Great advise

 I absolutely love this quote probably the best writing is always the ones where the little voice in the back of your head is asking am I saying too much, am I stepping out of line, and then you just say the heck with it and go with it.

Thomas Wolfe and the 1936 Nazi Germany: Writing History in the Present

I have often said that writers, back in the old days, engaged in the times they lived in. Unfortunately, too often this skill is lost on younger writers. By doing so, they left a superior record of the history they witnessed. The person I’m choosing to focus on, tonight, is Thomas Wolfe. Wolfe did spot on depictions of New York City in the 1930s. He always had a keen eye for detail that he would bring to Nazi Germany.

For whatever reason Wolfe’s books sold incredibly well in Germany. According to Germany economic policy he was unable to get his money out of the country. He often travelled to Germany, where he lived like a king on his German royalties. Wolfe was in Germany for the 1936 Olympics. His descriptions of what he saw were first rate.

 

“Meanwhile, through those tremendous banner laden ways, the crowds thronged ceaselessly all day long. The wide promenade of Unter den Linden was solid with patient, tramping German feet. Fathers, mothers, children, young folks, old-the whole material of the nation was there., from every corner of the land. From morn to night they trudged, wide-eyed, full of wonder, past the marvel of those banner laden ways. And among them one saw the bright stabs of color of Olympic jackets and the glint of foreign faces: the dark features of Frenchmen and Italians, the ivory grimace of the Japanese, the straw hair, and blue eyes of the Swedes, and the big Americans, natty in straw hats, white flannels, and blue coats crested with the Olympic seal.”

 

Wolfe being a product of South and of his times didn’t have much use for African Americans. Still, he had a different opinion of Jesse Owens. He actually took pride in his accomplishments.

“And there were great displays of marching men, sometimes ungunned but rhythmic as regiments of brown shirts went swinging through the streets. By noon each day all the main approaches to the games, the embannered streets and avenues of the route that the Leader would take to the stadium, miles away, were walled in by troops. They stood at ease, young men, laughing and talking with each other-the Leader’s bodyguards, the Schutz Staffel units, the Storm Troopers, all the ranks and divisions in their different uniforms-and they stretch in two unbroken lines from Wilhelm-strasse up to the Brandenburger Tor. Then, suddenly, the sharp command, and instantly there would be the solid smack of ten thousand leather boots as they came together with the sound of war.”

“It seemed as if everything had been planned for this moment, shaped for this triumphant purpose. But the people-they had not been planned. Day after day, behind the unbroken wall of soldiers, they stood and waited in a dense and patient throng. These were the masses of the nation, the poor ones of the earth, the humble ones of life, the workers and the wives, the mothers and the children-and day after day they came and stood and waited. They were here because they did not have money enough to buy the little cardboard squares that would have given them places inside the magic ring. From noon until night they waited for just two brief and golden moments of the day: the moment when the Leader went out of the stadium, and the moment when he returned.”

When Wolfe wrote these passages, he knew that his time, in Germany, was coming to an end as he would not be welcomed back after it was published. There’s a wonderful scene of a Jewish person trying to get across the border and being able to get his money out of the country.

“At last he came-like a wind across the field of grass was shaken through that crowd, and from afar the tide rolled up with him, and in it was the voice, the hope, the prayer of the land. The Leader came by slowly in a shining car, a little dark man with a comic-opera mustache, erect and standing, moveless and unsmiling, with his hand upraised, palm outward, not in a Nazi wise salute, but straight up, in a gesture of blessing such as the Buddha and Messiahs use.”

Wolfe did not live long enough to see if his prediction was true, which it no doubt would have been. He died of a brain hemorrhage at 39. He left a huge pile of papers which were put together and made into four books.

Future Writing

Been absolutely hard at work to the follow up to Liberté. I've got the scaffold all designed and now I've got to come up with some filler. https://www.amazon.com/Libert%C3%A9-Days-199…/…/ref=sr_1_14…

Post for May 11th

These meandering will be available on my regular Facebook page until June 1rst. Then they will shift over strictly to my author’s page. If you enjoy these please sign up for my author page. We’d love to have you.

Questions: How long did it take you to write this book? Are the characters based on the real people? What was the favorite part of the book to write? What was the hardest part to write?



This is a very different book for me. About four or five years ago I started writing flash fiction which is under 1000 words. I thought this was a good experience because I always tended to be long winded and this really forced me to get to the point quicker. I can’t really say I understood what flash fiction was when I first undertook it and, after taking four of five abbreviated classes, I can’t say I still understand it. As best as I understand it, where in a novel you can meander around some a short story demands you get to the point quicker. A short story allows you to meander around some while flash fiction starts right in the middle and demands you say something profound quicker. What I found is that some of what I wrote took on an artificial quality as you repeated themes that your mind associates with drama.



