VISITING VIOLENT WARD IN "TURNED LOOSE"

Scene involves Alicia Stewart (later Alicia Lys) and Gil Stephens -- both working on news stories about a psychiatric center's downsizing -- and William "Bill" Barnes, head of the psych center board of visitors, a downsizing opponent.

They exited the elevator and walked down a hall, dimly lit, to a door labeled “9.” Barnes opened it, led them inside, and spoke with two male attendants who appeared to cast clinical looks at his two guests. They introduced themselves.

“This way, please,” the shorter attendant said. “We’re in art therapy right now. They do have visitors occasionally during this period, but I ask that you be reserved and polite. Respectful.”

 Inside a bright spacious room, Stewart and Stephens stood in the background as several men looked at them initially. Three began to chatter and walk slowly in different directions, others stood stationary, and another ambled over to Stewart and gestured to her to follow him to a large pastel that displayed a swirl of orange, yellow and red, with a black profiled figure in the center that glanced sidelong at the viewer. An attendant nodded it was okay.

“This is my mind and my emotions,” the man said, pointing to the swirl of colors. “And this in the center is the Devil. He wants to turn all these colors black. He wants to do that in all of us. Did you know that?”

“It’s a powerful drawing,” Stewart said.

“You’re evading the question,” the man said. He shook his head, looked at the taller attendant, and walked to a corner of the room, sat down and smiled.

“You know that it’s true,” he called to her. “He’s insidious and full of disguises. Look around. What disguise is he wearing now?”

EPUB READERS FOR ANDROID, iPAD & iPHONE

ALDIKO is a good Epub reader for Android, and iBOOKS can import Epub digital books on iPad and iPhone -- FYI -- photo below is Aldiko's bookshelf.

Plenty of other Android choices. For MACs, I like CALIBRE ... also good for Windows

OFFERING EBOOKS DIRECTLY AT DISCOUNTS

Setting up so I can offer Epub versions of my books directly at discounted prices - viewable in iBooks and other Ebook readers such as Calibre, shown in photo ... skirting the popular middlemen ...

The setup is complete -- you may visit Wild Clearing's books home page to visit a title to find the discounted price ...

REDUCING MYSELF TO A QR CODE

SCAN THIS ...

Did you sample anything -- ? Even a glimpse ...?

'DISPLACED' DRAFT - 'COURAGE OR MADNESS'

From DISPLACED ... novel in progress.

What was that again?, Stephens thought. The creative impulse is unique to each of us?

Yes, and expressing that uniqueness authentically takes courage. And for me often, it is a lonely pursuit.

Still …

Still, what?

I rise. I put on the coffee. It is morning, the day after the tragedy of Willard Comstock. There’s a police car down at the Comstocks goat dairy. Or should I say, down at Prudence’s. Alicia is with her. Cecilia has returned to her apartment.

Turn it around. 

The destructive impulse is unique to each of us. T.S. Eliot spoke of removing the inhibition that lets the creative flow. Willard removed an inhibition. Snapped, Prudence said. Had enough. Let the self-destructive flow.

Courage or madness? Or maybe he felt remorse after he left the tavern and tried to return home, but lost control of his truck. Deliberate? An accident?

Is negating the inhibition for self-destructiveness a double negative that does not become a positive?

The mystery.

Why did he snap? Alicia may find out.

ANNA WRITES IN 'DISPLACED' - NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS

Anna Pietersen writes in DISPLACED - from chapter 3 draft just written of my novel-in-progress:

This is Anna writing. Heed me. I traipse and stretch across an ocean.

I of Amsterdam, once married to Jan Hoekstra, wildly comic sculptor of assemblages, scattered across a yard on the flattened outskirts of my city, afflicted by multiple sclerosis, grappled with a walker, vast sexual appetite in his prime, shorter than I, so strong, wanderer through canals, tipsy cyclist, crashing often, once off a bridge into water, the bicycle recovered amid his bold laughter, later struggles with his walker to attempt once more to sculpt a weightless form, defying his own incapacity. Falls.

Helen Rice and I hoist him up to a futon, we a dalliance then, sexy crones to creative crones, sweet Jan dead hours later, grieving him still.

And I of upstate New York, they call it here, grief that spans an ocean, spouse now of Helen, in a triple wedding among Jan’s sculptures, imagining him in his do-rag and beard laughing as we six or eight or then ten, it was, of us, dance like Bojangles, jump so high, then lightly touch down. The electric stand=up bass and classical guitar of Eindeloze Tijd, Endless Time, we Moroccans, Dutch, Americans, lightly touch down, yes, and in one grand leap, jeté, I cross an ocean to a land of mountains and winding rivers and slate outcroppings and hardpan, fierce winters now disturbingly warm. An alien. Displaced.

Though less perturbed, breaking outward, like the dancer, the potter, the roamer of Amsterdam streets, picking up men, women in my youth, then transformed to sedate, a pose I matched for awhile with behavior, usually, often, then Helen and I meet. We make love. She tarries, we marry. Breaking outward in a new land. How it must be.

OPENING LINES FOR SHORT STORY 'HOMELESS'

Opening lines for short story "Homeless" which I'm writing along with the novel "Displaced."

August and the winter months. Elrod Mathews hated them.

He shambled about with his gear under the bridge, unrolled his sleeping bag, rolled up a sweater for a pillow, and stretched the sleeping bag out on the ledge just below the city highway. The vehicles passing above thumped an irregular beat that echoed under the overpass. No vehicles traveled on the road at the bottom of the broad cement slant connected to the ledge.

