#713: Meanwhile....

...The Book is over 46,500 words, 85 single-space-typed pages, about three-quarters of the way toward what used to be a "normal-sized" novel. If I can write 15,000 more words, then I can start thinking about what to take OUT.
It's been an interesting experience -- things about my old record store days are still coming back to me, stuff I haven't thought about in 30 years, happenings I've never written about anywhere. Every few days I think I really have exhausted the material ... and then something else starts bubbling up.
Am still writing 500 to 2,000 words per day, even on work days. It's a great way to wake up. I have a couple more little things to toss in, then am about due to read back through everything and see where I want to go next.
Only thing that bugs me so far is I can see there's a lot of telling and not enough showing -- a lot of describing and not enough dialogue. But I'll be working on that....
Also, my journals from back then tell me little bits and pieces of some things that allegedly happened, but I've COMPLETELY forgotten about the rest of some incidents. Guess that's where the "fiction" will come in. Luckily, this hasn't happened too often. What I CAN remember from those days has kept coming back to me like it was last week -- and at least once these memories have forced me out of bed at 2 a.m., over to the laptop before I forget everything.
Needless to say, I'm now making notes constantly....
May post some more short, funny sections here if more occur to me -- if it's something that can stand on its own and doesn't need much explaining....

I remain musically bored. The last two CDs I ordered either got lost in the mail or were stolen out of my mailbox. That bag of CD's I take with me to work hasn't seemed worth the trouble to put on the player, most nights lately. But work itself hasn't been much of a problem, recently. Maybe it's because things are starting to cool down into Fall, and the nights are becoming less busy. Maybe it's also because I have other things to think about, these days....
Anyway, I do occasionally play some music at work, mostly the Same Old Stuff, but also including:
JoDee Messina -- Heads Carolina Tails California.
Kansas -- Miracles Out of Nowhere, Questions of My Childhood.
Doobie Brothers -- Neal's Fandango.
Jethro Tull -- Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day, Teacher.
Led Zeppelin -- Good Times Bad Times, When the Levee Breaks, Over the Hills and Far Away.
Fleetwood Mac -- Oh Well, Why?, Green Manalishi.
Florence + the Machine -- Shake it Out.
Modern English -- I Melt With You.
Church -- Reptile.
Sly and the Family Stone -- Thank You Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin.
Marvin Gaye -- What's Goin' On?, Inner City Blues, Trouble Man, Ain't That Peculiar?, You're All I Need to Get By (with Tammi Terrell).
Rascals -- See, People Got to be Free, A Beautiful Morning, Carry Me Back, Good Lovin'.
Stevie Wonder -- I Was Made to Love Her, My Cherie Amour, For Once in My Life, Signed Sealed Delivered, If You Really Love Me.
Four Tops -- Reach Out I'll Be There.
Gladys Knight and the Pips -- I Heard it Through the Grapevine.
David Ruffin -- My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me).
Temptations -- I Can't Get Next to You, Ball of Confusion.
Jackson 5 -- I Want You Back.
Supremes -- Up the Ladder to the Roof.
Smokey Robinson and the Miracles -- Tears of a Clown.
Undisputed Truth -- Smiling Faces Sometimes.
Blondie -- Dreaming, Call Me, Hanging on the Telephone, Union City Blue.
Boston -- Used to Bad News.
Chicago -- Questions 67 and 68.
Spinners -- I'll Be Around, I'm Coming Home.
BTO -- Blue Collar, Roll On Down the Highway.
Pam Tillis -- Homeward Looking Angel.
I don't think JoDee Messina is the most natural vocalist in the world -- she sounds kind of awkward and hesitant at the start of "Heads Carolina." But once she gets rolling and those choruses kick in, all my reservations go right out the window. Great stuff, and it makes me smile every time.
One Store Regular was thrilled to hear "Miracles Out of Nowhere," though at first he couldn't place who it was. He said hearing it made his night. That's always nice to hear.

Was bummed when longtime science-fiction writer and editor Frederik Pohl died over Labor Day weekend. He was 93, and over the past few years had been writing a popular online memoir at The Way the Future Blogs.
Pohl was a heckuva novelist in the '70s and '80s -- books like GATEWAY, BEYOND THE BLUE EVENT HORIZON, HEECHEE RENDEZVOUS and MAN PLUS had a big impact on me. I was only able to get halfway through his CHERNOBYL, a "docudrama" about that Russian nuclear disaster -- it was a little TOO Real, if you know what I mean. I still have Fred's THE YEARS OF THE CITY on my bookshelf waiting to be read. For awhile in the '70s and '80s, Fred Delivered The Goods every time, whether it was a new novel or a short story in one of the SF magazines.
He also had an amazing career as an editor. In the '60s he edited GALAXY and IF magazines through their best years, boosting the careers of writers like Robert Silverberg, Roger Zelazny, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, James Tiptree Jr., Keith Laumer and dozens more.
In the mid-'70s he was editor of Bantam Books' SF line and brought out difficult novels like Joanna Russ's THE FEMALE MAN and Samuel R. Delany's DHALGREN and TRITON. Brave, uncommercial choices. But they usually paid off....

Have also read (and heard) that Linda Ronstadt has lost her gorgeous singing voice, due to Parkinson's Disease. I was at times a big Ronstadt fan -- didn't think everything she did was great, or sometimes even worth listening to -- but moments like "Long Long Time" and "Someone to Lay Down Beside Me" are in my collection, plus the entire MAD LOVE album, especially the great "I Can't Let Go" and an amazing dramatic vocal on Elvis Costello's "Party Girl"....

If you haven't already, you should check out 2000 Man over at Dropped for Negligible Interest. Though I hesitate to compare bloggers, 2000 reminds me a bit of Rastro before he went quiet. I like 2000's mix of old and new stuff, and especially his nostalgia trips to Back In The Day (as in his recent posts about albums by Bruce Springsteen, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Fleetwood Mac, etc.) -- anybody who reads here shouldn't be surprised by my addiction to that. Be sure and give 2000 a look. And my thanx to Crabby for turning me on to another great blogger....

Haven't read much for fun lately -- have been too busy writing with most of my free time.
Will be Back Soon with at least a short list of "do-overs" -- oldies I wish someone would re-record BETTER....