The first story that stuck in my mind that I might have something here was the story Washington DC 2008 (thank you to my instructor Philip Gardner for the title). This was based on a trip with the union to lobby for the employee free choice act. I saw things that still profoundly affect me but what I wrote certainly wasn’t long enough for a book or even a short story but there was something there. A core. And it just kicked around in my head that I hadn’t given a complete version of what it was like to be down there lobbying as an outsider and observing the trappings of DC.



Were the characters real? Some. There’s an old maximum to never let the truth get in the way of a good story. The basics of many stories are true but the male villain, in that story, wasn’t somebody who was there at all he was just somebody who I wasn’t pleased with at the time. It’s a little like what Joan Baez of the Bob Dylan song “The Ship Comes in.” She observed Dylan getting turned away from a hotel and the next day he plays this great song. As she said, “Who knows what it’s about but, believe me, Bob got even.”

The two DC stories make a complete thought. Émigré and Change are similar. The Greek stories were polished, pared-down, and placed out front to give the collection light. It is like you take a mirror, crack it and you have a jigsaw puzzle. Toward the end, it became filling up the work with perspectives I wanted to touch on. The union experience (only from my wife’s perspective as she often held up our union without getting credit for it) and the alternate media (shout to independent media and Gary Webb). I also wanted to shine a spotlight onto other stories that were going on around the world, which the American-centric press ignores and keep from its own people. The core becomes a collection of its pieces. Some are prose. Many are prose poetry. The ethos of the story is the sum of its parts and hopefully, that’s what makes art. If it doesn’t, it makes for one hell of a bloody mess.

The final part was extended quotes from writing mostly of the 1930s. I saw this almost as another character used to amplify light onto whatever writing came before or after. Why the 1930s is probably for the same reason I wanted to get this out now as we are shifting back into 1930s style economics, employment rates, and business failures. The future just hasn’t caught up with the shocks yet. It is also a way to pay homage to writers who I’ve loved and admired.

The favorite part of this was getting the music right for each section I wrote. I listen to my own voice and go over and over it polishing. I think I’m a perfectionist when it comes to sound. The hardest part was trying to make so many disparate parts look like a concrete whole and I completely got this right but I wanted to keep it under 1000 a flash fiction minimum. I like to think this is experimental and I hope it pushes the envelope of how flash fiction can take on even bigger issues. I’d consider doing a follow-up issue.

May 7th questions

My first question is; "Why did you pick Paros? Perhaps more significantly, why did you choose an island as the setting?" or, I would ask, "Why does everyone "seem to wash up on Paros"? What are the motivations of people for going there? Are people going there because they are drawn there by something, or (my opinion) because they are running away from something? If so, what are they fleeing?"

For those who have yet to read the book the first two stories take place in Paros. For people who have only seen the trailer. The first two slides in the trailer are of Paros. Paros is part of the Cyclade island chain along with Ios, Mykonos, and Santorini. The four Greek stories were written at a much earlier date than a lot of the rest of this. I already had much of the body of the work done before I started crafting the beginning. The work is all basically flash fiction which is under 1000 words. I figured this would give the story a much sunnier or more optimistic start than the rest of the piece. I had been also listening to a documentary of Springsteen making darkness on the edge of town and how, just like a car, he'd swap off pieces so I said why can't I do that.

I was in Paros and Santorini probably two years before the story took place. I was amazed by the hustle and bustle of activity of the European youth. It's a vacation spot in Europe, probably like Spain is. For an American, it might be like Florida at spring break or the California beaches. You wind up doing the same islands so you criss-cross and wind up seeing the same Europeans doing the same things you are doing. The only difference is they had so much more vacation than we had, as I worked like hell to get a month over there. It was no big deal for them. I saw it as a very free, cross-pollination of people from all different cultures who were roughly the same age. The closest I've ever found of that was in the US national parks where you start seeing the same people over and over.

I feel in some ways they are going toward something because they are attracted to something it's probably cross-pollination of the like-minded and yet, at the time, I was just coming off my first serious relationship so I can't say that some of that didn't sink into the story too. It just seemed like a much better world than where I was coming from. Thanks. I appreciate the question.

