next book?

i’ve been considering my next project. my next book. i’m excited to say i unearthed a treasure of archive material on my drive, files some of which i previously had trouble converting, hundreds of pages of autobiographical material dating back to my twenties and early thirties, and all the adventures i had. life was going off the rails but it sure was entertaining. lots of stories and characters i otherwise would have forgotten. i’m excited to either remix it into fiction or semi-fiction. i could publish it as straight autobiography but it’s so much fun stirring it up and remixing. this has become my niche period, 1990-2010, and i hope to approach it from a completely different space.

true.three

I like anyone am visited by self doubt when basic elements transition. In the past six months my treasured routines were threatened. I was displaced from both home and office. The faces around me were new. The structures and locations. The disorganization. The reorganization. I turned to prayer and my people for help. I asked questions. I felt at times I was doomed! Thankfully, fears and feelings are not facts. Now some spirit returns. My practices I have fought so hard to build and keep are ready and waiting to be employed. I have proven myself capable once again. I need only follow my heart back to the book I am writing.

w(h)ip

Dead of winter
starry night
Fearful cold
bluish light

i find myself alone
again

after dinner thin
mint the charleston
a dance

i listen
watching you

see how you falter
fumbling at the altar

locked up inside
alone again

all whatever fabric
falls off

you listen
watching me

just enough time
to wave
goodbye

something quite amazing
will happen when

we leave
the body
behind

writing process

momentum. writing process.

You got the scars and now you’re seeing stars, you have your vision about you, it’s time to write that story and see where it goes, take off all your clothes, undress the wounds. Let them see you. Finally. Picked up the slack and got your pretty self hitting keys with an urgency; that licklack-click-clackallack, riding the train high off your pain, maybe some beats to keep your heartened. What started as a dream became your work in progress.

Now if it’s short blast, high frequency flash, sudden or smoke-long, well, you can pick up anytime and push it out. But if it’s longer form and you have that kinda stamina, well, it’s a momentum game. You will know it when you get there. Another cup of coffee. Don’t forget to sleep. Don’t forget to dream about it when you’re waking. All the time I swear I have it in my head, that WIP. Cause it works itself out, only slowly, with undivided dreaming the plot develops in my emotional darkroom. The container must be sealed, shielded from social media and the drag of everyday life. The fabric stitched together, then torn apart in places and replaced, reconnected to the whole drive, thematic.

The water will be charging you, ionic bond to the vision. Watch out for the dam. When the locks change you may not be able to get back in so easily. Requires extra effort and self-confidence, sometimes. You might break in through a window. Recall must be superb, almost perfect. Next time you get that puppy tail wagging -peeing with unharnessed shaking excitement- take her out to the park and set her free. Stand in the green spring grasses looking over your WIP with pride. Carry the momentum to see your vision through. Let the words take you, and the pain fall, away. By the end? I promise — the vision will carry you.