rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

it was babajohn killens taught me to be a visionary, in his name i hope to be a good one

SUNDAY

my apologies for the tirade yesterday, i had just broke my novel down and was feeling panicky
ive chilled, will probably edit out all that cussing, will just have to hold my nose and hit it again

babajohn reminded me to be patient - patience puppy he say - every writer got to learn patience

SATURDAY

dug into rewrite, the breakdown old manuscript phase, which basically entail going passage by passage
and determining what it needs to go to another level, which mean im focused on the weaknesses of each passage

which means i am embarrassed i sent this out, god how could i have sent this to ellen, and when does it stop
god help me will this piece never work - and dont bother telling me just let it go - fuck you, it aint going

nowhere till its right, fuck you, fuck everybody, fuck the world - you have no idea the pressure im feeling to

be thru w/this thing  -  but i had always scheduled another draft, so back up off me world

supposed to go to the city for today, will go to see babajohn, i need some fortitude, i need some help

 

FRIDAY

hello karen, those props on the obsessive line caused me to facebook/twitter it, thanks for pointing
out a goodun, hope new novel is coming along well, hope you getting good props on grace

as for you world, slowly digging into rest, doing a lot of thinking this phase, the dreaded macrothought, came up w/a
good way of giving some of my students props, think ima have him training some hoodoo acolytes

i got this habit in my narrative of naming people, i picked it up over the years and some of my 1st readers
complain but the agency reader said it was because of my immortalization trope - im immortalizing them

which is exactly what i call myself doing, mythwork, call myself writing work that will speak to generations ages upon ages
& its like the folk in the bible, we only know them because they in the bible, in mythic context - thats my frame of reference

its so amazing when folk read into my work stuff that i did not consciously put there but when they point it
out im like yeah, that works, now that youve pointed it out ima consciously play it instead of having it playing me

thats what this draft is for, metaphorical structure, controlling anything thats out there wildchilding, taking control to
another level, which of course opens up more uncontrolled inferences, but on a deeper level - i will take that

mikael pointed out a couple of things i was like o, i firmly believe that so im not surprised thats there

but i didnt consciously put it there - so far its all been stuff i dont mind claiming but its pretty
inevitable that folk who dont love me like my 1st readers do will point out inferences that make

me cringe, such is life in the literary lane, thats why you have 1st readers,
they tell it to you in such a way make it sound like a virtue

they do it with love - makes all the difference in the world

 

 

WEDNESDAY

once again i am consumed with fear, apparently i am just a fearful kind of guy
im about to start what i hope will be the last real push, novel basically works

this time im going for depth & substance, for metaphorical structure & narrative grace
this time i want to go deep & clean up weaknesses, this time i fear i will fail &

deep aint in me - true literary grace has so far eluded me - what i have to do is
divorce myself from the product & trust the process - win or lose ima do this

 

 

TUESDAY

hello world, ive been dug in on the rewrite of mojorising, still on the initial 10 pages, have decided to put it down
and get back to work on next rewrite of rest for the weary, ive been off a week or so, its cold enough

1st thing i have to do is breakdown old draft

i tell my students all the time, a real rewrite is not a nip and tuck, got to break manuscript down and rebuild it
so 1st step will be to read thru it, and break it down -  takes about a day of good hard work,

then i will take care of some business while internal computer playing with it, get started next week, i feel strange not working on it, it tickle me when folk accuse me of being obsessive, of course im obsessive,

it requires an obsessive personality to write a novel amidst the distraction of life

SUNDAY

okay, 10 pages a day was kinda optimistic, i did 10 the 1st day so i thought that was my standard but i didnt
get but about 3 yesterday, if that many - so i will have to see what my standard is, more like 4 i think, after a

week or so of work i will average out my daily count - whats interesting is that Mojo Rising not as bad as i feared
its mostly just wordy, this time im going w/an elliptic approach instead of trying to teach and preach

so many times in old draft i would have one nuggest of authentic spiritual/magical insight then bury it in verbal
pablum - which when you trying to deal with the spirit and illumination et al can get tedious real quick

too often i sound like one of those one uplifting thought a day calendars - which reminds me that the industry
wanted to make it a gift book, market me as a (more) colored depak chopra, i also remember i was tempted

im kinda enjoying the rewrite because now i remember what i was trying to do with that book and
i feel good working on a book again, i dont feel right when im working on short stuff, ima bookman

this article on why gores leadership of green movement has been a failure was provocative,

