FRI 10:38 PM
had fantasy of clocking pages & pages of raw text
instead averaging a hard fought paragraph a day
WED 7:40 AM (done deal)
finished structural read thru and noted passages
that need attn, will spend rest of week generating
new passages so i have tiime to polish then while
diong the final read thru
WED 12:40 AM (85 OF 103)
slogging thru narr mud, standards deteriorating
MON 11:47 AM (71 of 103)
take a break, do some raw text / more pgs?
MON 10:29 AM (60 of 100)
have been ready to work for hours
and just did not want to get out of bed
iits a breezy chilly day with a bit of moisture
in the air and i like to let it blow in the
window while i burrow under covers & read
so thats what ive done all morning
while the clock goes tick tock
was just thinking while deciding what graphic
to use i need to get busy and make rootwork.com
real, use 1st two beats of each movement, enuf
to drop enuf knowledge to be a tease
set it up to promote HBOF, then hire
somebody to pimp it out
schedule that for when i finish this draft
and send off to ellen
or when i finish draft of memoir most likelly
also use that process to move
on my hoodoo almanac 2021
okay rick, showtime, stopped on an
easy passage so as to facilitate lift off
no more stalling, lets do it . . . showtime
the problem now is that i want to enrich these
passages but then i will slow down to a page
or so a day, this is the structural revision, broad
strokes, just clean up, be able to read thru w/o
flinching, focus rick, next draft for enrichment
but you have to fix structural to get to grace
saw disneys soul yesterday, i enjoyed it
immensely, life and death and handling
souls and accepting graduation, damn
that was some fine storytelling jazz
SUN 7:33 PM (PG 60 OF 100)
stopped on easy beat to start with
SUN 12:52 PM (PG 55 OF 100)
dizzy tired, nap time, collapse time
SUN 10:38 PM (PG 52 OF 100)
got todays 10 but still 4 down from yesterday,
SUN 8:55 AM (PG 42 OF 100)
6 measely pages, rough patches hindered me
SAT 11:02 AM (pg 36 of 100)
wrote this raw passage this morning / last night / ?
im going thru text now, reading what i have
and making structural / para enrichments
did avg 15 pages a day for 2 days but
earlier always easier than later when
you got more balls in the air
i work 11 pt single space
got 100 pages of text
10 pages a day is 10 days
on page 36 today, need to get
to 46 pages to call it a good day
when i get my daily 10 or more done
i work on generating raw text regarding
this temporal displacement thread that will
also provide a narrative road map for reader
doing raw manuscript early in process so
i have time to clean it up over month or so
thing about raw manuscript got to hold your
nose & just do it, came up w/this yesterday
------------
You settle down in your throne and center yourself then you reach for eternity, erasure of the borders between the past present and the future,, in order to be a viable visionary you attempt to live out of time, out of the constraints of reality in a mythic time that encompasses the past, the present and the future, with all your power you try to lay your hands upon eternity and sometimes at the river, past present and future threads comingling as they please you feel that encompassing sense of eternity that you seek. A tug drifts through your consciousness,, appearing downriver and churning its way up with a majestic grace that appears its not moving, like it’s the world moving around it instead as you watch it disappear from your sight upriver. A 1st it scared you, those discombobulating glimpses of eternity, now you ride the paths like the navigator you are, shaping eternity to your liking. You want to experience this in the world, not just as the river, or when you sitting on your porch playing mi mbira for Divinity.
---------------------
okay embarrassingly raw and in need of
sufficient dramatization but you see what
im aiming for, ima grapple w/it but right
now i got to throw down on my daily grind
46 pages here i come
rdoc
xmas 10:04 am, back in thhe saddle
got thrown off my game, trying to title, novel came to a dead stop
so ive decided ive done what ima do for the industry, HBOF came
to life for me when i stopped trying to please the industry and thought
only of my dialogue with the generations and afrospoiritual literarure
im 70 years old and its been 20 years of no respect - fuck em at this
point, fuck everybody, ima write the novel i want to write and let the
generations decide
so i resolved to just keep stepping with intent of pleasing only myself
as the artist in dialogue with the generations and my literary tradition
and ive articulated what im trying to do
w/the fragmented temporal displacements:
trying to erase the boundaries between the past the present
and the future in order to grasp eternity in the moment / text
this comes from a meditational discipline, when im doing historical and
destinical beats im trying to live in a mythical reality that encompasses
all creation, this is where i create visionary work and it is difficult to
surmount the limitations of existence - i work hard at it - or something
i need to sit down and work this out and see how it affect the text
sat down a minute ago and started grappling with the page and it was
minuscule progress but it was progress and i realize once again - put
the hours in you get the product, im gone, so much work to do . . .