Just coming out at the end of April and May2020: The little book with big ideas

Liberté is the little book with big ideas. A novella of loosely connected flash fiction (1000 words or less), interspersed with prose poetry as well as inserts from the early 20th century. in a mosaic of turbulence.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8PlREy4MyE0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Youtube: https://youtu.be/8PlREy4MyE0

1990: Optimism. The cold war ends. The Berlin Wall falls. The European Union forms. For those in their twenties, a better world appears possible, if not probable. A new and better international future…

2020: The world spins out of control. Long-distance, computerized wars. Riots erupt around the globe. New voices are stifled. Heads of state, along with their militarized police, cling to power by suppressing their citizenry. Orwellian algorithms determine which media story is worthy. A depression-era ethos bubbles up. A society primed for pandemic refuses to see the destruction of its planet. It's beyond one person's control but a solution that requires collective action. It's not me but us.

A dizzying array of voices and outlooks:

* A twenty-something male backpacking through Europe

*The wife of a union leader forced to take on larger roles

* A Community activist learning the ropes of the Washington D.C. swamp

*A Latin American activist turned politician

* An independent journalist trying to navigate the worlds of Youtube and Twitter

* A birds-eye view of protest movements around the globe.

Grief

Slightly used tombstone. Near mint condition. Perfect for someone named Robert Fuller. $1000 dollars or best offer.

Everyone makes mistakes. Fuller or Fulton, what’s the difference? One slip-up and I’m out a thousand bucks. Thank God, I own the company because I can only imagine how angry my boss would be over such a costly mistake. I can only imagine my wife’s anger when she learns we’re out a $1000. I’m not telling her either. My company is close bankrupt. There’s not many people who still hand carve their own tombstones any more. I’m a craftsman who can’t afford mistakes like this

I have an idea. Phonebook: Fuller, Chris…Fuller, Paul…Fuller R (possibly)… Fuller, Robert (more exact)… another Fuller, Robert (better). I know where second Robert Fuller’s address is. Better yet. I’m unsure where the first address is. It’s that Robert Fuller’s lucky day. The second one isn’t so lucky. I’ll plan to leave my business card where his wife can find it. Maybe she’ll look at it as an omen or maybe as a happy coincidence for everyone but her husband.

I chuckle, imagining Wile E. Coyote unwrapping a package from the ACME Company. It’s an anvil and the directions inside read: be careful when dropping from high places. Mr. Coyote’s plans rarely work as planned so I go to plan B. A high powered rifle, a scope, and something to muffle the sound. With my ingenuity, that’ll be all folks.

I scope out the first Mr. Fuller’s neighborhood. It’s lovely: big houses, large yards, and tree line drives. Perfectly laid out for a man to leave his vehicle, slip into a wooded glen, shoot someone, and casually return home for dinner. There is no time delay. Mr. Fulton’s rush order is overdue. I try to be conscientious but the thousand dollar mistake has killed my savings.

Tuesday: I assemble my rifle while perspiring. I calmly track the man who walks between the Fuller residence and a car, several times. He looks to be in his fifties which is what I expect from the information I found on the internet. I’ve spent the last week practicing on Call of Duty. I worry I’ll miss and that screw up will cost me hours of planning.  I don’t want to start over. I’m leave the car and I hide in a patch of trees. A car drives slowly around the bend. I stay still waiting for it to pass. I hope he didn’t notice my brother-in-law’s truck parked along the road. If he did it would be bad luck for my wife’s brother.

The moment passes. Nothing but birds and rustling leaves. The man is outside again. I raise my rifle and squeeze my trigger. I hear a distinct pop and the man buckles in the driveway, just like the Germans do in Call of Duty. I don’t even get to enjoy my kill as I believe the place will soon be crawling with police. I quietly walk back to the truck.

I wait all day by my phone… and then another… and soon another. Nobody calls. Two weeks pass. After a lot commotion things die down. The television crews, yellow tape, and the police pack up and leave. My long suffering bank account still hasn’t recovered from the incident.

I’m back on the street mindful that the police are still probably following leads. I ask a boy on a bicycle, where the Fullers live. He says they moved six months ago. I pretend this doesn’t shock me. I wonder if I could even find the second Robert Fuller’s new address or is it still too new or maybe he moved out of the area. I think how I’ll have to look up first Robert Fuller’s address on Mapquest. I maintain my composure, swallowing deeply while subtly asking, “Any idea where the Fullers moved to?”

He shakes his head no and moves on like I’m some kind of weirdo or something. I put my brother in law’s truck in drive and slowly troll the neighborhood.

Later that night, I’ll return to the neighborhood. Park somewhere and return on foot. When there’s no one in the driveway I’ll slip a business card into the mailbox of the grieving family’s porch. I’ve always had a work ethic and it’s never too late to drum up business. Originally published Diverse Voices Quarterly http://www.diversevoicesquarterly.com/Vol8Issue30.pdf