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2003-06
Novel
Diary — 2001
12
January, 2001 – from an email I sent to Sharon McCartney:
I'm on chapter 3 of a new novel and very happy to be
writing fiction again after a long period out in the cold.
My attitude is completely different from what it has been
for the past 4 years or so when I'd lost "the call." I'm
now writing for an audience of one (moi) in an effort to
make the process self-transforming. My goal must be to
change from beast to god, I guess, and I suppose that means
I'm doomed to fail, but gee, it certainly seems worth the
trouble to try. Very Nietzschean....
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17
January, 2001
Just finished the ch. 3 section on Andy Betz – tough to
write because I went into his character blind. Later –
remember to bring him back as a theorist of the moron
matrix and the web of sin extended by idiot tentacles
throughout the thinking world. On the other hand, Ben
Stillwell awaits me at Foo Hong’s with his mouthful of
gleaming teeth.
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8
February, 2001
Have been ill for over a week. In the time have considered
a new possibility in the chapters ahead: instead of having
Eliot kidnapped, have the neighbour’s dog, Chester, killed
and a threat of further violence attached to a note and his
carcass, left on Paul’s front steps. It’s less dramatic,
but more menacing and provides tension in anticipation of
worse to come. Cogitate….
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25
February, 2001
Back (briefly) after many weeks’ absence. Worst cold in 4
years sent me to bed for several days, off work etc.
Currently on a 10-day round of antibiotics, not for the
cold (which lingers in my chest) but for an infected cyst
which has appeared on my leg. Worst of it all, I feel out
of the groove of the novel. I’ve not so much lost the story
line, more the discipline of it all. I’ll try a few new
paragraphs today, but tomorrow I travel to Vancouver for 4
days – another break in continuity. Thereafter, should be
okay, but I need to re-establish my routine above all.
Now’s the time!
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13
March, 2001
Got a week of writing done after recovering from the flu,
then a trip to Vancouver for a week (University of Victoria
work site visits) then, on Saturday, another cold hit. This
is the worst year for ill health since 1997. Yesterday I
managed to get a few paragraphs done, will try again now….
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18
March, 2001
Change Jack Wise to Jack Sage in order to fictionalize his
identity. [Note: later changed back to Jack Wise.]
Then develop the analogy of the great oceanic mind: which
is indeed like the world’s oceans in their undifferentiated
wholeness, yet ignited by the heat of the sun, vapourized
into the cloud where the molecules are precipitated, born
into discrete droplets that become individuated lives and
consciousness. And separated in this manner they become
unaware of the great ocean from which they were born and
are every moment returning to. Yet within their being they
carry all aspects of the great ocean except for awareness
of their infinite continuity and wholeness. And when they
focus solely on their individuality, on the physical
sensation of singularity, they lose all consciousness of
the eternal cycle of which they are a part. Others may
maintain this awareness by ignoring their sense of
individuality and opening their awareness to the totality
of the cycle. In this way they may connect their awareness
directly to other aware beings, to memories of the whole,
to past and future iterations of the great cycle. This
accounts for prophecy, synchronicity, telepathy and karma.
In this case there is no sympathy for the individual
droplets; each will rejoin the great oceanic mind
regardless of its awareness. There is no value attached to
sin or crime or joy or sainthood. All that a drop may
accomplish in the period of its individuation is to achieve
awareness of its unique place and connection to the whole.
Such awareness is akin to a state of grace, which may be
enhanced by somehow informing other individuals of their
own position relative to the whole. Yet for all its power,
the great oceanic mind should not be mistaken for God. It
is a global phenomenon governed by the power of the sun and
in the analogy, the sun is akin to God. Occasionally some
aspects of the great oceanic mind may be subsumed into the
sun, and in this way serve as a portal between divinity,
the soul and the mind.
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2
April, 2001
Info
from Dr. David Attwell two weeks ago:
Blood pressure readings:
185/105: hydrochlorothiazide, 25 mg a day
166/98: metoprolol, 25 mg twice a day
will then drop blood pressure to about 142/88 >> the
falling blood pressure creates the fogginess.
