Seeds of "Red Room Auditions"

3-25-18 

     I wrote the first two pages of my fourth novel yesterday; a murder mystery, tentatively titled Red Room Murders. I have some trepidation about doing it though. Murder is a negative energy that one doesn't want to create from thin air. Writing a murder mystery must be some cathartic undertaking to remove negative energy. What I was thinking of doing, killing ex-pats that have obstructed my goals in Taiwan, is not a good idea. In fact, my life is better because I have gotten past them to have a nice life with no stress from competition. Why would I want to stick my fingers down my throat and vomit them up? I have already shitted them out; from Deadend Street to Dufus Davis, all flushed down the toilet. But a part of me wants to base a novel on a serial killing of a conspiracy of CIA operatives tying English dialogue in Taiwan to the United States, obstructing independence and re-unification. Maybe I should make the narrator the murderer instead of the detective sent to find him.

     Part of my idea is to use some short stories I've already completed, and modify them to kick-start the novel the same way I used “Tuane Gorgonsen” and “The Camping Trip” to kick-start A Western Metempsychosis. Deadend Street can be the test case for this murderer; an inconsequential foreigner who I can practiced my character's murder technique on. It could sound like Catcher in the Rye with the protagonist trying to save Taiwanese from bad influences. A serial killing from a first person point of view; let's see if the detectives can find him. 

      Nikki French, a husband-wife team, have written dozens of murder mysteries together, one of them is called The Red Room but there is no title Red Room Murders. I base my title on the venue in Taipei, sponsored by a beauty salon that has of its goals making Taiwan palatable for western emigration. The protagonist realizes that his dream of a Chinese-influenced Taiwan is in jeopardy as the United States continues to stuff the island with homesteaders to dilute its Chinese character. I can base the protagonist on G, the neurotic Taiwanese 32-year-old whose goal is immigrating to The United States to better his material prospects. He is privy to the deep secret goal of CIA Americanization of Taiwan, even the avocation of making it a 51^st State. He turns against his dream of having an American wife when he is spurned by American women again and again.

      I know people that are perfect vehicles for a sociopath who can kill and maim. In the end, when they find him, to put the blame on the one who inadvertently motivated him to do so, even send him to prison on sedition charges fighting extradition to the United States as the Chinese try to liberate him. My character can be the innocent victim who tells the story blindly in the first person; the reader will know the twist in the plot when the police come after him and the CIA thinks he's a spy because the victims have all been undercover operatives. They’ll think he's working for the Chinese but it's just mistaken identity and coincidence that the schmucks that obstruct the retired teacher happen to be American spies. But the killer is the nerdy neurotic Taiwanese.

There are a couple of plots that I am considering and Robert  has another: Brooklyn born, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Russian and Yiddish speaker and martial arts trained in the deadly art of Tai Chi Chuan and a special FBI agent, Asher Katz, is ordered to Taiwan by Special Counsel Mueller to investigate Joshua Bolton’s attempt to provoke the USA into war with China, so that Putin’s Russia can pick up the pieces and control Eurasia if not the world. When Katz’s contact with the Russian speaking émigré community, Rabbi Horowitz is assassinated at his side at the Shr Lin night market, he has to go deep undercover. He first contacts his old Kung fu teacher and a Keelung fisher smuggler he knows from the old days. Asher Katz must now turn into assassin to kill Bolton’s man in Taiwan whose soon to provoke the incident that will throw the world in a new holocaust. Just an idea. Be the good guy who offs the bad guy. When I wrote the novel about Vietnam and the guys girl friend getting raped, same problem. Too evil, but that’s what war is. Evil and it’s murder too. Keep me posted.

     I think I will still be the detective sent from San Francisco, “the good guy who offs the bad guy,” as Yenney says, with G and the retired teacher as antagonists.

3-31-18

     While up the river, I wrote two more pages towards chapter one of Red Room Auditions. I borrowed a few paragraphs from "Hung Well's Arcade" describing Chung-Shan North Road in 1978  to add background . While the novel is a murder mystery, I want to use the tactics of Tony Hillerman, using Navajo and Hopi traditions, in exposing the undercurrent of culture of Taiwan. For example, Chapter 2 is tentatively titled "444" meaning the fourth murder on April 4th or some other connection to the superstition of like sounding ‘sze’ for 'die' as well. I will go back and rethink the title of chapter one to reflect the superstitions from China and convoluted loans from infatuation with America that pollute the Taiwanese minds and create monsters like G. I want to show how America and China fucked Taiwan up. Only Japan comes out smelling like a cherry blossom. 

4-1-18

   Also while up the river, I wrote two more pages towards chapter one of Red Room Auditions. I borrowed a few paragraphs from my "Hung Well's Arcade" describing Chung-Shan North Road in 1978 to add color. While the novel is a murder mystery, I want to use for  Taiwan the tactics of Tony Hillerman who, using Navajo and Hopi traditions, exposes the undercurrent of culture. For example, Chapter 2 is tentatively titled "444" meaning the fourth murder on April 4th or some other connection to the superstition of like sounding ‘sze’ for 'die' as well. I will go back and rethink the title of chapter one to reflect the superstitions from China and convoluted loans from infatuation with America that pollute the Taiwanese minds and create monsters. 
4-5-18

     I'm sort of floating with Red Room Auditions though I added another page I wrote a few days ago. I am playing with the idea of multiple narrators and even un-narrated internet dialogue. I use different tenses; present when Nate Fisher is narrating, and past when Martin Freiger is narrating. I plan to add short stories, journal, and articles about Deadend Street, Michael Turd, Dufus Davis, and other expats Martin complains about to Darrow. I can even have Darrow tell what Martin told him in reported speech; post confessionals since he is the murderer convicted and imprisoned at the end. The tie in to Red Room is that all the victims and murderer have been to the venue to participate. 

