SPEAKER AT A SOCIAL JUSTICE FORUM AT A CHATTANOOGA UNITARIAN CHURCH

I’ve been invited as Social Justice Forum guest speaker this Sunday 1/19 at the Chattanooga TN Unitarian Universalist Church at 9:30 a.m. I’m going to tell stories about human-rights journeys Eileen and I undertook. Such as:

1) Meeting with Nicaraguan survivors of a Contra attacks supported by the USA - particularly those is one community near the Honduras border.

2) Our accompaniment of Mayan survivors living in a refugee camp on their return to a massacre site to commemorate the dead from a paramilitary attack in southern Mexico.

3) Stories of the “disappeared,” tortured and oppressed, as well as murders of street children, picked up from a journey to Honduras.

4) What harassment we witnessed children encounter from the Israeli military on the first day of school in Beit Ommar, Palestine, as well as other episodes, including the ramming of a Lutheran orphanage by a tank.

5) Observations from our role as international observers in the El Salvador 2004 presidential elections.

6) An invitation by a Mexican Catholic bishop to consecrate the Eucharist with him at a celebration of a 25-year-effort to uplift lives of indigenous poor, me a Protestant clergyperson.

Probably won’t be time for all -- memories …

Taking note of a story I wrote about a Nicaraguan Contra attack that was recently published in the Black Earth Institute’s About Place Journal:

http://aboutplacejournal.org/earth-spirit-society/wes-rehberg-ii-i/

ANOTHER DRAFT PASSAGE FROM 2ND ELROD STORY

Another draft passage from 2nd Elrod story:

Elrod negotiated his new, used mountain bike through shopping center traffic to a circular shaped city branch library, checked it out, it felt accommodating, then, at the nearby bus stop, he loaded the bike onto the front rack of the waiting bus and headed downtown.

Aboard, a feeling emerged as he looked out the window: he felt homesick, but from where? Though he spent a few years on the streets of this southeastern USA city, he felt exiled. At this moment, though, he also felt compelled to try his hand again at “investigation.” He wanted to find out about kids used as drug couriers on city streets, about the connection between the Russian mafia and drug traffic in the city, and about the man who shot at him at the convenience store. But looking into his feeling of homesickness -- yes, this is important, too, he thought.

He oriented himself as the bus approached his stop.

“I’ll just ride around. I might not be so recognizable in a bike helmet and sunglasses,” he said to himself. Off the bus, he slipped his knapsack on, put on the helmet, and rode into the periphery of the troubled Oakdale district. Two blocks in he noticed a disturbance and watched from behind a tree. A small group of young men shouted at a faded black sedan parked in the middle of the road. Rival gangs, he thought.

A gunshot. The car raced off in a direction away from Elrod. One of the young men on the street fell. Another fired a shot at the car. Elrod took out his smartphone and reported what he witnessed to 911, watched the young men crowd around the man shot, the people come out the old duplex homes to take in a familiar scene, and eventually a patrol car and an ambulance arrive.

How many like that this week? Elrod wondered. He’d check the local news reports.

The wounded young man stood up as Elrod rode slowly through the scene along a sidewalk. He recognized one of the others, the convenience store robber, who faded into the background to Elrod’s right as two patrolmen and two EMTs approached, then walked behind one of the duplexes. Elrod continued riding, passing another approaching police car, turned right at the corner, then right again, and caught sight of the young man entering a duplex. Elrod quickly wheeled a U-turn, took note of the street and duplex, and rode away.

Minutes later, he traveled along 23rd Street past Motel 23, and noticed the Venus Appliance van and large black SUV parked in its lot. From alongside the convenience store hit by the robbery he snapped a smartphone photo of the vehicles then continued to the community kitchen through the virtually abandoned industrial section that was the scene of the murder of the homeless woman.

Inside, he picked up a sandwich and coffee available in the dining area, sat in an easy chair, pulled his small laptop out of his knapsack, emailed his smartphone photos to himself, downloaded them into the laptop, and began to jot down his observations. I’ll compose all this for the blog later, he thought. Yes, my head is definitely clearing.

