THUR 8/9 12:32 am
hello world, been a while i guess, damn near 2 weeks
i have been seriously in the zone, crunching pages
i justify the time i spend here talking about process
which is a large part of my life, by telling myself im
giving folk insight into the creative process
i got a lot of observations about latest developments
but ima try to keep this tight as possible
what ive done is ive isolated jubilations threads
the visions/stories are fine, its the primary thread
that needs to be done over and over so i isolated
the passages i needed to enrich and its about 100
pages and ive been doing them over and over,
takes about a week per draft, riffing whenever i can
amazing how after diong this for like 50 years
running workshops for 40 and teaching mfa for 20
im still learning new tricks, production & craft
i had a lot more to say but im feeling fidgety
i believe i need to get back to work
ran up on two works today, a prophets manual
and prophet arise, by some dude eckhart or
something like that and its pop prophecy but
its going to put prophecy riffs on my mind
wihch is a major part of jubilations trip
interesting how the world gives you what
you need when you need it when you let
the creative process have its way w/you
which basically entails putting the hours in
even when you are totally lost, as i am now
all my love
rdoc
SAT 7/28 6:09 am
so im sitting there working my text and im suddenly
assailed with this tsunami of anxiety about putting
such a relentlessly personal document out in the public
i feel like to make this work i got to pour my heart and
soul into it, demons, flaws and all, and just hope folk
find value in it but i am not looking forward to that gaze
/judgment
SAT 7/28 3:31am
writing is so hard, im in the zone and happy
about it, the zone is where you get serious work
done, where everyday is just a struggle to get
as many hours as you can in, and you work till
you collapse, toss and turn w/scenes and chars
talkiing to you, telling you where to go, what to do
with the text and you get up and stumble to the
computer, dont want to eat/do nothing but crunch
those pages but im eating weird, (today was grits,
watermelon & warmed over pizza), consuming sacred
intoxicants & sleeping weird if at all, not controlling my
diabetes, and basically driving myself into breakdown
like that scene in amadeus where he works himself
to death, in the zone, creating and willilng to
pay any cost and the novel is taking shape
on an unprecedented level, working the
primary character most, my sorceror who
aspires to be a prophet and i needed a whole
new narrative tech to achieve that, this awkward
flash fictional block tech that deconstucts as we
move to closure and i dont even know what
deccnstruction means but i use it for how the
separate narr thrads will lose integrity and begin
to bleed into each other in a narrative weave that
folds time and place, or something like that, which
should work due to my flash fictional block format
(god i wish i wasnt such a styliist, the literary world
does not feel me, fuck them all, i will show them all . .)
problem is every scene, every word, line, paragraph
every beat, i do it maybe 20 ways before i settle on
one and start polishing it up, literally, about 20 drafts
to get to one that works for me, constantly having to
decide which of infinite choices to work here, how each
little self contained para fits into the puzzle, and constant
worry that my craft is inadequate, that whatever chops i had
i have lost, that i have been delusional to think i ever had a
shot at being a great writer, not just a writer, a great writer,
im in the zone, my brain is tired, my soul is tired, im weary . . .but
i am not wiling to accept anything less than literary greatness
swear before god and all thats holy im not
whatever dues required i will gladly pay
thankful for the opportunity to do so
i need to go, i need to be crunching pages
instead of writing about crunching pages
all my love
rdoc
MON 6/23 9:13 pm
hello world, dug in on novel, wading thru the mud
but still wading, but you know whats growing is my
mbirawork, preparing for the melbourne gig and
thats when i grow when i dig in preparing for a gig
trying to get new stuff to work and just yesterday
i discovered a new lick, apparently i work with/an
alternatiing hand tech and just yesterday i triied
to more consiciously coordinate chords and it was
a wonderful effect that adds to my reportoire
i have this vision of one day holding an audience
in rapt awe while i play music for them and ima
just let myself go at some point or two in this
performance, the melbourne concert
i see they have me hitting twice, once
martin luther king and the other brer rabbit
instead of giving a historical overview of king
as the book does, ima riff on what king means
to us in the age of trump, all hands on deck
and ima talk about being an artist in the age
while laying down what im callilng sacred blues
im good enuf now that whatever i do its gon work
but i wish to god i was beettrer and i will be in the
month of rehearsal and prep, i gotta go, i need
to be clocking pages, all my love
rdoc
all my love
THUR 7/19 8:19 am
so im dug in, spinning my wheels
struggling w/the page and grinding
thru epic frustration but para by para
im forging my narrative and it feel glacial
but you put the hours in, you get product
generating a lot of raw manuscript
so its still not good product but if
its a stage i got to go thru to get
to good product so be it,
glad trump exposed his russia position
wont affect his base but it will peel folk
off for november, ima stay on it, fullcourt
activism/electoral politic, but i refuse to let
trump consume me, ima stay focused on
my work/longgame, my
corrective to the crazy
that photo thats papa joe, aka
papa gede nibo bey la kwa in front
of his praise house down there
on rabbit trail road, s carolina
gotta go, got pages need clocking,
let me take a moment to express
my appreciation you still with me,
i wont let you down . . .
all my love,
rdoc
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