March 1, 2015
I didn’t ride the bicycle
today, on dentist’s orders, but I did go against his recommendation and had a
can of beer. I finished reading Anatomy
of a Rose up the river yesterday and wrote a rare poem; I haven’t written
too many poems since Han River Poems
was published. I also haven’t written much towards Smoke No Fire recently; indeed, I have been raiding episodes from
it for It Won’t Work. Reestablishing
a friendship with Maureen, if it happens, brings up an awkward situation; her
character is an antagonist. The same is true of Tony, but there is little
chance of his becoming my friend again or reading my fiction in the
semi-autobiographical novel. Maureen, however, might want to read it.
3-10-17
Some of the creative
writing I did in 1979 in San Francisco will be added to
It Won’t Work in chapter four, “San Francisco Fairy Tale.” The ‘House
Crew’ thread will be about Emerson’s work experience. It follows from his Hole
in the Wall experience with the passport forgers, as yet unwritten. Only five
pages of chapter four have been written. The ‘House Crew’ thread is fifteen
pages long!
3-13-17
"The Work Crew"
thread of It Won't Work is thirty-six years old but it fits in
well with the novel to illustrate the San Francisco experience for Emerson
Davinsky. That and the Hole in the Wall Chinese passport forgers and the
bankrupt magical hippie notion of Gail, the misplaced militarism of the gay
community are all short-circuits in the revolution and further evidence
why It Won't Work although Emerson's life itself does have the
"Progressive Movement" it needs to carry him to realization and the
novel to conclusion.
3-14-17
There are another twenty pages in four
manuscripts of text I wrote thirty-six years ago in San Francisco that I can
incorporate into the novel, It Won't Work. I incorporated twelve
pages called "The Work Crew" to the manuscript. I think it is really
reflective of Emerson's education about the value of his labor and bosses.
There are another three manuscripts of about forty pages that can be the basis
of an independent story or, perhaps, be added to Smoke No Fire.
There is one weird manuscript that, anticipating Cats Journey to Taiwan,
is told from a cat's point of view! I would not alter the plots of my current
work to use this old material, but if the semi-autobiographical text fits in,
why not use it?
3-21-17
I took a week off from
creative writing after a flurry of activity the week before, mostly adapting
thirty-six year old manuscripts from San Francisco for It Won't Work.
I would complete the chapter "San Francisco Fairy Tale" with the
irrelevant gay activism Emerson found there, dysfunctional Americans, leading
Emerson to the portal of Chinese culture and wisdom, through Taiwan. Two
guiding quotes; first from Chak Chi-Tat: "Americans are like locusts; they
fly in droves, eat everything in sight, and fly away." The second quote is
from Emerson's mom when he returned to New York to say goodbye: "Crying at
the airport, she hugged Emerson saying, "Please don't come home with a
Chinese wife."
3-23-15
I wrote five pages of text
directly into the It Won't Work manuscript last evening. I combined
the Fingers take-over, the Disneyland derelict, street lamp shoot-out, and the
strung-out chick rape into one thread. I want to add to that the passport
forgers, domestic downstairs violence, Sunset triad, secret service flight
trail, too. It is amazing how much happened in San Francisco in less than two
years of the forty-year span of the novel; I could almost write a separate
novel about San Francisco alone. I will remove the Gail thread and return it
to Smoke No Fire as it has little to push the plot along. When
Emerson goes back to study Mandarin at San Francisco State and spends the last
year in San Francisco with Chak Chi-tat preparing for Taiwan, Asian culture
comes to the rescue again and helps puts Emerson's life in order. If each
chapter is around twenty-five pages long, "San Francisco Fairy Tale"
is almost complete. I want to make it as 'Alice in Wonderland' as it actually
was.
3-27-15
I am on the verge of ‘rounding off’
one complete chapter in It Won’t Work;
“San Francisco Fairy Tale.” It was a pivotal period for Emerson Davinsky that
almost derailed his ambitions to do something for the union which included
socialist Chinese markings.
The chapter “Training in Taiwan” will explain his
detour from China to Taiwan which complicated his ambition with an obstructive
wife. In the novel, the couple has no children over their twenty years of piss;
I’m saving the children for another novel, one day, concerning the protagonist’s
family life. Suffice it to say Xiao-Jiao merely obstructs, not destroys him.
She represents the chicken-shit cowards created by the KMT white terror. She
dies in an earthquake in 1999 and sets Emerson free.
3-29-15
Since I added an element of homosexual comment to coincide with
the Harvey Milk riots, the gay scene in San Francisco, and Emerson's
proletarian heterosexual monogamy, I pinched a thread from Smoke No Fire again (the Arthur proposition) to inform the plot of It Won't Work.
In the apartment on Ocean Avenue rented by Bill, the skittish Vietnam vet in
cold sweat during the blackout riots of 1977, Mark Cohen, the self-centered law
student who shunned Emerson in San Francisco, Arthur completes the group. I may
add the haiku reading with James in the Botanic Garden and t'ai chi with Prof.
Wade to show Emerson's Asian leanings and emphasize his emotional connection to
China through Taiwan.
After lunch, I sat down and watched the "Weather
Underground" documentary I borrowed from the Taichung library. I realized
I had to inform the plot of It Won't Work, circa 1972, to explain the path Emerson took to
unionism and not terrorism. One would wonder why he didn't become a SDS
Weatherman himself or even a Yippie. But he also didn't become a gay activist,
drug-abuser, or religious dropout; I may have to pinch the Hare Krishna Alan
thread from Smoke No Fire, too!
3-31-15
7:02 am Tues. (1)
I read
the 1001 Books to Read before You Die digest on the toilet
almost every day. I've only read a small percentage of the books listed; I've
never been a big reader. In my 'hands-on' life, I always appreciated going out
to play, hang out, smoke weed, play in a band, listen to concerts or music more
than a novel. I have written more poetry than I have read and can remember the
words to none of them. I stopped writing prose when I left San Francisco in 1979
and only took it up again, haltingly, in Brooklyn when Leona and I lived there.
I have written more prose since January 2013 than I have in all my life, a
total of fifteen short stories a novel up to page 230 and a novella stuck at 60
pages. When I see authors in the 1001 Books digest who have written
thousands of pages in dozens of novels, I am impressed. For example, Anthony
Burgess, the man who wrote Clockwork Orange, wrote five novels
in two years! Not that I am not slogging through It Won't Work; to
write it every day would feel like a task; like work. I would rather take my
time and enjoy doing it. However, there is a bit of urgency; I am, after all,
sixty years old. I don't know how much time I have left to write all that is in
my soul to get out on paper. I'll just let it flow. It is not urgent. If I am
to write nothing that will become commercially successful, it is not the end of
the world. I tell myself that all it takes is one successful work and the
public will eat up everything else I've written. I am putting all I've got into It
Won't Work; Life's Progressive Movement. Maybe Burgess had that
motivation after Clockwork. One writer wrote four incomplete novels before his
fifth was accepted for publishing and became a success. You have to write what
you want. At some point, after I finish It Won't Work, I will shop
it around and maybe even find an agent to help me find a buyer.
