A ghostly spirit came to me in a swirling vision last night and ordered, “No more ‘excess’ writing for a while.”
“In the next nine months you will write only a handful of journal entries, essays and columns,” said Gavin Arthur, the leader of the tribe who oversees the legacy of the mysterious California Central Coastal commune called Dunites. In the 1930s, 40s and 50s this original band of merry pranksters built shacks from driftwood and lived in the majestic Oceano sand dunes as sacred outlaws, unrepentant rebels, eccentric artists and metaphysical countercultural visionaries who helped set the stage for the 1960s San Francisco hippie experience.
For Dunites, every summer shined as a summer of love.
“No more short stories, either,” said the ghost of Gavin Arthur, grandson of America’s 21st President Chester Arthur. “I know you also revel in writing short stories because your brain sometimes short-circuits.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Like one of those Tesla autopilot cars crashing into a wall when the human steps away from the wreckage, raises both hands into the air and yells, “TaDa!”
I knew the Dunite diviner understood what was at stake.
“You’re writing too much for Facebook,” he said “You need to focus, Corbett.”
I understood what he was talking about.
“Yeah, but some enlightened people want to hear what I have to say. It’s better than posting pictures of dogs, cats and grandchildren, right?”
“None of which you have,” said Gavin Arthur.
“Or want,” I said.
“But you do have a novel to finish,” he said.
Gavin Arthur and the Dunite prophets get it.
“You got a big story to tell, son,” he said. “You can’t be spreading yourself around too thin like a wine-soaked Dunite scraping out the last of his canned tuna fish supper.”
A Dunite Last Supper?
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
As of now I’m a full-time novelist.
Weed Wine Magic, the sequel to my first novel Blood Red Syrah, is on a roll. I’m looking at an original paperback release date sometime in August, eight months from now. Our cadre is almost assembled. Lee Sebastiani, my publisher at Avventura Press, is ready to rock. Stephanie Bressler, my editor and manager to whom I am married, is primed. Two ace front and back book cover photographer/model/spiritual collaborators (who will remain nameless for now and I hope will run away with us to join the circus) are standing in the wings. Mexican death saint Santa Muerte is all in.
We’re planning an August East Coast launch at Case Quattro Winery in Peckville where kindred spirits do business in soul grapes – actually a good name for a psychedelic band. Our West Coast launch will blast off at the old Oceano train station where I’ve already been invited to read within sight of Gavin Arthur’s rustic Dunite shack — Stephanie and I spent some time alone in his shack in November, communing with his essence and the Dunite presence that still reigns like pagan gods that walk among us.
Fret not, those of you who look forward to my words. I’ll still step from the shadows every now and then and throw a rock through somebody’s window — figuratively, of course, with a column here and a reflection there.
But it’s full speed ahead on Weed Wine Magic.
The trip will be worth the wait.