He looked up from his laptop. Patrolman Bo Carter pulled up a folding chair and sat in front of him.

“We tracked your 911 call. They figured you’d be here and sent me to get a statement about what you observed in Oakdale.”

Should I tell him about the duplex and the suspected convenience store robber? Elrod wondered. He decided he should.

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

THE KINSHIP OF INVISIBILITY ...

The kinship of invisibility ...

Pondering invisibility in a culture when one ages or has a certain kind of status or job -- the invisibility in which a person is disregarded and not considered relevant or appealing. The thought came from my spouse Eileen when she spoke of the phenomenon of the invisibility of older women.

There’s common ground in that …

It’s also useful (one example: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple) ...

REWORKED 'CLAW VALLEY PIKE ENCOUNTER' -- OPENING PARAGRAPHS

CLAW VALLEY PIKE ENCOUNTER initial paragraphs

I've reworked this short story and am now circulating for publication in a literary magazine ... here are the opening paragraphs ...

Cedric Malcolm drove his rust-colored pickup over the broken asphalt at the bottom of the hill, the camper in the truck bed rocking the vehicle side to side. The asphalt gave way to a mix of gravel and dirt in a rutted series of steep upward bends. Wet days, like this one, it was gravel and mud.

“Damn,” Malcolm swore, steering wheel jerking his hands as the truck pitched and yawed and strained with the camper’s weight.

He had just retrieved the pickup camper from the edge of cleared woodland off another rural road where he worked with a logging operation. He parked it there just after he was released two years ago from the New York maximum security prison in Seneca Springs where he spent 11 years convicted of manslaughter in the accidental death of his brother during a fistfight. It was his home until a year ago when he negotiated a deal with two elderly sisters his age for a vacant single-wide mobile home on this road, Claw Valley Pike. The logging operation ceased since then, the land was sold, and the new owner wanted the camper removed.

First time up this hill he almost passed the aged small frame house on the right where the reputedly ornery sisters lived, obscure behind the beech trees, the evergreens, the thick brush, even in winter when foliage was gone. Across the way, a swamp nested where ducks once dwelled. No more. Muck and mire took over, with still enough seeping water from a spring for tadpoles in the ditch alongside the road, for cattails on its edge. When weather warmed, Malcolm could hear the awakening peepers at dusk and into the night, shrill waves of sound. Winter it would be coyotes and owls, and the occasional shriek of their prey.

On the hilltop, at the entryway to the rutted drive that led to the sisters’ house, a rusted white mailbox leaned backward, likely shoved in that direction by a snowplow. Beyond, Claw Valley Pike narrowed downhill to a tight two lanes, When lumber trucks roared through, Malcolm pulled over to the side away from the ditch into the blackberry brush that lined the road. He’d tap the peak of his ball cap, greeting the drivers. They’d wave back.

“Bastard,” he’d mouth with a grin.

Under the mailbox hung a faded wood sign that said Perkins. Perkins, Malcolm now knew, stood for sisters Ella and Marie, and more recently, for their tall, gangly and somewhat backward and very troubled nephew, Elijah. The sisters, usually ferociously protective and obstinately private, took in Elijah reluctantly when their brother Sam and his wife Margaret left town unexpectedly. The couple, owners of the single-wide Malcolm now occupied, dropped Elijah off as they always did on Sunday on their way to the Crossroads Community Church of the Redeemer, about 5 miles away on old Route 17. Ella told Malcolm the story when he negotiated lodging in the single-wide.

“‘Y’all doin’ OK here?’ Sam asked me then” Ella said. “‘Can I get you anything from the grocery.’”

“I said, ‘I think we’ve got what we need, Sam, Don’t be gone long.’ I had no idea they were taking off.”

“The two never showed up at church. Two days later, I filed a missing persons report, resulting in a search for my brother’s truck. They could identify it by a sign on the doors that said Perkins Contracting.”