“That’s what I am,” he said to another man, already asleep. “Private detective Elrod Mathews, at your service.”

Where’s my magnifying glass, he thought. He reached into his old army jacket’s inside pocket and pulled out a reading glass he sometimes used to direct the sun’s beam on paper to light a fire. Or a cigarette. If the sun was out.

He edged over to the sleeping man, whose boots were sticking out from under his blanket. Check the soles, he thought, scanning through the glass, the boots illuminated with his tiny flashlight.

“Hah!” he said. “Hairs. Gray ones. Long ones. A lot of them, clumped in red clay.”

Mathews backed away. Never expected that, he thought. He stood, looked at the man, skinny, reeking of alcohol, breathing heavily. He covered his mouth as if to take back what he said. 

I hope he didn’t hear. Private eye Mathews has to figure this out...

FROM A TRILOGY TO A SERIES ...

SERIES -- When I started STRINGER I intended to develop a trilogy that would focus on the changing lifestyles of the key group of characters and their encounters with each other, with crime and violence and intrigue, with efforts at reportage and social justice, and to challenge stereotypes. Now, after the following novels - TILT, TURNED LOOSE and STRINGER - I find I want to keep working with the characters. So I'm planning a fourth novel using the theme DISPLACED. I also need a series theme name, too, so I'm pondering that.

DISPLACED may start something like this:

Helen Rice awoke startled and sat up. "Oh!" she cried.

"What is the matter?" Anna Pietersen asked, alarmed, roused from her sleep.

"I just felt how deeply I'm grieving," Rice said."The intensity of it. Not only me, you are, we all are."

eBOOK FORMATS & DIGITAL RIGHTS TANGLE

Finally zeroing in on the best formatting for digital book editions (like Kindle, Nook, iBooks) - quite a learning curve, partly because suggestions are piecemeal across internet ebook sites ...

Another intriguing tangle is Digital Rights Management (DRM) -- or, for an ebook buyer, the ability to convert an ebook file into another format and pass it on to a friend -- Kindle & Nook gives an author or publisher the option to DRM or not -- Smashwords will only distribute without DRM ... the argument for not DRM-ing is that allowing a reader to convert or pass on is like "word-of-mouth" - One will see the passed-on version and will say "Oooh. I want to view this on my Kindle or Nook or whatever ebook reader one employs, and then buy the book ...

DRAFT COVER FOR 'TILT' - MY THIRD NOVEL

Draft cover for  TILT ... my third novel .

NEXT NOVEL MAY ADDRESS THEME "DISPLACED"

* Thinking of expatriates, immigrants and displaced persons as a theme for my next novel. Especially the internally displaced.

* Intriguing to note that skilled professionals working in another country are described as *expatriates,* while others not-so-skilled may be called *immigrants.*

 * Some how makes me think of the introduction I had to Asian Subaltern Studies via the work of Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak - much of which I've forgotten - thoughts not so deep anymore.

* Subalterns can be seen as non-elites striving for social and political change - not necessarily through uprisings or demonstrations.

* Must not turn the novel, if I pursue it, into an academic discourse --

* Then comes the question -- is living in a social network a form of displacement? Or colonization?

SPECIAL 7-DAY SALE FOR NOVEL 'STRINGER'

SPECIAL 7-DAY SALE FOR NOVEL 'STRINGER'

Starting Sept.8 and for the next 7 days, Wes Rehberg's novel STRINGER will be on sale at reduced prices on Amazon.com - 
   
Kindle edition at $2.99 and paperback at $9.95 -- (down from $17.95 paperback and $9.99 Kindle).
   
Visit the link below for a preview, a synopsis and to purchase:
http://www.amazon.com/Wes-Rehberg-Ph.D./e/B007KIY2HW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

OPENING OF 2ND DRAFT OF 'TILT'

Opening of the second draft of "TILT" -- (Scrivener software capture) ...

FIRST DRAFT OF 'TILT' WRITTEN ... NOW THE REVISIONS

"The solitude of fiction writing, a yoga that stretches the sinews of that reach into an unfathomable source … no way to know why the need to do this … the outputs and outcomes are so uncertain." -- 
-- Alicia Lys in "TILT" ...

 Completed the first draft of "TILT" - third novel in a series that began with "STRINGER," followed by "TURNED LOOSE." 

Now the revisions, an exhausting process. In most ways, I followed John Steinbeck's suggestion, write through and go back and fix later. Occasionally, I re-edited a scene when I realized that it synchronized poorly with subsequent episodes or characterizations.

  I'll find more of these as I work the second draft. I'll also find things I wrote that will make me wonder what I was thinking about.

Usually, I write every day, surprised at the discipline. The plot line is general when I start out but the characters’ features are basically clear in my mind. They help guide the story's direction and lead to the introduction of other characters and plot details and shifts.

I'm not shy about writing complicated plots or characters, or leaving some things unresolved, or developing multiple themes, or giving a character space to reflect. I'm not shy either about writing uninhibitedly.

The core episodes in all three novels have been written in an imaginary area in upstate New York, some others in imagined spaces of real places, and others in actual sites. The characters and events are fiction.
  So far the manuscript has about 46,000 words which translate into a little more than 200 paperback pages.

