rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

god help us all

WEDNESDAY

i am so underwater, i got 4 manuscripts need reading in the next two weeks
reading, critiquing and conferencing, all of them challenging works, in addition

to basic schoolhouse: committeemeetings, student conferences, about 40 advisees
for next semester, cattlekilling lessonplan, still behind from app process w/studentstuff

and i got this young brother in my undergrad workshop, got potential but he bullshitting and halfstepping
and i got to make that clear to him, got to try, it hurt me to see black students w/potential halfstepping

in my heart it hurt me

boy not doing what he has to do to win, drifting, ima have to pimp slap him - not looking
forward to it, dont have time to be tryiing to wake up a young knucklehead

but all that is basics, its these 4 mansucripts in 2 weeks thats killing me

so i was feeling a little panicky right and i put the novel down to focus on getting thru this hump
and then im thinking, reading the 1st manuscript, that if i put my work down and let it get cold

i am going to feel really really bad, so then i think i just got to pace myself, i got to pace myself
im still going to stay on a morning my novel, afternoon/evening everything else schedule

so yesterday i sat down to clock my 3 hours, though it was about 6 pm before i got my discipline on
and it was wonderful, cleaned up one of the about 9 holes in the text, made it clean text

got up this morning been working on the next one, cleaned it up too (still cleaning, still got
about two hours left for todays session) and it never fails to amaze me, you put the hours in

and the work gets done

when i looked at that manuscript yesterday it was just a mess of bad and i feared it would always be
but then steeled myself, i dug in and worked on it and inch by inch it became viable, amazes me every time

im gone, two hours of work left in my morning 3, pages need clocking, otherwise i submit to despair
the time i used to write this i could have used cleaning up my passage, im not quite sure why i accept

that tradeoff but my creative impulse says blog so i do, my numbers have never been big
sometimes i feel like this is just a dialogue w/myself cause i dont think i got significant readership

but what readership i do have (thats you dear regulators) i consider cream of the crop, by definition
folk who vibrate on the same elevated plane that i do, my readership, god knows i love you

i empower you, you empower me

i call myself chronicling my struggle w/the page/my vision for future generations - and modeling
the literary life and book production for folk who want in the game - just do what i do

all my love

 

 

MONDAY

i am so far behind, easy enuf to declare ima squeeze more woodshed days in
but now that its come time to pay the dues im dismayed how far behind i am

old boy aint gon get too much sleep this week, maybe this month because
i still got to maintain novel discpline - best i quit whining and get busy

that damned draft loss happened again and i think i figured it out, i just had
computer rebuilt to latest os and they put newest version of dropbox and it

seems to be designed where you can only work on your documents in dropbox
otherwise you get what i got, wierdness, spent weekend rebuilding novel again

happened last week, a week of work disappeared, had to rebuild right away, otherwise its gone and you
discouraged - i was perplexed how i could not have saved a weeks work of hard work, then it happen again

this time w/two weeks of woodshed work disappearing, luckily i had printed out a hardcopy - old habit
obviously dropbox setting up so so you have to work thru them and nowhere else, that offends me

i deleted that shit w/the quickness, how dare they hijack my work like that
my butchered manuscript was a mess, how dare they do that to me, force

me to work online instead of on my computer, ohwell, im gone
got pages to clock, manuscripts to critique - wont be able to work

now, got class at 1230, hopefully can clock 3 this evening
spent the woodshed basically running in place - fucking dropbox

i got to get some forward motion again, cant afford to put it down
schoolhouse and my novel, got to do them both, full court press

maintain rick, maintain
 

 

THURSDAY

found this exquisite website for folk interested in sacred literature, folk such as myself
what w/my interest in writing an african american holybook - the hoodoo book of flowers

sacred-texts.com, 17000 texts from around the world scanned and available for reading online

of course their african & african american selections are laughable, folklore mostly
no ifa corpus, no mumbo jumbo, no et al, i could name about 10 afroam spiritual

works offhand that arent included, copyright issues maybe, giving them benefit of doubt
but still an amazing respository of sacred works