"Not that Sam did much independent work contractors do - his business skills weren't all that reliable," Ella told Malcolm. "He generally worked for other contractors or helped in logging operations around here."

“Two weeks later, border police reported they crossed at Niagara Falls into Canada, destination Alberta,” she said.

Ella had then reached for a key to the single-wide, hanging on a nail on the rough-milled kitchen window frame. She put it into Malcolm’s palm and smiled. Malcolm’s hands were as heavily calloused as hers. She liked that.

"Margaret didn’t really want to leave Claw Valley, or Elijah with us - we never really were friendly,” she continued. “And, as me and Marie worried, who knew what Elijah might do when he found out she and Sam abandoned him." She paused.

“Of course we had to take him in."

Marie later told Malcolm "He makes me uneasy, rocking back and forth and talking to himself like he does. He seems to be everywhere."

“For now, he’s in the attic room,” Marie said.. “We had to turn the heat on” ...

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

LITTLE HOUSE IN QUEENS, NYC -- AND A PUBLISHED SHORT STORY

LITTLE HOUSE IN QUEENS, NYC - AND A PUBLISHED SHORT STORY

While thinking about how my mother liked to read mysteries, this little 2-family house in Queens, New York City, came to mind - where my mother, brother, and I lived with my grandmother and grandfather in the three-room upstairs flat for about seven years --

One of my published short stories came out of this experience, “Halloween Eve 1945” -- here's the link ...

http://fairclothreview.com/halloween-eve-1945-by-wes-rehberg/

ADIOS 2013 -- THE YEAR OF THE MEDICAL MALADY TOUR

Looking forward to 2014 as the year of the medical malady tour comes to an end … some stops along the way --

-- prostate cancer rise and fall, and I interrupt medical treatment in favor of anti-cancer diet and exercise -- treatment side effects too pronounced -- later tests indicated cancer presence undetectable. Monitoring.

-- macular degeneration, both eyes, under treatment, seems arrested

-- cataracts, both eyes, thus surgery to replace clouding lenses

-- lower back injury, physical therapy and ongoing rehab exercises

-- full body bone scan at my request (demand), negative for cancer; lower back X-ray later also indicates no cancer.

-- colonoscopy, everything’s okay

-- borderline hypertension … (no wonder)

Yep … so long 2013 …

DRAFT PASSAGE FROM MY SECOND 'ELROD' SHORT STORY

Draft passage from my second Elrod short story:

The next day, Elrod showered, dressed, and in the cold, clear morning, walked toward a small downtown market about a mile away. En route, he mused about his situation and what seemed to be a new stage of recovery from a severe head injury he suffered in the vehicle accident that killed his parents and left him an orphan.

Mind is clearing more and more, he thought. I no longer talk about myself in the third person, Elrod is doing this, is doing that, and I seem to be putting sequences together in a better way. I'm smart, and from reading and therapy, know I'm a global thinker. I'm not sure how far this will go, but, I've got a new sense of myself.

Elrod reaffirmed to himself that he no longer wanted to be without shelter on the streets again. He learned to be frugal, to bank money unspent from his disability checks, to use his food stamps carefully, and to be persistent in his work to reduce the disabilities he realized he suffered from his childhood head wound. The room at Motel 23 he could afford.

“A new me,” he said softly. “Seven years on the streets. Enough of that!”

Still looking like a homeless person, Elrod walked through the roads bordering a city project and added a shuffle to his stride as he neared the market. A new me putting on the old me, he mused, smiling. Off to his left, he glimpsed a young boy knocking on a door, carrying a lunch bag. The door opened, a hand reached out and took the bag. The boy then ran farther up the street and around a corner.

I heard about that, he thought, kids used as drug couriers for street dealers. Leave it be, but keep what I saw in mind.

(c) 2014 Wes Rehberg

BRIEF HISTORY OF A WRITER STILL FUMBLING WITH WORDS

BRIEF HISTORY OF A WRITER STILL FUMBLING WITH WORDS

The history. Some extremely regrettable actions. They can’t be undone. Some redeeming ones. How to regard those? I think of them as blessings maybe deserved, maybe not. I’ve no way of telling.