it basically said because he is the kind of leader who does not practice what he preaches, he lives jetset
but asks 'regular' folk to sacrifice and live lives of reduced consumption while he doing conspicuous

folk who wouldnt generate his own annual carbon footprint in their lifespan, article says gore has a bigger carbon
footprint than entire villages in the thirdworld and that there are certain hypocrisies that leaders cant do

i have always been aware that as a writer i have more personal life leeway than say a preacher or a politician
if it became public knowledge  that i smoked marijuana (theoretically of course) it would not be fatal

but if i was to say do an ad for walmart i would lose points - rickydoc flowers buys his ink at walmart, so
should you  -  i remember babajohn used to tell us a writer should never sell your name, thats all you got

and as you know dear reader i aspire to the prophetic, and it has not been a very sucesssful aspiration
in rest for the weary i speculate that that is the nature of authentic prophecy, which is what i guess this

guy is saying, but ima quote him, cause i assume you dont follow all my links so this one i will give you the moneyshot - its the last paragraph that speaks to me, ima put it on my writing wall, but i want his leadin too

i assume i dont have to literally live in the wilderness but i do have to live a life commensurate w/my values:

====================

"You are asking billions of people, the overwhelming majority of whom lack many of the basic life amenities you take for granted, people who can’t afford Whole Foods environmentalism, to slash their meager living standards.  You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life.  There’s a gospel hymn some people in Tennessee still sing that makes the point:  “You can’t be a beacon if your light don’t shine.”

St. Francis of Assisi understood the point well.  Taken by the Pope on a tour to see the treasures of the Vatican, St. Francis was notably unimpressed.  “Peter can no longer say, ‘silver and gold have I none,’” smiled the Pontiff, referring to the story in the Book of Acts that recounts what St. Peter said to a crippled beggar asking him for alms.

“Neither can he say, ‘rise up and walk.’” replied St. Francis — quoting what St. Peter said as he miraculously cured the beggar of his affliction.

You can sit on ivory chairs with kings in their halls of gold, participating in the world of politics as usual, or you can live with the prophets and visionaries in the wilderness, voices of a greater truth and higher meaning that challenge the smug certainties and false assumptions of the comfortable, business as usual elites.  You cannot do both."

 

burnt out again: im done

SATURDAY

had a meeting a w/film faculty, richard breyer, he disabused me of the notion of learning videochops, he say
the way you do that is collaboration, you dont try to learn the skilz, whatever you come up w/wont be primetime

then he told me i shouldnt be cutting clips like ive been, he looked appalled, he say those belong
to somebody, i told him i thought i had artistic leeway but dont inside i knew i didnt,

so im kinda discouraged about that videowork i was going to do, but thats cool, who got time to learn a
new skill, and ive actually gon thru this before w/the hypertext thing, parker told me then collaborate

richard said he had a brilliant student who might be willing to work with me, he will connect me when im ready
so i put that down, thankfully, and have turned to mojo rising rewrite, finished the piece for callaloo and

feeling good about working on a book again, and its not quite as bad as i felt on first dig, im just holding my nose and microstepping, sentence by sentence, and resisting the urge to do real rewrite, just revise rick

at about 10 pages a day should take me about 20 days to get thru this, then pick up Rest fresh and im rolling again

with a new product - sound good to me - im out

 

FRIDAY

apparently senegals 85 year old president tried to pull a mugabe, - change constitution so he could run again
& setup a new position, vice president, for his unpopular son so if he died in office his son would take over

apparently senegalese street said no & made it stick, interesting development, once again senegal shows the way
i guess the baby in that notorious african renaissance statue was pointing the way out, get thee hence

(o i just love being a literary wit, in reallife im shy & lowprofile, put a keyboard in my hand i turn into a beast)

THURSDAY: 7:21am: just tried to go into mojo rising to start revising it; damn thing is unreadable and once again i am filled with shame to think that people have read it, i can expect that one day ima feel that way about rest too - ohwell, thats why im rewriting it, i cant promote that other draft w/a straight face (i notice now that its just a draft, i hear you rick)

