[I am back working through my prison journal. It is out of order. The date in the title is the date it was written.Well, the order is as I have opened boxes. I hope this is not confusing. What you are reading is what you get for your tax dollars. sch 6/8/2025]
I spent the last two weeks (is that all?) wrestling with a monster. I finished typing up "Cruising Down a Blind Alley". (I just realized I cannot recall its full title - I have been calling it "Cruising" - and it is back at the unit while I write this at the track.) It was 55 pages handwritten is now just barely 32 pages typewritten. I have just written my best short story or wasted too much time on pretentious pathological crap. It tells the story of a man; it is depression and crack cocaine story. I will proofread it and give it over to Joel. I told him we're not going to discuss this one - give an up or down opinion - because this one was far too personal. Personal, as I put way too much of myself into it. But it is not strictly autobiographical. A- will hate it, if she only reads the opening. So another story sure - in my opinion - to anger someone. Seriously, folks, I do this without any sense of malice.
There comes a time when I am writing when the character starts talking to me. This has really been the case for the last three stories. Odd thing, the character I base myself upon myself starts sounding different from me. All this wearies me.
And I read, too. I finished off the Steinbeck novels from the reading list. The Moon is Down impressed the most - many of the invader's remarks about the natives echo what Americans said about the Vietnamese and Iraqis. Go think on that. I surprised myself by how much Of Mice and Men I retained, and also how little I retained of Cannery Row. Tortilla Flats amused, but it seemed a chore to read - too dated, too slight. The Pearl felt predictable - like the parable suggested in the Introduction. I wonder how much of Steinbeck Viking keeps in print.
Against my judgment, I read The Maltese Falcon for the third time. If any one writer made me want to be a writer, it is either Hammett or Faulkner. I got two surprises from this reading. First, how much I thought of the novel was actually the movie. Second, how completely Hammett subverted the PI novel and his hero. Maybe he quit writing because he had subverted all the forms known to him?
I read Douglas Adams' The Salmon of Doubt. I think I have now read all of his Hitchhiker books. Have you read any of them? Yes, you, my hypothetical reader. They helped correct my course. Wish it had done so earlier. Maybe I could be talking about books face-to-face. Certainly do not wait till you are an old man like me. I really hope you do get old and are much different from me. Adams made a point about art in the way of the creative. Please be creative.
Been not so much drifting this time as getting knocked off course. Joel has "Cruising down a Blind Alley" and I really ought have shelved it for a few days (my procedure lately) and then not give it to him till I had another draft in hand. Then there have a new crisis or two in the room: 1) we agreed one prisoner was not welcome in the room, he was in the room, and one white SO prisoner made it out to be persecution of him and the remainder of the whites; and 2) an issue about bathing and body odor - again featuring the fellow from #1. I let myself get put into too many things. This happened at work today. My mom trained me to solve problems. It is very hard to go against one's training. It has worn me out. The left eye started throbbing. Right now - 4 hours later - I have what is at most a low grade headache.
Yesterday, I got a letter from Cathy Schrenker. It caused me a great deal of trepidation. It turned out quite well - she was rather formal. Either harshness or sentimentality would have crushed me. I will write her in the next few days.
I spoke with KH on Tuesday night. He will be trying to help me on publishing my work. That was a good thing.
I want to finish No One Writes to the Colonel and Other Stories (translated by J.S. Bernstein; Harper Perennial, 1979). Steinbeck's The Pearl made me think of Marquez, and Marquez has me thinking of Steinbeck. They have those stories told simply about common people doing what ordinary people do with the simplicity That seems to have a mystical and deeper meaning. I had similar thoughts with Alice Walker's The Color Purple. So much different from Hemingway or Faulkner.
No word from LAH, or anyone else except for Eileen and KH. LAH has been on my mind as I read Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara.
I have Shaw's Saint Joan to re-read. I also have read his Heartbreak House. I have no idea why Shaw did and still does resonate with me as he does, and I think he will, influence whatever plays I do write. I like his three act structure.
I started Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain. It does not warm my heart. The skill is there, but why are so many novels about "The Lost Cause"? I think it is too much sentimentality. One would think Faulkner's Sartoris or Gone With The Wind would have done away with the genre. Or it might be envy. The epic novel told from the northern p.o.v. coming to mind is Raintree County. (Was John Shawnessy's wife a Medea figure? Was he Jason on an argosy? These all came to mind.)
That brings me up to date. Revising stories over the next few weeks. Maybe outline the ones in my head. Taking a break on anything major until I get past War and Peace on my reading list. That should be the beginning of October! So much for 104 novels in a year.
The commutation went out last month. Letters to newspapers and several magazines went out the past week. Do not expect any to take an interest in my petition. Do hope I can raise awareness of the Dorvee case's footnote 10. If I raise a stink, so be it. The only real tool for the porn problem is persuasion. Force will be used because we think force is always effective. Violence solves nothing more than does whistling past a graveyard.
sch
LAH never put in an appearance.
No editor liked "Cruising Down a Blind Alley" - other than Joel C. He and Kevin kept me writing in prison, and they continue to do so. Until I found this note, I had not realized I have been working on this story for 11 years. Just recently, I folded it into my remodeling of "The Dead and The Dying".
Nothing came of the commutation, of course.
The links I put in today. These are some leftovers from my search for outside links:
(Book Review) The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett – Fourth and Sycamore
Tortilla Flat: A Little Book and a Big Controversy
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck: Book Review - Introverted Reader
Cannery Row - Critical Reception | Steinbeck in the Schools
A tragedy without villains | Books | The Guardian (St. Joan)
sch 6/8/2025
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