NEARING THE END OF THE FIRST DRAFT OF "TILT"

From Scrivener software ...

FOUR BOOKS AVAILABLE VIA WILD CLEARING ...

"TURNED LOOSE," "STRINGER," "OPENING THE GATE," AND "POLITICAL GRACE: THE GIFT OF RESISTANCE" are available via links at Wild Clearing's home page ...

HELEN AND ANNA CONSTRUCT JAN'S MEMORIAL SCULPTURE

From my the first draft of my novel-in-progress "TILT" -- Helen Rice and Anna Pietersen construct Jan Hoekstra's memorial sculpture -- image with text from Scrivener software:

ANNA REFLECTS ON HELEN AND HER IN "TILT"

Excerpt from Part 2 of "TILT" -- Chapter 14, first scene ... (Draft)

(The beginning and deepening of Helen Rice and Anna Pietersen's relationship)

Anna Pietersen wandered over her plot of lowland, weaving slowly through the scattered sculpted assemblages Jan Hoekstra had placed on the property over their years together on the outskirts of Amsterdam.

Something that will work within another assemblage that Helen and I are collaborating on, she thought, yet represent him and what he meant to me. He never promoted his work, always the recluse. So difficult that way. Another forgotten yet very fine artist. I, too, similar, hating the marketplace. Helen is different. I am sure it has been frustrating for her, too. And now we two intertwine, as creative beings and aging partners. Companions, maybe, until one of us dies. Life ends. There is no more. And then the earth is gone and all our works vanish. What does it matter? I will not let go of this thought. Yet I will defy it, even if the work is only temporal.

Defiance, that is what I am looking for, she thought. A piece that defies both celestial gravity and the gravity of inevitable destruction. ...

PROGRESS IN 1ST DRAFT OF "TILT"

Where I am in the first draft of my novel "TILT" -- writing in Scrivener software ... 21,000 words, roughly 86 paperback pages, probably halfway through ... — at Wild Clearing.

"TILT" NEW WORKING TITLE OF NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS

'TILT' is the new working title of my novel-in-progress, formerly called 'Clarity." It is the third in the series that includes 'Turned Loose' and 'Stringer.'
I'm thinking of using the key characters in future works too, much the same way as noir and mystery novels do. Some excerpts highlighting the characters are in posts below.

'CLARITY' EXCERPT WITH HELEN RICE & ANNA PIETERSEN

Excerpt from a draft scene  in "Clarity" between sculptor Helen Rice, 67, and potter Anna Pietersen, 63, their growing relationship a parallel theme in the novel:

Helen Rice guided Anna Pietersen into the Benwood Art Museum in Oquaga City, under the logo “BAM!” on a blue banner hung above the windowed entranceway.  

“We’ll see where they positioned my scarecrow sculpture and later look at ‘Still Life’,” she said. “‘Still Life’ is really a joke; I was surprised they added it to their regional collection. You’ll see why. It refers to a practice by people in the U.S. who made a home brew known as ‘moonshine’ and ‘white lightning’.”

“I know a little about that. Our jajem has a similar tradition, but it is made from malt rather than corn.”

Rice waved a greeting at the desk attendant and entered the main hall, architecturally lighted from broad slanted and vertical windows that faced the Susquehanna River, light that reflected off brushed steel and aluminum walls interspersed with light oak irregular panels. Her sculpture, titled “Scarecrow Threat,” was set so it greeted visitors to the museum’s interior sculpture gallery.

“That’s satisfying,” Rice said, smiling, hers and Pietersen’s arms interlocked as they strolled.

“It must be,” Pietersen grinned.

“Sandra has a work here, too, a small Claes Oldenburg styled work called ‘Collapse,’ stuffed white vinyl arranged in a way that makes a viewer feel as if might fall.”

“Very funny. Tell me more about ‘Scarecrow'."

ORGANIZATIONAL POWER OF SCRIVENER IMPRESSIVE

Really like the organizational power of Scrivener software for novel writing - also applicable for other genres ... Below, where I was up to in "Clarity" when screen shot was 'captured.'

DRAFT EXCERPT FROM 'CLARITY,' SEQUEL TO 'STRINGER' & 'TURNED LOOSE'

Draft excerpt from a scene in my novel tentatively titled "Clarity," sequel to "Stringer" and "Turned Loose."

Matty Dimmock grumbled to himself inside the Nanticoke Crossing gas station and convenience store. Damned part-timers, he thought. Bliss is late again. I put in the long hours for PetrolCo. They come and go as they please.

He continued to slide packs of cigarettes into an overhead tray when he noticed the prison guard pull up in his Chevy pickup. What’s it this time?, Dimmock thought to himself. Cigarettes to smuggle inside? A message? I don’t know how they can employ someone so heavy and out of shape.

The guard, Phil Knowland, pushed open the store’s door and almost knocked over a stand of newspapers. One stack fell to the floor. He ignored it and walked to the counter.

“Two cartons, slime,” he said. “And here’s a little love note for you.”

“Be nice to know who my suitor is,” Dimmock replied.

“Don’t get your nose in this. It’s liable to get cut off.”

“What you make on the smokes?”

“None of your damned business what I do with these, sleaze.”

Knowland paid and left, stepping on the papers on the floor. Dimmock read the tiny folded scrap of paper: “Cabin = Ashes.”