Spouse. Almost twenty five years together now. Many adventures and misadventures shared. Her children and mine, melding still. Uncommon indwelling and meaning between us.

More than 20 years of writing and editing for smaller newspapers. I felt linked to what happened locally, my beat, for enterprise, spot news, investigation. Turned down a few fine opportunities: working in London for Reuters; per diem news writing for CBS-TV in New York City. Others. Circumstances and my own perfidy got in the way.

About six years of filmmaking, me, camera, putting together a few documentary efforts, some experimental so-called anarchistic pieces, one particularly embarrassing collaboration. A little bit of recognition. Couldn’t keep it up; started too late; too costly to produce.

Now writing again for a couple of years - some short stories published in “literary magazines.” Self-published a trilogy then removed it, hunting traces of its existence so they could be obliterated. Self-published a Ph.D. dissertation and a small collection of short stories and poems, a few published in other venues. Reworking a novel. Submitted a novelette for young readers and another short story.

To me, my writing seems pedestrian, but I like to weave the stories. I’m not methodical, sometimes not careful, shirk from trying to compose anything longer a couple of paragraphs, hate marketing, rarely read to others in settings available, regard this latter part of my creative life as part of a semi-reclusiveness I prefer.

I won’t say it doesn’t matter if my work isn’t accepted or regarded well. It does. But there’s so much available, so many opportunities to find fine works to embrace; it’s easy to be missed in the crowd.

FINAL DRAFT EDIT OF "UPROOTED" COMPLETED (I HOPE) ...

I completed editing the text of “Uprooted,” the final draft (I hope).

I’m unsure yet whether to try to find an agent or publisher for it, or to self-publish the novel myself. For now, I’ll fix the formatting to set it up as an ePub book to see what it looks like that way. Eileen (my spouse) wants to give it a run-through, and maybe I’ll ask others. Uncertainties …

I wrote and edited most of it on Scrivener editing software, starting on my old refurbished Macbook Pro laptop and completing on my used refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad laptop -- I’ll probably ePub format it on Pages, the Mac word processing software that has that capability -- back and forth.

COMING SOON: "UPROOTED," A NOVEL; THEN "GATEWAY" SHORT STORIES

RETIRED JOURNALIST MENACED, INJURED AS HE PROBES
DEGRADING CONDITIONS MENTALLY ILL AND ELDERLY FACE

A retired and semi-reclusive former journalist who strings for a local weekly newspaper is urged by a woman activist who brings meals to rural homebound elderly to help her expose degrading conditions some live in. Inspired, he also helps spawn a probe into mental patient treatment when a psychiatric center is downsized.
The activist's request involves him and his sculptor wife in investigations that lead to threats, injury, local political corruption, personal conflict, international travel, a reunion with a painful past and a choice about his future.

COMNG SOON ...

In addition to the novel “Uprooted,” I’m going to compile a collection of short stories, four which I’ve had the good fortune to publish in literary magazines, a couple of others in process. A few poems, too, two published in literary magazines. Tentative title: “Gateways” -- Getting some mojo back.

INTO THE STORY ...

...

Research, analysis, experience, intentionality, commitment, images, senses, atmospheres, into the words, sketches, outlines, structures, editing, doubting, revising, agonizing, into the words still … into the story ...

...

WHAT IS A 'WRITER'?

Re a discussion in a writer’s group around the notion that one must be suspicious of those who claim to be “writers” but read little of others’ works.

For me, a writer simply bears witness.

To say this, I draw from these experiences, (1) human rights work in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Palestine-Israel, Mexico, Cuba, and in Indian mission churches,  (2) a Ph.D. in philosophy, interpretation and culture.

To me, the notion of “writer” is culturally broad, from scribes who sit on narrow urban streets to write letters (stories) and fill out documents for others, to people who can’t read or write but can tell riveting informal anecdotes when stories are swapped among gathered people.

Do all of these “read others” literary works?