I’ve employed
the first of this info in the conclusion of chapter four
today. The session with Ed Biggs strikes me at first of
being overly long, but necessary to establishing the
reality of Paul’s state of mind and to establish the
pending loss of his mental accuities as his visions of the
old women engage him. [Later abandoned.]
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15
November, 2001
Yesterday and today I rejoined the novel after a long lay
off due to moving from Byng St. to Henderson Road. At long
last my study is set up and ready to go. I am very happy
here. Audrey, Adam and Lauren, too.
I’ve been worried about re-entering the narrative mode, yet
when I opened the 1st chapter and began editing it, the
whole world of the novel came back to me and I thought how
good it felt to be back there again. I do love this story
and where it may head. I only hope to have the stamina and
endurance to deliver its promise.
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23
November, 2001
Cut
from chapter 3 prior to Paul heading into Chinatown:
“Can you give a
man a hand-up, sir?”
Paul glances at a pan-handler squatting on a doorstep. He
has a backpack open, its mottled canvas lining is littered
with a few coins. A mongrel dog tethered to a frayed rope
sleeps at his feet, its chin propped on his master’s boot.
“Sorry?” Paul shakes his head slightly, his reverie broken
by the pan-handler.
“I’m heading north in a few days,” the man says. Now that
he’s engaged someone he stands up to his full height, well
over six feet. His bearing is like a car salesman; head
cocked to one side, confident that this is the time to make
his pitch. “Hoping you can spare some change to get me
started.”
“Started on what?” Paul fingers the change in his pocket.
Normally he’d walk away from this kind of pressure without
a word, but today, with the air so fresh and his incisive
penetration into a past era — a time of gold prospectors
and genuine down-and-outers — he knows he’ll surrender all
the loose change in his possession.
The man pulls on the long strands of his beard. “Up in 100
Mile House. My partner’s found the motherlode up there.”
“You mean gold?”
His smile exposes a few broken teeth in his dark, worried
mouth. “Nope,” he says and then in a lower, whispered
voice, “We’re mining souls.”
Paul shakes his head slightly, as though he’s fallen out of
phase somehow. Years ago he’d passed through the village of
100 Mile House, a stop (in the 1860s) on the trail to the
gold fields in Barkerville. He’d had dinner in a restaurant
run by a benign religious sect, a group of seekers who
worshipped a divine light, bought up most of the
enterprises in town and lived according to their
inspiration. But the man standing before him now possesses
none of their spirituality. In fact, he oozes false
prophecy and betrayal. Perhaps he is their Judas.
“Here,” Paul says, anxious to escape any further dialogue
with this madness. “Maybe this’ll help.” He pulls the
change from his pocket with the intention of passing it
into Judas’s palm and realizes that his hand is greased and
clotted with dirt. Instead, Paul shifts his body and dumps
the money into the open backpack.
“Thanks partner,” the pan-handler says when he sees several
new dollars littering his keep. “I’ll send a share of the
strike to you.”
Paul waves a hand and walks by, unsure of the effect of his
charity. Will his money be enough to send this man on his
way to the innocent commune up north? And after he arrives,
what tragedy will befall them?
“Everyone who helps me today will find eternal
forgiveness,” Judas says aloud, his rising voice full of
confidence. “Like this saint who walks among you.”
Paul glances
backward to see the pan-handler pointing him out in the
crowd. He shudders and quickens his pace toward China town
as the man announces a new route to personal salvation:
“Help me, and save your souls.”
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5
December, 2001
I’m writing fresh text again, first draft after a period of
a week or more in which I re-read the 1st
four chapters
and part of the fifth up to Paul’s walk with Chester to
Anderson Hill park. It feels good. I’m back into Paul’s
interior world, feeling the vicissitudes of his dark
worries and hope for redemption at every turn. It’s a good,
workable tension for a novel. I feel the promise of this
like no other writing I have done before.
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Xmas
break, 2001 – 2002
a good run, wrote almost every day for three weeks.
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2000 |
2001 |
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2003-06