“Somebody’s going to get burned out,” he said to himself. He tapped a text message into his cell phone to a number he was supposed to send these messages to and sent it. Then bent over to pick up the newspapers, The weekly Courier, special edition. He looked at the headline. Okay, they’re on Jesse again, he thought. I’ll read this later. He stuck the scrap of paper in his pocket. Keepsakes, he mused. Bliss McConkey pulled up in an old Honda and parked.

“About time,” Dimmock said when she entered, thin, heavily made up, in jeans and a red blouse, hair dyed black, 60 years old, always late.

“Car’s screwed up,” she said. “I had to get somebody in the trailer park to give me a jump.”

“Log in. I’m going out back to eat my lunch.”

Dimmock unwrapped his sandwich, took a bottle of cola from a case, and sat at a small metal desk. He looked at the inset photos on the front page of the weekly. Earle, Alicia Lys, Gil Stephens, with a patch on his eye, Helen Rice, the namelines read. Two stories about Earle, one on suspicions he’s operating schemes from inside Seneca Lake prison, the other about attacks on the other three, with the idea that Earle might be behind them.

“Old Jesse’s gonna be pissed off about this,” he uttered.

Wait a minute, he thought. That’s Alicia, the lady who used to bring meals to that guy in the wheelchair who lives in the single-wide up the hill. She’d stop in here for coffee. Nice looking. He read on.

“There’s been attacks on the old guy’s cabin,” he said. “Holy shit.”

He looked at the scrap of paper again. “Cabin = Ashes.”

Dimmock stood up. Crap. I’m in the middle of this, he thought. And I just got the letter with the 25 bucks in cash to relay the messages. That fat guard’s mixed up in it, too. And he knows it. And they’re aiming to burn down the guy’s cabin. What the hell do I do now?

NEXT NOVEL IN SERIES STARTED - 'CLARITY'

Ten-thousand words into the next novel in the series, started with "STRINGER," and followed by "TURNED LOOSE," both now available -- working title is "CLARITY" ...

Using Scrivener software for this one, and used it for part of the last - a lot easier to organize chapters and scenes than Pages or Word in the writing phase.

WEB PAGE FOR NOVEL 'TURNED LOOSE'

Web page for TURNED LOOSE is:
http://www.wildclearing.com/loose.html

REVISED COVER FOR 'TURNED LOOSE'

Revised cover design for TURNED LOOSE -- (online proof)

Proofing the novel's text - amazing the errors I missed in previous reads. Style has noir touches --

'CLARITY' TO FOLLOW 'TURNED LOOSE,' 'STRINGER'

Beginning third novel of the series started with "Stringer" and next with "Turned Loose" -- working title is "Clarity" ...

WEB PAGE FOR 'TURNED LOOSE'

TURNED LOOSE now has its own web page at:
http://www.wildclearing.com/loose.html

CHARACTERS REFLECT IN "TURNED LOOSE"

Brief characters' reflections from "Turned Loose" - The first paragraph is Todd Redding's; he's a weekly's owner - Next paragraph is a brief narrative referring to Mike Hancock, a mental patient - The last are from Helen Rice, a bisexual sculptor married to Gil Stephens ...

Things are falling apart all around me, Redding thought. Why did I let myself get pulled into this? He walked to the window and looked out. Two young men in long dark coats, black hair, faces streaked in black, walked by, looked into the window, waved with an abbreviated gesture, and continued on. Omens of evil, Redding thought. What else. He began to pace.

Stephens suggested they bring Hancock to his apartment for his medications. Rice said she’d stay with Redding, obviously distressed with his choices.

All these imaginations seeing it differently, she mused. We coalesce into a temporary consensus. Believe we proceed from there as if it were a potentially fixed proposition. Often without examining the fiber of the consensus. I don’t think Todd has it in him to see the transformation of his newspaper through. He’s going to bail out. Down from the Hill will be aborted. Then what for Gil, for Alicia. I’m only tangentially involved. My career is on track, and at my age, that’s a wonder. I’m still someone the university wants to keep around. Now, enterprises are playing with the notion of “strategic dynamism.” Long-term goals disappear as quick fixes take over. I could live 30 more years, it’s part of my heritage, the genetic mystery that codes the timing. Like Gil, his take a little different, I think the imagination rules. In ways people don’t fathom. I’m really glad I don’t have children. I’d be so fearful of what they’d face on this planet; what my imagination conjures will lie ahead.

She thought of the Moody Blues line from “Nights in White Satin”: “We decide which is right and which is an illusion.” Maybe in some cases. If we can figure out where we’re coming from.

DIOTIMA SEQUENCE FROM "TURNED LOOSE"

FROM "TURNED LOOSE" Writer’s note: Alicia Lys and Gil Stephens, more intimate than just good friends now, settle down in a hotel room in Madrid - One of the mental patients had spoken of the Diotima sequence in Plato’s “Symposium” - Alicia asks Gil to talk about it a little --

