FINDING HAPPINESS WITH PHILIP ROTH

 Hello. It's been more than a year since last I made an entry here. The  supposedly aggressive prostate cancer is still under control it seems. I'm still alive, entering my 7th year with it. Working at rewriting the short stories I wrote several years back. They entered my room all in a rush and needed haircuts. They are experiencing homelessness, and that means they are homeless however you slice it. My poems are better at finding homes than my stories, and that's a shame, but young editors aren't looking for older writers with the sensibilities of white European writers. They crave work by those who have been shut out for centuries. Not fair, but since when has any literary period been fair to those whose style isn't sought for? I fear I'm truly out of date, but that makes it harder on my old homeless stories. Old stories don't do well on the streets. 

 

Hey, I just stood up to stretch my legs and found a biography of Philip Roth by Blake Bailey. One of my all time favorite authors. If you haven't read American Pastoral, you've missed one of the best books about the 60s ever written. I hope his bio's not too definitive. I like a smooth read.

NORTH DAKOTA QUARTERLY SHOWS GREAT TASTE

There I was yesterday, pretty discouraged about having the energy to keep rewriting Ghoul World, and I go home to discover that North Dakota State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About) has found one of my poems, IN A MODERN LIBRARY, entertaining enough to put in their literary magazine. Good for them. I've always liked that poem myself. Seventeen rejections before it found a home. You know? If you don't have a big name reputation, then you experience a lot of rejection before something hits. It's just the way it is. I keep joking with Mertie that Ghoul World will hit and movie royalties come pouring in after I'm dead.

I mean, the novel includes a future Earth, a plague, a mystery, a private investigator, corporate greed, a poison vagina (my wife giggles at the thought of it), automatons, Neanderthals (what?), necessary and acceptable cannibalism (can't be helped), good aliens, space travel, global travel and a perfectly designed planet for a great environment (Alteregoia). What's not to like? It's well written too with a minimum of misspellings and grammatical errors. It just takes an agent with a large enough imagination to take it in.

MAILER AND ME AT AGE 84

Still working on the rewrite of Ghoul World. But I'm not
making much headway. Too many days, I get this sort of headache from sinus problems that blocks any clarity, and nearing the end of my life, I need clarity to go on. I don't really know what mentality it is that holds me back now or won't supply an adequate motivation to continue. I recall a visit to Mailer that someone made near the end of his life. The caller asked if he was working on anything. Mailer halfheartedly replied, "Yeah," but I didn't believe him. 

This photo is of Mailer at age 84, the same age I am as I write this. He's got more hair than me and more best sellers too, but I think I'm still handsomer and looking more fit than he does. Of course, I don't think he stopped drinking. I'm not sure of that, but not boozing can works wonders on your health.

GHOUL WORLD, GHOUL WORLD, GHOUL WORLD

Me behind reflections on my glasses with crooked smile as I begin the unknown number of another rewrite of my science fiction novel Ghoul World. You know? I believe in this novel. I knew it was a good idea when it first struck me in the head a decade or so back. Agents are dumb things, looking for I don't know what, but they are sure missing a good book with a potential to be turned into a sci-fi movie.
 

TOO MUCH TOO LATE

When I look at authors who seem to have some sense of themselves in the world, I realize that a blog is not enough. They have web presences that appear very professional. They list all the work they have done and all the honors, and they work hard at making themselves look very professional. I have some of those and I could push a few to make them more important than they are. I could see my way to doing it, but at my age with the prostate cancer dogging me, I tell myself, "It's a little too late, isn't it?" Now I'm feeling a bit sad for myself.

A DIRTY MIND

It's been months since I last checked in. My genetic clock still ticks down, and I continue to send out work for consideration after doing a tuck here and there. I've been concentrating more on fiction and less on poetry even though poetry continues to be my strongest suit, according to the editors at the helm of literary magazines. I fear my age is reflected in the short stories, and I think young editors fail to realize there might be a market among seniors for stories based in the not to distant past.  

A surprise arrived in the mail, a royalty check, pictured above, from my publisher, AuthorHouse. Someone bought a poetry book or two from them. Thank you, my anonymous supporter(s). I hope one of the books, Gray House By Cold Mountain, did not shock and/or the other one based on my MFA thesis, Tenderfoot, demonstrated what I am capable of in a more serious mood. I believe in the first book as it demonstrates more authenticity than the second. Yes, I have a dirty mind as do the minds of most serious writers. 

WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU'RE DYING

Squinting, the balding author demonstrates a recent literary magazine his poetry appears in, a magazine that paid him 30 bucks for his three poems. Also, continuing a streak that began late last year, a poem in the 8 line lüshi format has been accepted by Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine. 

 

Today, I'll continue to rewrite and submit rejected poems, and I may put a chapbook of 30 lüshi together and submit it to contests along with a recent chapbook of cancer poems I'm submitting called What You Think About When You're Dying. 

 

Odd thing about the cancer chapbook. I began writing it almost as soon as my prostate cancer was diagnosed. At the time, I didn't know it would be fatal. Thus, much of the poetry is rather lighthearted. I seem unable to write a poem that includes the frightful sense I'm actually dying of prostate cancer. I guess I'm going to go "gentle into that good night" rather than "burn and rave at close of day: Rage, rage against the dying of the light" as Dylan Thomas suggests. Odd too... I have sometime thought of my father as being too passive in his life. Now it turns out I'm also rather passive in death.