4-6-18

     I am collecting data for Red Room Auditions and adding them to the broad manuscript to modify and associate into a plot. I've settled on the murder of six expats based on schmucks I've run across in Taiwan. I may change the setting period to modern times from 2000. That would make Nate Fisher 60+ years old if his first contact with Taiwan was as a soldier stationed here in 1978. In that case he would be called out of retirement from the SFPD to solve one more case overseas. I'm also thinking of bringing Nate in after the second murder instead of the third and having the third soon after he gets on the scene; three more before books climax. I added a cool cover picture to the manuscript of velvet red theater curtains dripping blood. I want the Red Room to act as a grotesque cabaret of not-so-talented expat entertainers, singers, comedians, magicians, and poets; each murder following a show the murderer attends or performs at; "For my next trick, Dufus Davis will have vapes shoved down his throat and up his ass." Stuff like that.  Darrow will do Martin's requested bidding as if to win his admiration and to take revenge on Americans for spurning him. 

      I spent a good three hours working on the mystery novel modifying previously written material to get a “head start” on the text. I have twenty pages in chapters one and two seemingly done and another twenty pages of journal and blog material I think I can use in the manuscript I also have pages of text messaging between Darrow and me that I want to modify and incorporate into the novel; the plot being a neurotic Taiwanese youngster that takes it on his own to avenge his older American Facebook friend. I also copied a few news articles about the Taiwanese 18-year-old who was found with an arsenal at the Pennsylvania parochial school his well-intentioned parents dumped him in. This background could be Darrow’s past, part of his resentment and indicative of his state of mind. I also copied the two blog entries about Red Room. I sent the title page, index and first two chapters in a PDF to Robert  just now to see what he thinks. 

4-9-18 

     In Red Room Auditions, I use three different points of view and tenses; Nate Fisher's (present), Martin Freiger’s [*-first mention of Martin’s new last name] (past), and Darrow Kuo's (future). The text dialog between Darrow and Martin varies in tenses. I'm taking Robert's advice to make Nate more hard-boiled in his last hurrah. I'm giving him an estranged girlfriend with daughter in Taiwan and  The surprise in the plot is that while Nate, Malcolm, and Tim think they have their man, Darrow Kuo[*first mention Darrow’s new last name], but he is just a crackpot, a cover for  Chinese killing CIA spooks in Taiwan? It turns out all the victims have secret dossiers. Nate is not made privy to because of confidentiality. The CIA hopes to lead him to Darrow to close the case and hide the victims’ true identities. Meanwhile, Limit Hong and Corny Donovan are in on the secret to keep American influence in Taiwan stifling unification and independence. I will add a meeting with Limit and the “Sunflower” sideshow later in the novel.

Submitted and Rejected by Camphor Press

 3-13-18 

      Camphor Press has seven samples of my creative writing. I sent three after texting someone asking if I could, and was asked to send a few more. Camphor Press is the Taipei-U.K. based publisher that put out The Lord of Taiwan, the new novel about Koxinga, the book yesterday I contacted the author and publisher to inquire about getting. I didn’t know about them before yesterday. Since their focus is East Asian literature, I am on the right track. 

3-14-18 

      Each of those writings I thoroughly enjoyed writing and tweaking, though it behooves me to say I must tweak them some more. For example, the excerpt from Life’s Progressive Movement, “Welcome to Free China,” refers to the same woman Emerson saw on the street outside the youth hostel as Jeanette and Amy, in one paragraph. The recounting of the thinly veiled autobiographical incident, though some would say changes with time, is as close to the truth as a CTTV could produce because of the hindsight called ‘personal journal’ and repeating the story dozens of times to dozens of people over forty years.

      Each of those writings kept me entertained in the cleanest way with no repercussion, as this writing I now commit to pixel has, having awoken at 1am due to excessive sleep and a mosquito in the bedroom. Instead of panicking or taking drugs, or even reading to make me sleepy, writing in the wee hours clears my mind without wasting my time; not wasting time because I enjoy doing it. Though Tanuki meows and scratches at the study room window, I can ignore him and not let him detract from my writing just as a mosquito doesn’t ruin a night’s sleep but affords me an opportunity to have solitude. The trick I must perform now is to not eat during these interludes so that I can lose weight.

     Publishing or not publishing my creative writing doesn’t change the equation, even if others place a monetary value on it. When I read over what I have written, it pays me back because I realize the thousands of stories it took to get me here; I have such depth that exists whether it is appreciated with money or views on Facebook shares. All that a company publishing my work means to me is that I don’t have to pay to publish it myself. 

3-14-18

     John sent me a bad news e-mail from Camphor Press rejecting publication of my creative writing. He explained what he thought my writing deficits were but none was as critical as my political leanings (“quirkiness”) that would make my work un-sellable, according to their editorial parameters. I wrote back thanking him for looking but understood their stance. He looked into my two self-published works and their lack of following as part of their decision; that is unfair since I didn’t promote them or even pay extra for Amazon Kindle distribution that he used for an excuse. He did, however, like “Return of the Ami Native” the best of the seven samples I sent. A writer gets dozens of rejection letter before one acceptance and I am no different. I had no sales campaign and only sent a text message to Camphor press on a whim. It would have been nice if they liked my work but I feel no disappointment that they didn’t. An anarchist publisher would appreciate my asides better. I have to send my works to an open-minded publishing house if I seriously want to get published.