I am writing a long series of connected
books I call my stack, or 40-Year Run. A stack is an unpublished, or underpublished
shelf.
When I finish writing a book, I add the title to the alphabetical
list of the books of my stack (263 completed, 264 in progress) and I add a description
of the book to the catalogue raisonné of whatever year I am in, in 40-Year
Run. This August 31 I will complete my 34th year. So the catalogue raisonné
I update on September 1 will be called 34-Year Run: A Catalogue Raisonné of Jack
Saunders' Stack.
It struck me that my 35th year as a writer is an important
milestone. I thought I'd celebrate it by writing a book a month, for a year, and
posting them on the worldwide web, daily, as I write them, at The Daily Bulletin.
I outlined the content of the 12 books. Into this I would weave whatever is happening
to me as I write the books, post them, and hear back from readers. The plot is thus
contingent and variable. It depends on what happens to the books.
Norman
Mailer and Tom Wolfe both serialized books, in magazines, but not a book a month,
for a year. Not switching back and forth from the lives of their characters to their
own lives. Not daily.
Since March 18, 2000 I have posted over 75 books on
the web, at The Daily Bugle, roman-feuilleton.com, and The Daily Bulletin.
The first 40 books I took down, out of paranoia, but the rest are at The Daily
Bulletin.
The books would be like John Steinbeck's East of Eden
and his Journal of a Novel, about writing East of Eden, combined, in
order of composition, as I go back and forth, from the novel to the journal.
The series would be a workshop like Robert Olen Butler writing a short story, online,
at Inside Creative Writing, at his FSU website, only I would write a 12-book
series, not a short story.
Live, no safety net, one take.
The narrative
would cover my entire career, 35 years, and take place over the course of one year,
my 35th year as a writer.
I thought a bricks-and-mortar publisher could publish
ink-and-paper books in a uniform trade paperback edition, with a tasteful design
to the series, after I finish writing them.
I decided to call the series
The Empty Nest: Old Folks's First 35 Years as a Writer.
Old Folks
is my hero, or antihero, a hero with limited resources.
Bukowski never
Did This: One Year in the Life of an Underground Writer, LitVision Press, forthcoming,
switched back and forth between a novel and a diary.
If you want to see how
I did it, whether it worked or not, go to www.thedailybulletin.com/bukowski/bukowski.htm
and start reading and see.
You will also see how fast I am and how professional
I am. I have made my living writing and editing books for 25 years, for such companies
as IBM, Lucent Technologies, and the US Department of Defense.
Once Bukowski
Never Did This is available, I will drive around the Redneck Riviera reading,
signing books, and calling on bookstores, tackle shops, bait shops, and reporting
on my activities for the L. A. (Lower Alabama) Free Press, for whom I am a
roving correspondent. That's a recurring leitmotif, or theme. In the family
car, your father's Oldsmobile.