“This part of you is vague to me,” she said. “I want to know more. Let’s sit on the couch.”
Stephens let her take his hand and guide him, watched her sit with her feet under her facing him, an arm on the couch, the light of the floor lamp behind her.
“Okay,” he sighed.
“I forget how Plato brings this dialogue to Socrates, but a key idea Diotima expresses is that Eros, born of Resource and Need, is a mediator, even a trickster, who connects the human with what lies beyond representation. First it is Beauty, then the Good and the True, supposed mysteries of the divine, Plato’s forms. Yes. That sounds right.”
Lys sipped her wine. “I remember the forms from a philosophy course I aced.”
“You did. Interesting.”
“Go on, Dr. Stephens.” She pretended to lower a pair of eyeglasses over her nose.
“Eros is unruly, this is attributed to Need, his mother, who lived in poverty. He comes in disguises, too, a master of artifice. He’s barefoot, homeless, sleeps out in the open or in doorways. On the other hand, born of Resource on the day of Aphrodite’s birth, he brings to his mediation, as a form of love, the aspect of beauty. Or better maybe, the expression of beauty as a loveliness of the body, and beauty also in other forms of knowledge, like law, institutions, if you can imagine these being open to that, especially with what we’ve encountered.”
“It’s not easy, that’s for sure.”
This is sounding like a Socratic dialogue, Stephens thought.
“Anyway, this mediation becomes a founding event in the human soul, Diotima says. Only Eros can connect the human with wisdom beyond representation, tough to conceive but I imagine intuited. He mediates, in the way humans generally think, between subject and object, subject and predicate, and lover and the beloved. The other forms of love are filios, kinship or friendship love, and agape, transcendental love beyond reckoning. But another key point Diotima makes is the idea that Beauty itself is a loveliness that is everlasting.”
“Not like as us.”
“So far as we appear.”
“But like something in us.”
“Hopefully.”
“Gil, I love this. I don’t want to lose it. Today. The last few months.”
She walked to the window, looked out into the night, and turned around.
“Who’s the trickster here?” Stephens asked, smiling.
Lys laughed, walked to the couch and clasped his hand.

WORKNG COVER DESIGN FOR 'TURNED LOOSE'

This is a working cover design for my novel TURNED LOOSE ...

CHANGING THE TITLE OF "HILL" TO - "TURNED LOOSE" ...

New title for my novel-in-progress. It is TURNED LOOSE. Working title was Down from the Hill.
Any previous reference to Down from the Hill will refer to Turned Loose ...

KEY CHARACTER'S REFLECTION IN "TURNED LOOSE"

A reflective moment for Gil Stephens, a main character in "Turned Loose" and "Stringer":

Sunday, Gil Stephens mused. Loose ends hovering over the morning. The psych center stories. Helen and Alicia and the conflict he felt. The way he’s lurching around as he rises out of passivity to a more proactive creativity. Moonset outside on a light coat of snow, sky clear. First light and an occasional illumination from the motion sensor light on the cabin from a foraging animal passing by. The aroma of coffee, warmth of the pellet stove and the hum of its fan. The moment, the now that never leaves him, the way that awareness slips, disappears, returns, present. Spirit. The notion that each being, each entity unfolds the creative edge, a contour that to his spatial sense seems irregular, but what could he possibly know beyond what his senses allow to enter a brain with limited capacity. Now his eye and his nervous system’s adjustment to a new way of seeing he’s gradually getting used to, able to negotiate with as he moves through space. Gravities and orbitings and the cosmos unfathomable, as science struggles to understand. So much learned and yet to learn. The planet, its fragility, how temporal it is, the solar system too, so dependent on the Sun, itself doomed. His conversations, even prayers, with and to an entity he likes to think of as a guardian.

Then the philosophical world he’s had fascination with, the postmodern, perception, interpretation, cultural study, the political morass, more loose strands hovering. A passing movement behind him into the bathroom, the scent, the soft sounds, the touch on his back. The creak of the loft’s steps as another movement descends, breathing, touching, reaching for coffee, sitting alongside him as the other movement returns and does the same. How is it, this? All this, and just this, now?

EXCERPT FROM A NEWS STORY IN "TURNED LOOSE"

EXCERPT FROM A NEWS STORY IN "TURNED LOOSE"
One aspect of the novel is a weekly's publication of a special report on a psych center's reduction of its population. Below is a fictional straight news story by one of the characters:

Excerpt from a story by Holston:

 “Demands mount at Crisis Center - last resort for help”

By Reginald Holston

Courier special correspondent

   When life falls apart for a mental patient, or the system does, the last resort is often the Crisis Center.

   Anyone spinning in the whirlpool of a mental crisis - those who are suicidal, in extreme depression, with a psychosis erupting, or suffering extreme anxiety -- may show up at the agency’s doorstep.

   By its formal name, it is called Emergency Mental Health Services, located at Oquaga General Hospital. Its other nickname is EMHS.

    “We are the key entry point for the unattended patient,’ said Dr. Pierre Dejardin, the center’s director. “We see the same patients over and over again, know their names when they come through the door.”

   Some are violent, some are so injured its hard to tell where the mental illness begins and the injury ends, and others have illnesses that need medical intervention. It’s up to Dejardin and his staff to “deal with it,” he said.

   Last year, more than 3,000 patients arrived at the center and almost half of these needed inpatient care, according to the agency, which is part of the state’s mental health system. And though he and his staff are state employees, they are sharply critical of the state’s policy on deinstitutionalization.

   “We have 21 beds on the fifth floor of Oquaga General,” Dejardin said. “We have to try to send some back to the very institution that put them out on the streets to handle the overflow. Does that make sense?”

   Further, he said, with the state policy accelerating, the already overwhelming situation is getting worse ....

SHORT STORY "SCOOTER" PUBLISHED ...

The Kindle edition of eFiction, where my short story "Scooter" appears in the July issue of the literary magazine.