THURSDAY

so im thinking about doing some videowork, so im trolling youtube for interesting clips, so i
run up on stuff like this that discourage me, how long does it take to get these kind of chops

kinda psychedelic - you seizure folk need to be careful

one of the reasons i want to get video chops is because i have in mind to write a media version of rest
after im done with the print version, tried hypertext when it came out but that internet platform was problematic

also keeping up w/technical innovation but thats not point of moment, point is that e-pads have vitalized
the concept of a media based novel, grounded in text still but enhanced by music and media/graphics

and an interest i have in spatial narrative, how it lays out on the page, i got some ideas

or am i just talking about a kind of graphic novel as film, which doesnt sound that innovative, i hope not - well anyway
i was going to start working my videochops thru performances, dev a videoproject to display while i perform, but ive

gotten started on it last couple of days and i see that it will be both time consuming & a steep learning curve,
but unfortunately i have the creative fire on me, when i throw myself into learning some artform and cursing

the distraction it becomes (because im an obsessive type, cant be a novelist otherwise), but then when i look
back on them (harp, kalimba, hypertext, this blog, etc) turns out they contribute to the total literary entity that i am

o its a twisty web we weave - a luta continua

 

 

WEDNESDAY

provocative latimes article about some independent writer who sold 1 million self published books kindle direct publishing
i think its obligatory reading for writers trying to understand the explosiion of alternative publishing options

i knew nothing of kindle direct publishing, i realize now minister faust used it for his latest novel, alchemists of kush, priced it at $2.99, promoted it heavily (i scooped up a copy, a good deal for $2.99) - now i understand why

basically you get 70% of pricerange $2.99 - $9.99 vs i think it said 3% of mainstream publishing, this guy has sold a million by pricing his at 99 cents, the lowest they will allow, and cleared about $400,000 from it

but if he had sold a million thru mainstream he would have cleared about a million, the big hump with direct
publishing is that you have to do all the promotion and thats more than a notion, basically have to have a

book that has its own legs - ive been planning to rewrite mojo rising in interim between finishing rest and
starting on hoodoo book of flowers, plan to rewrite it (my memoir) every 10 years or so

and i have always thought to selfpublish that one - ive always wanted one book thats mine, all mine
novels you have to have a mainstream house backing you, novels are just too soft on the market,

ishmael set up the model of literary publising activism for my generation
you let the mainstream publish you, you publish other folk

and it behooves us literary folk to be as knowledgeable as possible about publishing options in 21st century

now im thnking how ebooks are riding the future and i should thnk of that delivery platform when i format rewrite of

mojo rising, got this rewrite in mind thats going to reflect how my blog has evolved, ima cut it to the bone
ima work the poetry, its going to be more elliptic - and i need to think ebook & ipad platform delivery

okay, im gone, this post has gotten longer than i like, free associating now, this can go on forever, im out

TUESDAY

awkward little article claiming the west/obama thing reflects tensions between nationalism & assimilation
its probably a little more complex than that, but its nice seeing issues of empowerment strategies in the

21st century being raised, problem is sayng cornel is nationalist and obama assimilationist is kinda reductive
and article makes no effort to understand you cant have one w/o the other, we have to work with both hands

also interesting time mag article on how conservative defund gov policies have lost touch with reality
this is a beef of mine, all the pain being inflicted on the body politic is a conscious strategy by repubs

to cripple american government to point, as tax activist norquist once said, where you can drown it in a bathtub
whats the difference between what defund gov repubs want and what al qaeda wants, both want to cripple america

MONDAY

well its gone, i recall when i was a young wannabe and the psychological blocks that keep folk from doing what
they got to do to win, and i recall one for me was when i realized i was good at this and would likely win

and i realized that everybody in the world would know my business, be all up in my psyche and judging me
and i almost turned away from the literary life, thats a little what im feeling now, all folk got to do is read

a couple pages of this novel and they will know all my business, ohwell, only have to endure it
for another 20 years or so and then i will be gone, then i wont care, whereas novel is forever

SUNDAY: 8:07pm:

im done, just sent it off, whats tripping me now is what am i trying to say w/this novel, ohwell, ima put it out
my mind, 1st week in july ima break it down & start rebuilding it, hopefully w/editorial input - im done

 

im willing to bet that death is a struggle too

SATURDAY

okay, finished my draft, will use weekend to play with it, send it on off monday
have been caught up in some projects, doing a piece on palf ghana trip for callaloo

and was recently taught how to extract clips from dvds, youtube, et al, this has opened up
entirely new creative juices, been wanting to do some mediaworks, my voice, music, video

so, seem to be caught up in it, downloading clips, considering music, text, also supposed to
be doing a presentation for multiculti studentgroup at oswego, plan to step up my game and

add media component working toward theater evening like sekou used to do, have always wanted
to do that, so now i been going thru youtube and elsewhere building up an image/clip collection

so i went on youtube looking for mlk and civilrights clips and i found this, this gives me all kinds
of ideas, for use in video collages and also in my performances im doing for promiseland, i wish

i had seen this before i wrote promiseland but such is life in the literary lane, the tech here was
interesting too, i hate learning a new genre, i hate the stumbly fumbly stage, but such is the literary life