17000 - god help me how will i ever get thru them all (worry not, i have a plan, im just going to read
the ones i need to read and the others i will just read about therm - also they got ebooks of most of
them on kindle for like 2 dollar, ive downloaded about 20 into my iphone already, im so excited)

printing out latest draft of novel today, will try to redpen as much as poss in next 3 days
then its back to the schoolhouse, behind because i gave it all to my novel

but such is life in the litrerary lane, a wwek of nothing but novel, what is there not to love

back in the game

TUESDAY

2 days now i been fighting off the blues, i look at all the holes i have in this novel
the passages that dont quite yet say what i want them to say, the shallow and the

pretentious wordage, lacking in all true literary heart, and im thinking 20 years i been working on this novel, i
am just this side of despair - just this side of saying fuck it, ima just live out the rest of my life like a civilian

but i know i got to just suck it up and keep on clocking pages, weak though they be
picked up the literary life at 23 im now 63, thats 40 years i been living this dream & if i

dont win ima die surprised - once read somewhere that working artists are folk who
are capable of living with a level of anxiety and instabliity that would cripple others

of turning it, i might add, into power, into product

other reeason i got a taste of the blues im shamed to tell you
my boy george saunders just won the inaugural folio award

what used to be the booker, geo and i came to the cuse together
1996 i believe it was, about the same literary stature

geo has in the interim become one of the literary voices of our age
a cultural force in his own lifetime - he living the dream, im still plugging away

on this novel nobody wants, i fear sometime that i have plateaued out
that my best is already behind me, i have enjoyed just being close

to literary fame, riding georges long & comfortable coattails w/the rest of my colleagues
he very gracious about it, been handling it all w/style and grace, class act

honored to be his lit running buddy, proud to be his friend & part of his team, but it would
be nice to get my novel published so i dont feel ilke dead weight, sometimes im aware that

if i wasnt here at the cuse & in the middle of the literary fast lane the pressure
would not be 24/7 to achieve - but i appreciate the impetus to keep grinding

and the cuse mob for keeping me in the game, keeping me in a growth pattern

geo probably the closest literary buddy i got left, most the others dead and gone
been nice seeing him living the dream - see that its still possible, and fitting

he a hard worker and a true voice, boy all heart, cant think of anybody deserve it more

im reminded of what asihah rahman told me so long ago, when i told her i wanted to be the
greatest novelist ever lived and she say no art, you want to sing your song the best you can

that way you can appreciate other folk singing theirs - sing on george, do it dawg

i love the literary life, with a passion i cannot possibly convey - its been magical, all i
could have ever dreamed it would be - i love my projects, my voice, my game

and george - more than enuf to be able to treasure his victories as my own

i been truly blessed - and the best is yet to come

im gone, i got pages need clocking

all my love

 

MONDAY

i am stone kicking it, clocking pages, spring break miniwoodshed, bring it on
only thing is im more filling in major holes than i am moving thru the draft

which entail floating all around the manusript, i try to get my students to do their
novels as one manuscript, one text, instead of the seperate docs their shortstory

trained minds are comfortable with, i tell them its akward manipulating an entire text
at first but over the years you learn how to dance with it, and if you dont do full text

you basically got a collection of shorts, ohwell, enuf pontificating, i got to go, got pages
need clocking - i kinda like the toughness of that grind bit, no days off indeed, but as you

know dear regulators, rickydoc dont play that, i do believe how you feel got nothing to do
with getting your work done - feel good, work, feel bad, work too - but i do believe in scheduled

R&R as part of a good work schedule, i sch 2 days a week off because if i dont schedule them
i will do it anyway and feel bad about it, long as its scheduled im still game on

 

 

 

SATURDAY

man, you talking about been out of the game
first it was the apps process, finally done

we got a good crew, we will see who accepts

now im dug in on that novel revision, trying to make it coherent
my plan is to get two quick revisions in during the semester

one a month -  one over next two months would be more reasonable
but reasonable just dont get you to the promiseland in this business

had a disaster today, some how or the other i didnt save a whole week worth of work
a week, i have figured out so much this last week that i been back on the gun

was thinking about wonderful it is, you staring at a brick wall and nothing is clear
but you sit there and you put the hours in and little by little it becomes clear

inch by inch and step by step it becomes clear, i had many moments of clarity this week
pushed the wrong button and poof, they disappeared - calamity, but no sweat, its happened

before, what you have to do is dive right back in and rewrite the lost scenes immediately
while you still remember the logic of them, might not be the same words, but you remember

the questions that got answered, so thats what im doing now and im aabout halfway thru
the recovery, can finish today and segue into clocking some pages, im on springbreak, bonnie went

to dc for parents and rickydoc is cutting loose, clocking pages 24/7

i like what im coming up with, its just so skeletal but its all process, i just

got to put the hours in, clock the pages - which is why i havent been doing it here, doing this draft
1st person its basically the same voice i use here in a fictional mode, but its burning off all my blog

energy, ima try to stay in the game but truth be told im underwater

come summer i want to go into the woodshed with a viable product,
that mean i got to throwdown now  -  i need to make this new text

viable w/the quickness, otherwise ima submit to the whats the point blues

all my love

rdoc