With that, three poems "declined," one short nonfiction story - "Fidel's Gift" - and poem - "Orbits - published in a Chattanooga online journal, "The New Writer."

"STRINGER," "HILL,' AND THE INNOVATIVE AGED

FIRST DRAFT COMPLETED ... (10 Jul 2012)


New synopsis for my novel in progress: “Down from the Hill” -- It’s a sequel to "Stringer" in which the aged characters are appalled by the impact of a psychiatric center's downsizing which leaves mental patients on the streets without care. In their news work they face eruptions from the past and peel layers away of their own relationships, illusions, sexuality, inhibitions and their understandings of reality and transformation. These understandings are later deepened as they travel to Morocco through Spain where the male protagonist would meet his son for the first time. And they separate later, one to the Netherlands, another to Chiapas in southern Mexico, and the third to recover from injuries in upstate NY. And thus to the end ...

One thing I'm doing in "Stringer" and "Hill" and the novel that may follow is challenging the ridiculous stereotypes about people my age and the way some aged people let themselves be defined by them -- so very absurd ... Many of us are as intricately intense, physical, creatively thoughtful and innovative, and as emotionally keen as people of any age.

"SCOOTER" ACCEPTED FOR PUBLICATION ...

Accepted for publication: My short story "Scooter" in the next issue of eFiction Magazine ....


Three poetry "declines" from three other journals, on the other hand, as of June 24.

"STRINGER" NOW ON KINDLE

My short novel "Stringer" is now available for Kindle devices and apps at this link:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008C0NC1O/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb

Once again, a synopsis:

RETIRED JOURNALIST MENACED AS HE PROBES
DEGRADING CONDITIONS RURAL 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.
Her request involves him and his sculptor wife in an investigation that leads to threats, local political corruption, personal conflict, a reunion with a painful past and a choice about his future.

DRAFT OPENER FOR "STRINGER" SEQUEL ...

Sequel is tentatively titled "Down from the Hill" -

Mike Hancock climbed the sagging stairs to a third-floor door that let out to an asphalt roof. He felt light rain as crossed the roof to another door; opened it and entered a one-room apartment. They call it an “efficiency,” he thought. My place. Out of that damn looney bin again. I wonder what this roof will be like as winter gets worse. What a hole. An apartment with its only door on the roof.

“Meds,” he said to himself. “Where the hell did I put them. I feel like throwing up.”  He ran water from the stained kitchen sink into a paper cup and took a drink. 

“There they are.” 

Hancock picked up a vial from a folding table with a torn top, dropped a tablet into his palm, placed it into his mouth, and drank again. He sighed and sat down on a wooden chair. 

“Rumble rumble, I’m going to tumble,” he started to chant in monotone. “I can’t grumble about the state I’m in. Clinic’s no picnic, I’m an impatient outpatient, sentient being whose been shoved into ...”

He stopped. “What is this. Limbo? Purgatory? Whose madness put all this together?”

Rain, rain. He stepped back onto the roof, looked over the edge into a small wood-fenced yard below, mostly dirt and weeds. Through the closed window of the next house, very close, he watched a seated heavy man in an undershirt and shorts and a slimmer woman in a slip. She moved around a kitchen. On the second floor. Below. 

I could jump, he thought, head first. Break my neck. Then it would be over. What would they do with my body? He knew he was visible as twilight darkened the neighborhood, lights turned on inside the scattered houses on small lots. The man in the undershirt stood up, walked to the window and looked out, turned to the woman and pointed. He sees me, Hancock thought. She looked out as well in her slip, a can of beer in her hand, then turned away and disappeared from view. The man sat back down in the chair and appeared to speak to someone Hancock couldn’t see. 


My aim is more than 40,000 words - more elaborate depictions of characters, more complex plot)

STRINGER NOW AVAILABLE ...

STRINGER, my short novel, is now available from our distributor and soon will be from Amazon.com and other booksellers. Click here to view its web page. Synopsis is below.

RETIRED JOURNALIST MENACED AS HE PROBES
DEGRADING CONDITIONS RURAL 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.
Her request involves him and his sculptor wife in an investigation that leads to threats, local political corruption, personal conflict, a reunion with a painful past and a choice about his future.

CAN'T WAIT:

I'm soon to turn 76. What this means about future longevity I have no clue. But. Rather than wait months or years at my age for a traditional publisher or agent to decide the market or literary value of my work, I'm deciding. People may like and buy them or not... They're out there.

COVER FOR "STRINGER"

THIRD DRAFT AGONY

Agony, now working on the third draft of my short novel "Stringer."
A synopsis:
A retired and semi-reclusive former journalist who occasionally posts in a blog and 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.
Her request involves him and his sculptor wife in an investigation that leads to threats, local political corruption, personal conflict, a reunion with a painful past and a choice about his future.

CONFRONTING FINAL CHAPTER OF "STRINGER"

Now to the point of resolution of the first draft of my short novel "Stringer" -- novella length I guess,  according to the chart below, about 24,000 words or so. Probably will end up about 120 pages, paperback length, unless revisions broaden or shorten it. Okay, enough anxiety. Time to get it on with what I think is the final chapter ...
Later ... Draft written -- now the next hard part, editing, revisions, assessments ...

