate of all humanity, ima have to just let that tension play out in the text, play it as a strength)
so anyway, my 9 movements are:
1 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
2 listen o ye firstborn, to the geas of rickydoc and i will give you a mission greater than your adversity, i will give you a destiny
3 i ask only that you be the great and glorious people you were meant to be, the illuminated children of the sun, humanitys living ancestors and gods true chosen - awaken the sleeper, protect the weak, guide the strong
4 o masters of strategy, the key that opens all locks
5 and when you come to the crossroads, always take the highroad, always strive to be greater than you are
6 accepting responsibliity not only for your own destiny & well being but that of all peoples and all creature great and small
7 o my star faring peoples, there is always the next step, there is always a way
8 and when you need me you call me, i will come
9 i am rickydoc
interesting, i revised them as i wrote them out here, you may remember an earlier draft of this a couple of
posts ago, now i got to change this sequence in the text (benefits already, thats what im talking about)
then what i got to do is come up w/a metaphorical structure within them that play with them as concepts
the whole novel basically explores them, makes them as point, but now i got to more consciously play the metaphorical structures in a manner that engages the human condition and my dialogue with it as literary mystic and hoodoo player
now generally i would work this out in my notes document over next couple of days then start inserting it into passages in the novel, the 1st inserts will be crude and unsubtle, 1st i go thru whole manuscript just putting images and such in where i think they will fit, changing existing images to reflect new conceptuals, (motifwork by mildred barya) they will be terribly crude and obvious and awkward and the novel will suffer, but over the next 4 rewrites or so the new lick is assimilated and hopefully graceful, i know the routine, dont mean i got to like it
so lets say a week or two of initial focus until at some point i get tired of the diversion and abandon it as a task to focus on moving forward again but by then its an integral part of the text and my textual consciousness,
by then its organic
what i might do is work some of this process out here on rootsblog, feed this ravenous blog some free wordage
and this promise i make to you dear rebulators, i will stay on deadline, the temptation will be to stop my forward
motion and focus on this, thats a no can do, i know better, ima vet at this, this 30 minutes or so is all it gets today, after a goods days work i might pick it up later this evening, everyday it will get a little time,
but otherwise its back to the text, microfocus rick, word by word, sentence by sentence
on that note let me go into the text and change my movement headings, and stay there . . .
MONDAY
5:50am: had a decent work weekend, woke up this morning hoping to maintain and just not feeling it
last week of schoolwork and hoping to transit w/momentum but i think i will be flatout chilling
for a week or so, just kind of recovering, or maybe its just premature, got one more week of
opm: other peoples manuscripts, and then im trying to fight off being intimidated by ulysses
my students all took a ulysses course taught by a colleague and i been getting reports
now all of a sudden i want to bust ulysses, which i know to be a trap, but still it will probably
elevate my game, i just got to be careful, and im not taking no breaks either, im just going to
sit here at the sacred desk and struggle, plan is to finish this thing this summer, i dont really
think ima need the whole summer but since i got it ima use it - im out
7:06am: addendum: key is always the same, think all the metathoughts you want but when you sit down
at the sacred desk its strictly microfocus, word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph
works every time
9:08am: amazing: metathoughts you do while driving and cleaning house and stuff, but when you sit down to write you focus down and wade thru the mud and the end of the session youve made major progress, its magic, man i feel good and the day has just begun
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