I have been quite busy for the last week with preparing for and appearing at the Launch Pad Coffee House (next one is 8:00PM on June 16 at Churchill Park United Church, 525 Beresford), and have therefore not done any work on my new novel, The Tourist, except for graphing chapter lengths and types (see blogs). But I thought it would be fun to throw some of the work out there and see what gets thrown back. I hope you all enjoyed (or at least were intrigued by) Chapter One . Check our The Tourist (1) to (9) for the story of how I got here.

Here? Here is nearly finished the last chapters of the book, some written in the familiar way, and some by a process I call ‘repainting’. By one means or another, draft chapters 1 to 91 inclusive, and 95, 96, 98, 103, and 104 are done. Chapters 92, 94, 97, 99, 100, 101, and 102 are still to be repainted. Over and above these, I estimate that about another 6 to 10 chapters are still required - mostly written the old-fasioned way. I tried in earlier blogs to explain what this all means, so I won’t repeat. But, to give an idea what a repainted chapter looks like, I’ll show Chapter 27, which is a repaint of Chapter One shown in my blog of May 18.

Chapter Twenty-Seven
The sun sulked from the bondage of wiping the Winnipeg late afternoon with a coat of comfort, and of darkening the afternoon lonely shadows one more time before nightfall with a shellacking coat of deep, semi-transcendent shimmer. The blank faces of the All-too-common predatory panhandlers moved in and out of these shadows as they grudgingly retreated from teasing the pensioners. The pensioners were immune, having already armored themselves to face the indignity of registering for social assistance at the chilly Department of Social Services building at the corner of Give-Up and Break-Your-heart Streets. The pensioners, along with the interns for this career of counting on/expecting/getting nothing in this/from this/out of this life, schlepped their witches brew of real or imagined or faked hard luck stories, in tin cups, up to the building and into the bureaucratic slow motion maelstrom. They then stepped back to grab onto the hanging straps of their N’er Do Well transit limos, and putt-putted on down the road to ruin, completing their part in every morning’s intense sweep and scrub of society, ridding it of Christ’s second commandment.

The agent sat in the window corner of Pockets, and frowned at the pat perfectness of his predicament here; here in Winnipeg, here on McDermot Avenue, here in the bistro renovated at great expense to the proprietor in days gone by, by the by to the hero of the here and now. He had just then laid his hat on top of the fax that lay on the small circular table that took up the two feet that separated him from the window glass that shrugged off the late afternoon street scene – of the Exchange District as seen through the mobile ghastliness of the not-so-few late afternoon too-late-forever for spring transients. The hat provided the remedial few minutes needed to absorb the letter beneath the hat’s final fatality, so much as it could be obtained short of the purgatory of confirmation by others.

A frown, a bigger frown, and then an uncontrollable head wide scowl signposted a screw-up so, so sour. Ronald Byfield sought the support of rigid self-control as he turned both mentally and metaphorically away from the emotions he was compelled to process. Come confused confrontation or unilateral retreat, the bell of the first round had been sounded. He had not received a draft of the novel, the second, hear that word suspiciously, the second novel. Not the first, completely uneconomic effort, which a mere flunky with a half-assed effort and half-hearted spending could bring to half-assed more than half public subsidized publication. No, the second novel, the one that would command commercial success, commercial in that it is propelled to profit, sucked out of the matrix of serious interrelationships; between, amongst, around, about, because of, as a result – reading publics, publishers, agents, friends, family, fiends, phantasms. In a few words, a second novel had been inevitably required by the bank. He, the absent author was choking on coughing up a second novel – unreal!

He hadn’t. Come again? The next thing to do? In micro, maybe pay the tab. “Waiter, the cheque?” In macro? Fly over to London, PDQ, the PDQ he had always reserved for the coupe de gras? The stop time he noted with satisfaction. Ron had anticipated some hand-holding sooner rather than later, as he had the prior series of pep talks for momentum, and the heart-to-hearts for confidence, as he had the prior pick-me-ups for solidarity, the prior major re-calibrations for purpose, as he had the original tabla-rosa efforts for inspiration, and as he had the initial investment, such as it is for first time fiction writers That all being true, the newly deflated agent ruminated on options - stay on in Winnipeg for a few more, disciplined days, because its always calming to take a time-out in Winnipeg. Or check out of his tempest in a teapot stewpot at the Lombard and push on to check out the triangular love-fest festering in London, because it’s always correct to punch out somebody in London.

Mister Ron Byfield’s client’s publisher’s European reps enriched the micro-biology that sinned against the symbiosis of London. Another frown indicated the agent’s dyspepsia, ulcerated as he was with figures at that time, at the notion of these expense account sucking, eminence grease-ball Brits of his acquaintance enriching - anyone, anytime, by any measure, save perhaps if calorie stuffed luncheons qualified as enriching.

Winnipeg is quiet, Winnipeg is sweet, Winnipeg is duty, and Winnipeg is wheat. But London is gun-em-down town, so London-ward he was bound. The check came and went back again with the agency company credit card. Ron crumpled the misguided missive in his hand in the manner of magistrates in the times before mercy for those without connections, swept his eyes slowly over the corny-for-casual-custom-but-cute- anyway pool-hall/pick-up joint interior, and thumped through the get-away-from-here door – conscious of and grinding in the not playacting ornery-ness of his bearing.

Subject: Re: Version Control
Bill,
I will be in London as soon as possible. Maybe tomorrow. Don’t form any firm plans with the London reps, and Bill, for God’s sake have a hard look at them and yourself. Not with your author’s eyes, but your reality eyes for once – if you have any!
Ron

Subject: Re: Version Control
I don’t like your tone.

Subject: Re: Version Control
Once again - that’s not the f-ing point! Okay, sorry for the tone, but please take this seriously.

Subject: Re: Versio Control
I’ll try. We’re all tense. I have a hangover.

Cool or just weird?