Classification	Word count
Novel	over 40,000 words
Novella	17,500 to 40,000 words
Novelette	7,500 to 17,500 words
Short story	under 7,500 words

SYNOPSIS OF "POLITICAL GRACE:THE GIFT OF RESISTANCE"

Below is an extended synopsis of my book "Political Grace: The Gift of Resistance," available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble as well as other book sellers. Its web page is http://www.wildclearing.com/politicalgrace.html 


Synopsis (Prologue)
Philosophy and theology have increasingly turned to the problem of the rising numbers of people who live in extremely severe and abasing conditions of oppression, people who are surplus to global economic and political orders which the oppressed define as "neoliberal" and "neocolonial." This work, Political Grace: The Gift of Resistance, is part of that turning, through conversations with those who were and have been living under oppressive conditions, especially in Central America and Mexico, and through conversations with phenomenology, feminist theology, feminist jurisprudence, ethics, and liberation theology.
There is an assertion that divine grace, and the autochthonous organization of the "lifeworld" which phenomenologists discuss, act in concert to seek to enable and empower the flourishing of all things, including humans, who have the reflective capacity to understand, conceptualize, imagine, produce and judge.
The actions of grace and the autochthonous are in a sense the same as they move to privilege places and spaces where flourishing is impeded, to help mediate opportunities for flourishing.
What frequently occurs when people living under oppressive conditions seek to become aware of, or change their circumstances is a backlash by those who control political and economic conditions. This backlash results in resistance. Grace, thus, is the gift of resistance, political and economic, and for the author, nonviolent.There is also an assertion that there is emerging within creation a more intimate and deeper understanding of the connections within which humans thrive together and with the planet, a fragile emergence.
To characterize this emergence the author has employed the neologisms "transintuitivity," "transsubjectivity" and "transreflexivity," each described phenomenologically and theologically. Also asserted is a theology in which the divine is described as emptying itself entirely into creation, empowering through grace and its own risk, through flourishing, through enhancing connections, including those that are considered intuitive, subject-to-subject, and reflexive. These connections, especially present in such sites of resistance as Christian base communities throughout Latin America, can be seen in the daily lives of people who theologize about their circumstances as they seek to discover equitable means of survival within a global economy that has left them surplus.
-- Wes Rehberg

SYNOPSES OF "OPENING THE GATE" SHORT STORIES ...

Brief synopses of the five short stories in my new book “Opening the Gate” are available below. Kindly check them out:

The Enduring”: Two shotgun-bearing elderly sisters who have been forced to look after a disabled but violent teen nephew in their rural home encounter two significant visitors, an ex-convict who worked in forest lumber operations and another who has a plan for their property but runs into trouble.

“The Fog”: A 17-year-old New York City street kid reflects on encounters he had when he was 14, living in a three-room flat with grandparents, his mother and brother, his failure in school, his independence, and a new beginning.

“Scooter”: A scooter-driving drug user moves in with a dying elderly woman alcoholic after a meth house fire, much to the consternation of suburban neighbors.

“Tina’s Nicaragua Story”: A nonfiction recounting of a meeting in northern Nicaragua with a woman whose husband and daughter were killed when contras crossed the nearby border with Honduras and attacked her community.

“Jail Birds”: Offered in the first-person, a narrative told by a clergyman who reluctantly counseled murderers in a county jail and maximum security setting and had trouble in a divided church after a visit to Palestine.

Its web page is here: http://www.wildclearing.com/gate.html 

SALGO ADELANTE ....

Novel "Stringer" is progressing amid mixed publishing results with short stories and poems. Many procedurals demonstrate digital savvyness by the aged protagonist, contra the usual stereotypes laid on older people. (Larsson and other Scandinavian noir novelists influenced the inclusion of tech approaches).

BACK TO NOVEL "STRINGER" - and scoping literary outlets

Day of sustained work on "Stringer," my novel in progress. The POVs were haywire in the beginning pages so I redrafted the first 11.
Also looking at other outlets for two poems that have been "declined." Maybe I'll rework the rejected flash nonfiction piece "Fidel's Gift" too a bit, reconsidering the journalistic style I used. Got to think about the notion that such a style isn't considered "artistic," though.
There are more than 800 literary magazines out there.

SUBMITTED, DECLINED, PUBLISHED IN MAY THUS FAR

A glance of what's happened with my work thus far in May
Four declines, five pending, two poems and a book published

(Chart as of May 14 - updates below)

Submitted again on May 26:
"Orbits" - Poetry - to The Pedestal Magazine
Declined on May 26:
"Orbits" - Poetry (Status change from In-Progress)
Declined on May 22:
"The Smile Hasn't Left" - Poetry (in chart above as In-Progress - status change)
Published:
Book: "Opening the Gate" via Wild Clearing: short stories, poems, on Amazon
Two Poems: "Alien Bones," "Tick Tock" in The Rusty Nail

NEW MORNING TO KEEP ON IN

New morning to keep on in.
I'm fascinated by the will to create, to write, to bring forth art.
So many songs sung by artists who compose them or cover them, fine musicians who ply the cafés, bistros, local scenes, side stages, online video outlets. Poets who publish their own chapbooks or in web literary magazines or just read in local settings. Storytellers who dramatize wherever some may listen. Visual artists and sculptors who may find a gallery, but if not, still persist and show in open markets. Actors, playwrights, dancers who use the streets or may find a stage. Craft people who find niches everywhere to display what they do. I imagine the profusion of those working and am awestruck.
This very moment even.
And I love to create, to write, to film at times, to photograph, to publish as well, so it goes on. The agony, the discovery, the journey, the connection with something within from which comes form and content influenced by what the senses have discovered exterior to me. That inexplicable will to shape something new.