NIGHT SCENE FROM DRAFT OF "UPROOTED" ... NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS

Night scene from the third draft of my novel-in-progress "Uprooted" -- In the scene is Mike Hancock, a mental patient now on the streets as officials downsize a large psychiatric institution. Across the street is the storefront office of The Courier, a weekly newspaper:

Mike Hancock stood across the street from the Courier storefront, staring in the dark through its window at the small lamp illuminating a part of Todd Redding’s desk. His head felt clear. It was a hallucination, he thought to himself. The whole episode about 2C. I must have looked like a fool if anyone saw me. I wonder if I didn’t hallucinate that too. Where’s the line of separation? Am I here, too, on the street?

A police car neared him, the orange streetlights reflecting off its black and white body. A window rolled down.

“What’s up, friend?” the policeman asked.

“I’m having a smoke. It’s prohibited inside. The landlady.”

The policeman nodded. “Okay. Goodnight.”

Hancock stepped into the shadow of the old building’s hallway, cupped his cigarette in his palm so its glow wasn’t visible, and watched a bus stop on the corner. Joanne Chapworth and Leonard Lions stepped out.

“Hurry,” he heard Lions say. “It’s almost past curfew,” as they passed, hastening to the group home. Hancock smiled. I know them, he thought. We’re on the streets. That’s certain.

A short time later, a black pickup truck stopped in front of the luncheonette next door to the Courier, a man who appeared to Hancock to be taller than him stepped out, removed a ladder, placed it against the wall on the right side of the Courier window, attached something to the corner out of view of the security camera inside, replaced the ladder on the truck, backed up, made a U-turn, and drove off. The truck had a wood frame in the bed used to hold quarried bluestone shale.

Shit, that looks like a spy cam. Wireless, Hancock thought. I wonder where the connection is. I’ve got to write this down so I’ll remember to check tomorrow. He flicked his cigarette into the gutter.

As he crossed the roof to his tiny apartment, he looked at the window into 2C’s kitchen. The woman, what was her name, Mandy? Melinda? appeared to be looking out in silhouette, wearing a slip. I’m not falling for this, Hancock thought. He watched her turn to the table and pick up a smartphone. The cell phone in his pocket rang. It startled him. He put it to his ear and clicked answer, said nothing.

“Come on over, Mike. I’m alone.”

He hung up and entered his apartment, turned on the floor lamp and wrote his observations on a pad. The phone rang again. He looked out the window. She was still there. He put the phone on silent, disabled the apartment button that connects to the building’s front door lock, turned off the light and went to bed.

Limbo, Purgatory, he thought. A world of illusions that feels so real, full of pain. Plato’s cave. Shadows. Maya. Imagination gone haywire. The trace of the lost trace. Delusory. Where does the real begin and the illusion end? He lay back on the mattress dressed in his street clothes. Good night, he thought. Sleep itself has to be real. I’m exhausted.

(c) Wes Rehberg 2013

"UPROOTED" THIRD DRAFT - CHAPTER 7 OPENER

Third draft of novel "Uprooted," now at about 112,000 words -- opening of Chapter 7 of 77 short chapters (for now) -- 

Next morning, Stephens drove his truck to the village square, parked it near the Roosevelt Courier, opened the weekly newspaper’s door, strode past the piles of editions stacked on whatever available space would hold them, and stood in front of the worn oak desk where Todd Redding sat, flushed and surprised to see him.

“What’s up, old friend,” Redding asked, turning back to his computer.

“Nice try,” Stephens said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Rodney Sharpe. You tipped him off.”

Redding swiveled back to face Stephens directly.

“It was just a professional courtesy,” he said.

“Sharpe shoved me and threatened me,” Stephens replied. “You could extend a little of that courtesy to me as well.”

“You always have that,” Redding said, his composure regained.

“Here’s mine to you,” Stephens said. “I’m done stringing here.”

“Suit yourself,” Redding said. “By the way, here’s a little more courtesy. I asked Sarah Nelson at the aging office who Alicia Stewart contacted in her little campaign. She told me, so I’ve done a little preemptive work. You could have figured I wouldn’t print this. We don’t need this kind of crap spread around.”

