Update on Everything: June 29, 2020

Phil Slattery portrait — Phil Slattery
March, 2015

I have a few minutes to kill, so I thought I would jot down a few random notes about what I have been doing lately.

I haven’t been working on Shadows and Stars as much as I ought. The wife and stepson are with me for awhile. Consequently, I am running more errands, going more places, and doing more chores than usual. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not complaining. I do manage to catch a few moments here and there to write, but not as much as I would like.
When I do write, I am making some progress. The toughest part of writing now is connecting all the myriad details so that there are zero to few plot holes.
I am finding out that the reason a lot of great writers write short works “in broad strokes” (as Nikolai Gogol says in Dead Souls) is so they do not have to connect them and wind up in the situation I now find myself. Unfortunately, I have a detailed way of viewing things. However, some people say this makes my works more enjoyable, easier to visualize, and more interesting.
I have been reading Kerouac’s Desolation Angels, when I get the chance. I believe this is a beautiful, underappreciated, spiritual work. It seems to be Kerouac metaphorically visualizing himself as a spiritual sage (though I don’t know that Kerouac would agree) that comes down off a mountaintop and into the hubbub and chaos of the world, which is radically different from the quiet mountaintop where he just spent two months. I am maybe a quarter of the way through, so I don’t know if Kerouac will do any proselytizing, but I doubt it. I have read On the Road, and Kerouac doesn’t seem the type to proselytize, even subtly. It may be more of a comment on the world as a whole. I am just at the point where he has come down from the mountain and is Seattle at a Burlesque show. So, I have a long way yet to go, just as Kerouac does in the novel.
In the car, I am listening to an audiobook version of Gogol’s Dead Souls. This is a wonderful, beautiful, humorous work. Read it as soon as you can. It speaks to basic facets found in the human soul and will probably touch everyone deeply in some manner.

That’s all for now. Ciao!