AT THIS AGE . . .

. . . It's harder to be patient with traditional processes of authoring, especially when an array of self-publishing options are available. Not that these guarantee acceptance in a marketplace, or critically, or even get a reading.
The thing is to just keep on writing despite rejections, or fears of these. As one poet I know wrote, the demand for books, or any creative piece for that matter, is far lower than the output of works created by those who pursue their craft. Even in the digital era.

WRITTEN, SUBMITTED, PUBLISHED IN MAY THUS FAR

Written:
Three poems: "Orbits," "Looking," "Semblance"
Flash Nonfiction: "Fidel's Gift"
Novel: "Stringer" - in progress
Short Story: "Jail Birds"
Submitted:
Flash Nonfiction: "Fidel's Gift" to Flashquake
Short Story: "Scooter" to eFiction
Two poems: "No Wind, No Keel," "The Smile Hasn't Left" to Future Cycle Press
Published:
Book: "Opening the Gate" via CreateSpace (Self-published) short stories, poems
Two Poems: "Alien Bones," "Tick Tock" in The Rusty Nail
(As of May 14)


Notice on May 15
One poem rejected - "No Wind, No Keel"
Notice on May 20
Flash Nonfiction rejected - "Fidel's Gift"

ORBITS -- A READING -- NEW POEM

Trying something different, a reading of my new poem Orbits ...

"OPENING THE GATE" NOW ON SALE ...

Sales channels for my new book "Opening the Gate" are now open  and can be accessed at its web page
http://www.wildclearing.com/gate.html -- check it out --

Opening the Gate

Short Stories and Poetry by Wes Rehberg

Authored by Wes Rehberg"Opening the Gate" is a collection of five short stories and five poems by author Wes Rehberg, some which include fictionalized biographical elements and as well draw from his experience as a print journalist and social justice activist. Titles of the short stories are "The Enduring," "The Fog," "Scooter," "Tina's Nicaragua Story," and "Jail Birds." Two of the poems have appeared in the literary journal, The Rusty Nail. "Alien Bones" and "Tick Tock."

"OPENING THE GATE" PROOFS ...

Correcting proofs of my second book, "Opening the Gate," a collection of five stories and poems -- the mistakes I've made but seem to overlook until things get to a stage like this.

"JAIL BIRDS" REDUX -- FINAL DRAFT

I believe I now have a final draft of my short story "Jail Birds," written in the first person. The opening paragraph is below:

The guard brought me to a tiny room with a small wooden table and two chairs. He opened the door, showed me the button to push if I needed help and told me to take a chair. The guard then walked toward the county jail’s cells to retrieve an itinerant young man, accused of murdering a boy, 14-years-old. The charges alleged that the accused man killed the boy, strangled him, after he keyed a scratch on the man’s car door. I was there because he requested a jail minister. This was during a time I volunteered to do prison ministry. Now, years later,  I find myself musing about his situation and others I encountered in this work. Especially those that involved homicides. I’m also writing this as a way of thinking back on things. It seems appropriate now. ...

SYNOPSIS FOR "JAIL BIRDS"

Synopsis for "Jail Birds"
"Jail Birds" is a first-person fiction short story about a prison minister who reflects on encounters with men accused and convicted of homicides, his differences with church doctrine, his troubles as a church pastor, especially after a trip to the Mideast, and the realization he comes to - first draft completed.

TWO POEMS PUBLISHED ...

The literary magazine "The Rusty Nail" has published two of my poems in its online edition. The poems -- "Alien Bones" and "Tick Tock" -- will be published in its print edition as well. Link is http://www.rustynailmag.com/wrehbergpoems.html

SACRED CABIN, SACRED EARTH

Our cabin, sacred to us, sits in a clearing at an elevation of 1,800 feet on Tuscarora Mountain, a massive shale outcropping formed when glaciers halted their movement southward in the Ice Age. The mountain’s name is tribal, and long after the glaciers moved south, the tribal history began when indigenous people, the Tuscaroras migrated north to this region, eventually to be part of the Iroquois Nation. For we two here now, the iceberg and native history are still very present. Like a confluence - icebergs, Tuscaroras, now us, a place we in our lives have inhabited on-and-off for 21 years.

This mountain and others nearby are considered the high peaks of Broome County in upstate New York, in southeastern Broome through which the Susquehanna River flows on its winding journey to Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Its terrain has been quarried for bluestone shale, including our 5-acre site, the quarriers often independent locals eking out a living. It has also been logged, though portions of the area are protected woodlands, and it now is the target of natural gas exploiters because it is lies within the northern sector of the vast Appalachian Marcellus Shale deposit, the gas reachable through the shale layers by the toxic drilling method called hydrofracturing, fracking for short.

Our piece of land bares its ancient history in the shale outcroppings that show through the soil, its native history in the sense we have that it feels and seems all too apparently to have been a worship site, a spiritual space, and its so-called American history in the dirt road that passes by, in the logging and quarrying evidence, in the nearby few neighbors, mostly of European descent, in the nearby dwindling dairy farms, and in the constant efforts of speculators to exploit its surface and depths for wood, stone and fuel.

Yet, and there is a yet, for our time here it will remain sacred in the presence of its history and what we still may be able to share and preserve, with it, in its transfiguration.