 

 

 

 

FRIDAY

feeling reflective today, novel coming along, endgame, last 7 pages or so, have slowed to a crawl but thats to be
expected, its the endgame require the most devoted attention, probably hit it again in the next couple of days

been thinking about blogging, because im not in a current events state of mind and so totally
invested in my novel thats mostly all i have to talk about, and it feels so narcissistic sometime

i try to pull back but its like ive become addicted to talking out my struggle here
i try to tell myself im different from the conventional internet gazer because im literary

and im very concscious of making sure my posts have literary value
strategically addressing future generations

and im very conscious this is delusional if my work does not gain me more attention than i have currently
im betting this novel will be a big success (on some levels) & that my projected holybook will be the real thing

and that scholars (and civilians) of the future will dig into archives like this and extract their versions of me

o i know ima bigtime dreamer, and i got no problems with that, nor the cost of being a visionary
im good at this, i know im good at this, rest of you wont know until the genarations make their call

so no sense in me feeling put out that folk dont see what i see - whole point is i got vision

and i really enjoy having rootsblog as a space where i can talk about whats real to me

so i need to stop whining about this and that and just keep on posting, true voice, enjoy yourself rick
i was going to save this groove piece for my victory post, but im feeling the power now

finishing a decades long novel project will do that to you, as is finally being pleased w/what you got

 if that aint a groove what is - make my funk the p-funk

 

 

THURSDAY

 

its kinda amazing, 1st day of my 5 day push and the novel is much better than it was yesterday
its been a grind but damn i love seeing my novel grow, get better, its amazing, you put the hours in

you see the product grow, it works every time, ima read my feedback at some point, i can handle it now
thats an old draft now, some passages that might have to go ima leave in till i hear from an editor

im gone, i got a lotta work to do and only 5 days to do it in, i gotta focus, this woodshed will be
over before you know it, one month down, two to go, at the end of this process i need to feel

good about what i did, so far i feel really good, but already i can hear that clock ticking, tick tock - gotta go

 

 

WEDNESDAY 11:21 am: so i pulled back & started working on endgame revision, which basically is the question
what am i trying to say w/this novel, and whatever it is i want to go deeper than i was - here we go, 5 days of hell

WEDNESDAY 9:22 am

okay, have forged my way up to the last 20 pages or so and the damned thing has collapsed again
im tempted to read my feedback but i am still afraid of confusion, thats going to be for the next rewrite

or will i hang in there for this last 5 days, i told agent i would send by 20th, thought i would be thru today
and was really pleased to have gotten thru so quickly so i could go and collapse somewhere

and i can still be thru today if i stay with the poetry rewrite instead of a real one

but perhaps im just punking out, what i might do is read my feedbacks and struggle w/endgame for next 5 days,
god help me i just want to be thru, and i got all sorts of crises demanding attention, but maybe i got to tough it out

5 more days rick, you can do this, it will be a better novel, you can do this

WEDNESDAY  approx 2 am

im tired, family always in need, just a constant bailout, guess im just fortunate im able, but it can wear you down

and im so tired of this novel i dont know what to do, im about 2/3rds of the way thru and im getting
conflicting feedback on what works and doesnt work, im not going to think about it until i hear

from an editor, im just burnt the fuck out - and so many things in my life have gon into crises mode
while i full court press this novel my gears starting to wear out, im done, rickydoc has got the blues

also im discouraged about the body politic, all these brutal policies these repubs in charge imposing on
healthcare, education, labor, etc and people in general because they claim deficit constraints that they

have consciously forged by starving gov of tax funds and have made the public believe that this has
happened because the gov is too generous to its people and the gov has no role to play (except

when they in need) and its working and will continue to work until obama and the dems forthrightly
declare this will no longer fly, we are not continuing to go down this road - and i fear thats not going to

happen, obama dont roll like that - im tired, old boy got the blues and no option but to keep on trucking

thats life, i would say im ready to check out but im willing to bet that death is a struggle too

this where rickydoc get to be rickydoc

TUESDAY

hard to explain the space im in, the novel is reading fine, its just about putting the hours in now
and i hope to be thru tomorrow sometime, ima send it on off because if i try to hold on till

the 20th i will do another read thru and im thoroughly sick of this novel, ive literally read this
novel thru about a thousand times, and as i read it clean im reminded of all the different ways

ive tried to tell different sections over the years before chosing what i got now, ive got about 10
different versions of every passage in this novel, but i guess whats most wierd about it is that

im almost done with it and will be putting it out there in the world soon, folk will be judging me
already my feedback squad judging me, and i miss the old days when i was the only one judging this work

ohwell, its all process, and way too much thinking, i got to get back to the grind - all my love