xmas 1:20 am
so im dug into the novel, was gon do a nip and tuck
cause i tolld agent january 1st, but she had asked me
to put titles when ii switched times as i do thruout
text so i tried it and it ruiint mmy vibe and i realized
its because of my attempt to grasp eternity by
erasing the boorders between the past present
and future, told her i was not gon do titles and in
trying to articulate why i laid out my struggles to
live in the eternal as a visionary artist i got to
encompass past present and future in the
momment, my definition of eterniity
told hher its not a flaw, that ive worked
hard at achieving temporal displacement
and told her hopw origiinal narr strategy
i wanted to reasch closure para beats where
past present annd future thread conmingle but
seem to have decided it was a bridge too far
but now i see the scenes where that would
fit and ellken said take your time, do it right and
that settled me,, forget that end of year nip and
tuck deadlines and ive done what i could of what
ellen asked for and i have to do it like i did hbof
where i finallty put the industry out of my head
and dealt obly with what i want to say to the
generations
i goot to go, so much work to do
so little tiime
one thing ive changed my tone
started this book 20, 30 years ago
40s and in my prime, the tone was
triummphant, now im a 70 year old
man, tired and weary, humbled by
life, im telling it differently
---------------
I am Flowers of the Delta Clan Flowers and the line of O. Killens. And now I must rest. Those words have cost me. Every word does these days. I must ration them. I shift about for an elusive comfort in my well cushioned chair and draw my comforter close before I continue, Before I try to tame the trembling in fingers that once harbored unimaginable power in order that I be allowed this one last work, this one last masterpiece, this one last conceit from when I was a man of much power. Ah, you should have seen me in my prime. Once I could command the stage, striding it like a caged lion, tail a twitch, mane inflamed, I recall the time I leaped off the stage in full roar, landed on the back of a chair in the front row, it tilted over and I lept to the next row, that chair tilted and I rode it to the ground, still shaking my long tailed rattle. Now the only thing Ima do with a chair on my stage is sit on it.
One more campaign. By God and all that’s holy this one last story, one Ive told many times, in many ways, the only one Ive ever told actually but this time I think I got it right. Or not. Either way I don’t believe I will, get another shot at telling it right. This one I have to give my all.
Every epic takes years to tell and its always an ongoing bargain with God, one more year, God, or 10, let me finish this one and we will see whats what. The closer you get to actually pulling it off the more you fear being taken in the telling. My boy Solibo Magnificent died midstride, throat snickt by the word. Beyond these walls a plague stalks my kind and I am desperate to be done before I too am taken.
Once read that a griot is judged by their worst while alive, their best when they are dead. This is the one, the one I can live with, the one I can die on. Listen. There is a dream I had just the other day, a storyteller much like myself, standing in a field of stars and macking himself into existence, macking with the desperation of a shark swimming to live, each word thrown at the void forging the world as he would have it be and when he is strong the world becomes, as does he, real in the world, and when he is weak and backed up against the wall the world he sees fades away, as does he, and then I wake up, stumbling to the sacred desk to fiend the work until I collapse again in fevered dreams, I am in the zone, don’t want to eat or sleep, I just want to get my work done, this my last effort must be my greatest. In the name of the Conqueror. So. Let me settle myself, gather my strength, let me try that again:
I am Flowers of the Delta Clan Flowers and the line of O. Killens. I am hoodoo, I am griot, I am a man of power. I am mythmaker. Attend me, Lord Legba. It is I, Rickydoc Sunstrider, the High Hoodoo of Memphis, would tell the tale of a people, a prophet, a way. In the name of the Conqueror, let this work be done:
Better. Much better. I am known by many names. In the Delta I am known by the horses I choose and it is altogether fitting that in Memphis a conjuror awaits on the bank of Oshuns oldest water. I regret what must be done. It is not easy to be a Horse of the Conqueror. First you must be broken:
------------------
rough but you get the idea
before it was just the i am floowers demigod beat
an old griotic formula, establish who you are, who
were trained by, but the tone was more trumphant
now i feel like ptah hotep, im old and tired and
weary but i got one more good campaign in me
im gone, enjoy the virtual
holiday, i set up a clan flowers
zoom, brave new world
all my love
rdoc
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