“I thought you had a shred of integrity left,” Stephens said. “Preemptive? Does Alicia know?”

“She will now. You’ll tell her,” Redding said, turning back to his computer. “Have a nice day, Gil.”

Stephens shivered in anger as he left the office. Redding watched him walk to his truck through the window, sighed, and mused on the notion of integrity.

“It’s situational, isn’t it?” he asked himself. “Just like everything?”

"Uprooted" is a novel that journeys with its principal character, an aged and injured former journalist, who is uprooted from a semi-reclusive state into new investigations, altered associations and dangerous encounters among those close to him, in the U.S., Spain, The Netherlands, Mexico and Morocco…

THESE DAYS ... THE CHARACTERS

These days I write, research, study other writers and film storytellers ... for me, characters lead the way through atmospheres, forms, tones, story lines, the ecology and economy of the written work … they confront me, elusively.
A Monday thought ...

ENDING THE SELF-PUBLISHING TEMPTATION

“And a new day will dawn for those who stand long,

And the forests will echo with laughter…” - Led Zeppelin ...

Done with self-publishing books -- since I’ve had a four short stories published in literary journals this past year, i have more confidence in writing this way.

Agonizing and chancy as it is, then, submitting to publishers is the route for my young reader’s novelette “Windows in a Vacant Building,” the in-process novel “Uprooted” (based on my self-published trilogy), another one taking shape in my imagination, and a collection of short stories on the drawing board that includes those in the journals.

An overwhelming ambition … for a person who started out this way in the beginning of 2012 (at age 75). And why not? ... !

When I’ve completed “Uprooted” I’ll pull the trilogy off the market (“Stringer,” Turned Loose,” “Tilt”) to give this improved version a chance.

EXCERPT FROM MY CRIME STORY "ELROD AND RAPHOOL" - DRAFT IN PROGRESS

Excerpt from "Elrod and Raphool" - draft in progress ...

Old Ironworks. Raphool could be in danger. I need to check this out, Elrod thought as he left the homeless center, walked across a large asphalt space, past a produce market and to the railroad tracks that led to the location of what had been a large industrial zone, now long dormant and in decay.

Elrod strode slowly and entered the grounds of an abandoned old ironworks and passed through long shadows from its skeletal structure, now silhouetted in the waning daylight. He hoisted his backpack and decided to park himself high within the structure, climbing along a low angled outdoor conveyor until he reached a spot beneath the lip of a metal roof where he believed he’d be undetected, where the floor leveled out.

Safer here, he assured himself. Private eye Elrod needs to collect his thoughts. Maybe I can spot Raphool from here.

A noise behind him interrupted his thoughts.

“Hey!” a voice called. Elrod jumped up, startled, his head hitting the low roof. He kneeled and reached inside his backpack for his box cutter.

“Hey, who?” he replied.

“It’s Raphool.”

“I’m no fool. Show your face.”

Raphool, even shorter than Elrod, stood his full height under the low roof as he walked across the grated floor, creaking metal marking each step.

“What are you doing here?” Raphool asked.

“What I’m doing has already happened. Trying to find you. Folks at the shelter have opened it up for the night while murder lurks about. I thought I might see you from up here.”

“We’ll settle here for now, then,” Raphool said. “I want to see if anyone might come into this area tonight who normally doesn’t hang out here.”

“Why you so interested?”

“Like you, I like to investigate.”

“You’re a cop. Undercover.”

“Raphool is no fool.”

“Neither is Elrod.”

“We’ll leave it at that. I brought sandwiches and water. I’ll share it with you. You won’t have to go back to eat. Besides, it’s almost dark.”

After nightfall, Elrod and Raphool heard a vehicle ride into the abandoned area, pull up next to a rusted crane, and stop. Two truck doors slammed.

“We can’t see from here,” Raphool said softly

“It’s a diesel pickup,” Elrod whispered. “Old, from the way it sounds.”

“Good observation. We don’t dare move, they’ll probably hear us.”