 

MONDAY

halfway thru, hanging in there, poetry rewrites are cool
still got to drive yourself but its mature manuscript, makes

all the difference in the world, less wear and tear on the soul
all you have to do is endure, put the hours in, just discipline

 

 

SUNDAY

 
hello world, not really in a posting state of mind, doing a poetry rewrite, slogging along, i kinda like poetry
rewrites, when the text fairly tight and all you doing is working the poetry, when one word, one phrase,

can add layers of meaning to the text - and you cleaning up the muddy passages, making them sharp
problem is that im thoroughly sick of this novel, i dont want to read it, i dont want to think about it,

dont want to work on it, i just want to be done - one more week of focus, rick - you can do this - then im
taking a break, a real break this time, im tired, thought i had enuf energy to knock off another draft but

if i do its just barely - doing a novel rewrite is more than just putting the hours in, in itself a challenge
but you got to have a mental & spiritual toughness to face your vision one more time and struggle

somehow to make it greater

THURSDAY

been reading about china & agribusinesses buying up african farmland,
according to this article the west doing it too, just another african landgrab

with the world divvying up africa again, they got the longgame running on us again,
article say dont you for a minute think they about feeding africa, this all about profit

locking down african farmland leases for hundreds of years and african leaders
once again clueless - this means a future w/more starving africans in it -

de ol hoodooman dont like that at all, how the hell am i going to finesse this

addendum: interesting, bascially what i do these days is work something out here
post a condensed version on facebook, and even more condensed version on twitter

its like an exercise in compaction, essence extraction, but what ive noticed is that im more pc on facebook
here i changed 'how am i going to finesse it' to 'how are we going to finesse it' on facebook

because im more reluctant to expose my true arrogance on facebook, rootsblog
the whole point is me being truly me, the cosmic player i aspire to be

this is where i openly conduct myself as the high hoodoo i envision one day real

this where rickydoc get to be rickydoc

2 questions you have to ask when you want to transform/finesse a social/political/destinic dynamic
1st where is the root, there is always a root that can be worked, maximal impact minimum effort

ie something even you can implement, and i believe the root here is working thru un efforts to ban this practice
the 2nd question you have to ask is how important is it to me, am i willing to do what i have to do to affect this

in this case am i willing to do the research, am i wiling to invest the time and opportunity costs
to identify and attempt to influence the primary players and instutions

and the answer is probably not, i will tell you what needs to be done, but i dont have the time to actually do it

maybe you do, dear regulators, basically my role is to sound the alarm, provide vision & strategic options
cause my primary role is novelist & i consider my novels as impo as any other institution, any other

instrument of social/political/destinic transformation

its got to be really critical for me to come out the armchair for it, right now id say obamas reelection is the

only thing that might get me off the gun, i gotta go, my agent said she wont be getting to the novel till last
week of the month so you know what that mean, another draft, an enrichment draft, a work the poetry draft,

a clean up muddy narrative draft, a 2 week investment toward a much cleaner novel

when i told bonnie i was going to hit this novel again in this two week window she was like you must be kidding

you just passed out on it, when do you rest - & i was like ive been here before, you got time to hit the
product one more time before its a done deal and you tired and you burntout on it & you say ima pass

but ive always regretted it when the novel came out and i hadnt take that one last opp to make it better

ima keep hitting this sucker till they tell me i cant hit it no more, cause its typeset and ready to go

im gone, this post has gone on too long, when i get a minute ima have to go back in & cut it down to the essence

work the poetry - like im about to do on this novel

im out

 

 

WEDNESDAY

promiseland just chosen 10 best ya nonfiction by pennslyvania library school association,
interesting how that book has landed between adult and ya - i wrote it adult but if i

had known how strong the ya market is id probably handled it differently,
best i didnt know i guess, best i please who i please doing what i do -

like rickynelson say in garden party about being an artist - cant please everyone,

got to please yourself