From the Catalogue Raisonné of Jack Saunders’ Stack
Daily Typewriting:
The Last Six Months of my 39th Year
HOUSEHUSBAND. March 12 - April
24. 68,000 words. Brenda and I watch rented movies, read, talk
about the TV, and what her co-workers said at work. We keep the grandchildren. She has backyard chickens and a hay-bale
garden. I write, in my writing room,
shop for groceries, cook cheap, nutritious meals, from scratch, and do the
dishes. “Heap went out to the
charcuterie for forcemeats. On his
bicycle.”
THE ANTHROPOLOGY MAJOR. April 25 - May 9. 24,000 words. I see that DIARY OF AN INTERNET POET: DAILY TYPEWRITING CHEZ JACK THE RAVER is a book in two parts, “Househusband” and “The Anthropology Major,” rather than a pair of separate books. As Ann Charters said, “Sanders—don't send me any more books. They're all the same. Spend the money on your wife and kids.”
BORN, DIED, IN-THE-SERVICE. May 10 - May 17. 18,000 words. Brenda and I go to Potterfest. Balder drives, so I don’t have to worry about whether the family car will or will not start. Rowan comes with us. We see relatives and picker friends. Balder brings a work print of Back From the Dread. Dread Clampitt: 2005-2007 A. D. and a copy of their new CD, Learnin’ To Live, with Sam Bush on fiddle. Whoa, boys, be careful, now. You’re out there where the leaves tremble. The tea leaves. This is where it’s going. Roots music, independent film, vernacular writing. Look for me under your bootstep, Camerado. On the worldwide web. A self-produced CD, sold out of the back of the mini-van. The swinette-picker of American letters.
I dream of playing
the swinette on stage, at
A WRITER’S VOICE. May 18 – May 22. 8,000 words. How did I develop the voice I have, and what affect did my voice have on my fortunes as a writer? What are the implications for what I write next? I see what I am going to write next. 40-Year Run: The Penultimate Calendar Quarter. June, July, and August 2010. That will complete my 39th year as a writer. Then I change the name of 40-Year Run: The Penultimate Calendar Quarter to Enough Is as Good as a Feast. The secret of happiness is being content with what you have. Not wanting more. Doing with less. Being content with less. Less isn’t more, it’s less. Less is what you want. A writing room and time to write. A web site on the worldwide web and self-published pamphlets. If you have that, what else do you need? Blessed is the man who’s found his work.
A WRITING ROOM AND TIME TO WRITE. May 22 – June 5. 29,000 words. Jobs I worked at and houses we lived in. Children, grandchildren. We keep backyard chickens and Brenda has a hay-bale garden.
A WEB SITE ON THE WORLDWIDE WEB. June 6 – June 13. 13,000 words. The Daily Bugle, roman-feuilleton.com, The Daily Bulletin. I have posted 228 books on the worldwide web. I read Raymond Carver: A Writer’s Life by Carol Sklenicka. I read A Ticket to the Circus by Norris Church Mailer. I go to an organizational meeting of Gulf Coast Writers. Why do we write?
SELF-PUBLISHED PAMPHLETS. June 14 – June 18. 10,000 words. I have published 242 pamphlets, chapbooks, fliers, and four-page sheets. Leaflets. What is not in the open street is false, derived, that is to say, literature. Henry Miller. Miller says he would have met the same people who were important to him in his life whether he had published or not. SELF-PUBLISHED PAMPHLETS is my 400th book. But some of them were short. I cheated. I exaggerated. One exaggerates. I don’t think I’ll finish 40-Year Run. I might fall short. It happens. You do right by your family. You go to work and speak your mind. You don’t hurt anybody who doesn’t deserve it. You don’t take anything from the bad guys. You gaze into the abyss and the abyss gazes back.
LIMBO. June 19 – June 23. 4,000 words. I send out query letters to editors and agents about ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST: OLD FOLKS AT HOME and LOG OF THE FLORIDA GIRL: A CORRESPONDENCE NOVEL and wait to hear back. Well, I don’t wait. I start writing LIMBO. Then I snap LIMBO off and add it to the end of ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST: OLD FOLKS AT HOME and start writing THE GREAT MAN OF TOMORROW IN ART. I can’t wait for someone else, I have to take matters into my own hands. I might not live to write LOG OF THE FLORIDA GIRL: A CORRESPONDENCE NOVEL. I need to start THE GREAT MAN OF TOMORROW IN ART right now.
THE GREAT MAN OF TOMORROW IN ART. June 24 – July 14. 25,000 words. Writing is a call. But what if you are called and then not chosen? Would you be bitter? Angry? Disappointed? In despair? What would you do about it? Would you redouble your efforts, write like a house afire, burn your own ass, like the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, gushing out, uncontrolled, setting fire to a portion of it like fraternity boys lighting farts. A report from Point and Shoot, Florida, where the fishermen were put out of business by the net ban, the price of diesel fuel, the turtle-excluder devices (TEDs), the factory ships fishing out the fisheries, have to wear a shirt with a racing stripe saying Exxon, for the NASCAR cars the corporation sponsors, Go Gators. Eat them tar balls, gators. A little tar on the beach never hurt anybody. You will be made whole. If your claim is legitimate. Do you think the world owes you a living? Are you a denizen of the swamp, like Pogo? Pogo the Possum. Eat more possum! Eat more roadkill chili, you damned cracker. Eat grits and grunts. Without
the grunts. Eat grits
and grillades, like the cajuns eat in
We’re No. 2!
WE’RE NO. 2! July 15 – August 31. In progress. I read Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, by James L. Haley. What is he—some kind of socialist?