{"id":1497,"date":"2021-07-12T13:22:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-12T20:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/?p=1497"},"modified":"2021-07-12T13:22:25","modified_gmt":"2021-07-12T20:22:25","slug":"register-now-for-access-to-fex-coo-a-serialized-novel-novel-by-russ-lockhart-and-paco-mitchell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/register-now-for-access-to-fex-coo-a-serialized-novel-novel-by-russ-lockhart-and-paco-mitchell\/","title":{"rendered":"Register now for access to FEX & COO: A Serialized Novel Novel by Russ Lockhart and Paco Mitchell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Please register for access to:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fex & Coo<\/em>: A Serialized Novel Novel by Russ Lockhart and Paco Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Here is the link:<\/p>\n

fexandcoo.website<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is Paco’s response to “What\u00a0is Fex & Coo<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

About Fex & Coo<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

by<\/p>\n

Paco Mitchell<\/p>\n

Occasionally someone will ask me, \u201cWhat are you working on, Paco?\u201d What they mean to say is, \u201cWhat are you writing?\u201d That\u2019s easy to ask, but not so easy to answer.<\/p>\n

Unless they already have some knowledge of this unusual project that my colleague Russell Lockhart and I call\u00a0Fex & Coo<\/em>, I might just say, \u201cWell, I\u2019m working with a co-author on an experimental fiction project. We\u2019re going to serialize it.\u201d That\u2019s a short answer to a long question. For one thing, it\u2019s\u00a0true<\/em>: Russ and I are indeed\u00a0experimenting<\/em>; we are in the process of a\u00a0serialization;<\/em>\u00a0it is a lot of\u00a0work<\/em>; furthermore, it is a\u00a0fictional<\/em>\u00a0work of a\u00a0collaborative\u00a0<\/em>sort; and it\u2019s turning into quite an interesting\u00a0project<\/em>.<\/p>\n

A cynic might reply, \u201cSo, you\u2019re just winging it, huh? Like two pantsers?[1]<\/a>\u00a0No plotting at all? It\u2019s just bullshit! Gotcha!\u201d<\/p>\n

At that point, I might respond: \u201cYes, that\u2019s it exactly. Oh, you understand! We\u2019re winging it. Like two birds.\u201d But I could also add, \u201cAnd writing this is a lot of\u00a0fun<\/em>. Besides, if owls and herons could write fiction, don\u2019t you think they would be writing something like this? Well? Don\u2019t underestimate birds!\u201d<\/p>\n

My counter-response, being true to the improvisational spirit of\u00a0Fex & Coo,<\/em>\u00a0might leave our imaginary cynic momentarily off-balance. But it\u2019s not as though Russ and I are trying to throw\u00a0any\u00a0<\/em>reader off-balance. Not at all. But if not, what\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0we trying to do? Lest we sow confusion where we only wish to plant fertile seeds,[2]<\/a>\u00a0maybe I can fill in some details regarding\u00a0Fex & Coo.<\/em><\/p>\n

1) The root idea or impulse, then, that prompted this project, came about\u00a0virtually by accident. Out of the blue.<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

One day Russ was sitting in Tully\u2019s coffee shop in downtown Seattle, working on his computer. Being a life-long reader, and an accomplished writer as well, he was musing on a book about Goethe\u2019s ideas that he\u2019d been reading. In part, it dealt with Goethe\u2019s unconventional \u201cmethod\u201d of doing 18th<\/sup>-century science. As I understand it, Goethe\u2019s scientific method was imaginative in high degree. It had to do with looking deeper into what one was seeing, \u201cto find the\u00a0story\u00a0<\/em>there,\u201d as Russ says. Even more, this idea touched on mythical dimensions residing \u201cwithin\u201d our profane reality. But the trick is that, as Russ points out in his opening passages, one really does have to\u00a0look<\/em>\u00a0at what one sees.<\/p>\n

2) The \u201cgerminal accident\u201d in this case, which Russ describes in his prologue, had to do with a convergence of fixed and mobile elements within his visual field\u2014as he sat in that warm and steaming coffee shop, looking out onto the city streets. First, and most crucial, what he saw were two delivery trucks\u2014FedEx and Costco. What could be more mundane? But, following Goethe\u2019s lead, what Russ really saw,<\/em>\u00a0thanks to the blocking effects of a pillar on the front sidewalk, were truncated, eclipsed versions of those everyday signs, which he wrote down in his computer as\u2014Fe-x and Co-o\u2014or rather,\u00a0Fex & Coo<\/em>. Those turned out to be, not the names of commercial corporations, but rather the names of two fictional characters in the story that quickly developed.<\/p>\n

3) Once Russ had harvested a few \u201cnuggets\u201d from this Goethean experiment in the old Tully\u2019s shop (now gone out of business), he tested Goethe\u2019s hypothesis by writing a few brief sentences that might serve as openers to a\u00a0story<\/em>. On impulse, he sent an email to me, and enclosed those\u00a0out-of-the-blue openers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Talk about\u00a0psychoactive<\/em>!<\/p>\n

The effect of those sentences on me was explosive. Immediately I wrote a continuation to Russ\u2019s tentative opening, and sent it to him. A day or two later, he wrote back with his own continuation of what I had written. That was all it took. Within a few days, the project had assumed a life of its own.<\/p>\n

4) Fiction writers, especially\u00a0pantsers<\/em>\u00a0like us, are familiar with the phenomenon of invented characters taking on a mysterious reality of their own\u2014even to the point that the characters\u00a0dictate<\/em>\u00a0the story to the presumptive authors. However, we have found that, when both co-authors are devoted to and familiar with\u00a0dreams<\/em>,\u00a0synchronicities\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0depth psychology<\/em>, their spontaneous exertions tend to increase the element of surprise\u2014as much for the authors as for their readers.<\/p>\n

This quality\u2014characters, words and images coming alive and into view from unknown psychic depths\u2014is one main reason, I think, why Russ and I have both been so enthusiastic about this project and why we have found the writing so enjoyable. Both of us sincerely hope that readers will share this attitude, and perhaps even find moments of creative stimulation, just as we have, in this serialization to come.<\/p>\n

\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cPantsers\u201d are writers who write by the seat of their pants. No plodding\u2014excuse me, no plotting. It\u2019s all discovery. All winging it.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0I use the phrase \u201cfertile seeds\u201d because that\u2019s precisely how Russ and I both experience what one of us delivers to the other, in this back-and-forth process of authorial collaboration. And if we are both fertilized by this sort of playful interplay, why can\u2019t a reader likewise be fertilized? Maybe there are readers who harbor their own creative voices within, lacking only an animating stimulus.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

<\/section>\n<\/article>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please register for access to: Fex & Coo: A Serialized Novel Novel by Russ Lockhart and Paco Mitchell. Here is the link: fexandcoo.website Here is Paco’s response to “What\u00a0is Fex & Coo About Fex & Coo by Paco Mitchell Occasionally someone will ask me, \u201cWhat are you working on, Paco?\u201d What they mean to say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1503,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions\/1503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}