Voices murmured from below, the pickup doors opened and closed again and the vehicle turned and drove around the skeletal structure, headlights scanning the littered asphalt and broken concrete below. Elrod and Raphool could see them from above through the girders and conveyer rig. The two quietly lay flat on the floor grating as a flashlight beam scanned the structure, the truck’s lights now out, the motor running.

“See anything?” one of the men said.

“Nothing.”

“I can’t believe there’s none of those creeps hanging out here.”

“They ain’t under the overpass and they ain’t in here, and the floor’s all wet in the old warehouse, so they ain’t in there.” ...

FLASH FICTION STORY "PICKPOCKET" NOW PUBLISHED

My short flash fiction story "PICKPOCKET" is now published in Sugar Mule Literary Magazine The story begins like this (click on link below for the rest:

..."The treasure easily slides out of the pocket into my hands.
Maybe the pocket of that person hanging onto a subway strap, his eyes meeting his own in his reflection in the train window, tunnel lights flashing by, stroboscopic. Or the three others crowded together near the pole by the train door, all four wearing coats. All I know is the pocket I reached into, jostling as if to move people aside so I could pass through, the pocket my prey..."

http://sugarmule.com/44Rehbe-w.htm

CHROME DRIVE & CHROMEBOOK LIMITATION FOR WRITING LONG DOCUMENTS?

Chrome Drive Limitation for Long Documents?

Compiled novels “Stringer,” “Turned” Loose,” “Tilt” and the incomplete “Displaced” into a Google docs file in the Chromebook - working title “Trio” - 135,000 words, itself a longer novel length -- Question is whether all this will be worth revising and reworking into one new, more compressed book. Don’t know, I’ll need to go through it. Surprised, though, that I could copy and paste all this copy together in Chrome Drive, though I won’t know how successfully until I start testing it. Chrome doesn’t have a merge application this way for documents, so it’s copy and paste.

So, the test …

Nope, not so successfully, it appears - bottom end won’t edit properly, cursor appears a line below the line I wish to edit for a reason I’m not going to take the time to explore and worry about. 

Will have to do this work on my old MacBook Pro, in Scrivener software, where the compilation was simply a smooth merge into workable parts and the entire document edits smoothly too.
Okay, new observation:

Looks like cursor drift downward toward the end of a file is a Google Docs problem in Chrome Drive with big files. I wrote “Windows in a Vacant Building” on Google Docs, 10,000 words, in separate parts, then compiled those. The cursor drifts in this, too, no matter the font size or line spacing..

"TINA'S STORY OF DEATH AND SURVIVAL IN NICARAGUA" NOW PUBLISHED

My nonfiction story -- "Tina's Story of Death and Survival in Nicaragua" -- is now published in the Black Earth Institute's "About Place Journal" ...
Link to the story: http://aboutplacejournal.org/earth-spirit-society/wes-rehberg-ii-i/

FIRST DRAFT OF "VACANT BUILDING" GETS HARD EDIT -- TWO SHORT STORIES DUE FOR PUBLICATION SOON

I imported the scattered episodes of "Windows in a Vacant Building" into Scrivener authoring software to compile them and go through the combined texts with a hard edit. This is my novelette for young people and adults. Some previews of first draft texts are in posts below.
Beautiful thing about the software is the ease with which it lets one merge doc files simply by importing a whole written sequence into an embracing new file without copying and pasting. It just stacks them up in the order one designates. Love it, because usually I write texts in different files and even on different platforms. One can rearrange sequences simply but clicking and dragging along a time line.
Now the revisions and reworkings ...
On another note, my flash fiction piece "Pickpocket" will appear in an online version of the literary magazine Sugar Mule on August 14. My nonfiction short story "Tina's Story of Life and Death in Nicaragua" will appear in Black Earth Institute's About Place Journal this fall, with photos.

ABOUT 'PICKPOCKET' IN NEXT ISSUE OF SUGAR MULE LITERARY MAGAZINE

THE TRUTH DOES NOT SET US FREE ...

THE TRUTH DOES NOT SET US FREE:

The writer of investigative nonfiction, or fiction based on factual occurrences, relies on truth - burdensome because in reality the truth does not set us free.

Two problems:

One, error: What is understood as truth is a result of processing information through perceptions colored by biases and categories, including those one is unaware of (one’s “gaze”).

Two, danger: Even if facts may be as near an approximation as is possible with verifications that support it, their revelation could be so dangerous as to imperil one’s life or freedom, as the global assassination and imprisonment of multitudes of journalists and judicial activists indicates.

What one faces with some “truths” then are the potential perils to one’s freedom and life, and the need to critically examine how one’s gaze possibly distorts the information one considers truth, definite burdens, No?...

I WRITE BECAUSE ...

I write because I am totally puzzled about human existence. Philosophize, we imagine answers or speculations and give them categories that are deemed significant. Scientificize, we use observations, measurements and instruments that depend on the senses that came with our births, and the computer that came with the package, the brain.

I had nothing to do with how this thing called “me” became fashioned and have had a little bit to do with how it developed -- lucky “me” and the 18 billion year old molecules that move in an out of the ensemble I am.

Intriguing in the midst of this: We create stories and muse this way. And others of our kind read, listen to, or watch them. Imagine that.

EPISODE SEGMENT: 'WINDOWS IN A VACANT BUILDING' - In Progress ...

Mother Catherine smiled in amusement when John, Jennelle, Jessie and Jillie showed up outside the homeless shelter’s doorway where she sat in her wheelchair.

“I understand you’re a carpenter, Mr. Jones,” she said. “We just took delivery of a big TV set that was donated. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind putting it up on the wall for us so our older clients can watch programs in the lounge.”

Jillie began tugging at the leash Jennelle held, in the direction of the vacant building.

“I don’t have any tools with me,” John said.

“We have some. It came with a mounting frame that it slips onto. I think it just needs to be screwed into the wall. I’m afraid to ask any of our elderly gents to do it.”

Jillie pulled hard on the leash, drawing Jennelle away from the door.

“It’ll have to be attached to the studs,” John said.

“No doubt,” Mother Catherine replied.

“Probably a drill and screwdriver will do it,” John said. “You have those?”

“Sure do. It looks like Jillie wants to walk a little more.”

John looked over to Jennelle who had her hands full with Jillie’s tugging. Jillie turned and looked at him.

Mr. jones, go inside with Mother Catherine, she transmitted. John shook his head as if he had an impulse he couldn’t fathom..

“You’re right, Mother Catherine,” he replied. “You kids walk with Jillie a little. I’ll install the TV, it won’t take long, and when you come back, we can ask Mother Catherine about the photo album and the house.”

Come on, come on, Jillie signaled to Jennelle. We have to go down to the fourth window. It’s showtime.

“We’ll be right back, Dad,” Jennelle said. “Come on, Jess.”

I’m worried, Jillie, Jennelle thought. I have an odd feeling about this trip.

No fear, Jillie replied.

Inside the shelter, John mounted the flat-screen television near the cable outlet used for the older small set that sat on a table, attached it to the cable outlet, plugged it in, and turned on the set with the remote to check it out. On the screen he could see images of Jennelle, Jesse and Jillie outside a window of the vacant building. The image disappeared then scrambled.

“What on earth!” he said. He turned to look at Mother Catherine. She nodded her head toward the TV screen.

On the screen, the image changed from a view outside the vacant building to a night scene in an urban area where buildings looked partially destroyed. John could see Jennelle, Jesse and Jillie walking toward a group of three children huddled around a small fire close to one building, Jesse looking in all directions, sometimes walking backward, stopping, then catching up with his companions. Jillie appeared to be leading the way.

“What is this?” John demanded. “Where is this view coming from?”

“It’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean!” an elderly man explained, who seated himself to view the new set. “Ain’t you ever seen that one?”

“Yeah,” said another. “Get out of the way, you’re blocking the view.”

(c) 2013 Wes Rehberg