My First (and only) Completed Novel

Confession: I'm terrifically ashamed of anything I wrote before 1998. I wonder if there's a ten year window of non-embarrassment going on?

Reading:

• "L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story," by Lauren Groff
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold" - Outline 80%
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"
• "Cora and the Sea" - Third draft 50%

It will never see the light of day.

Oh, you can read about it, if you like. In fact, I'll post a link to a description I wrote of it. But you will never read the actually thing.

I'm talking about The Happy Wars Saga, which stands as my first, and as of now only, completed novel. It's about 88,000 words long, which isn't bad for a high schooler. It took more than three years to complete, features a cast of hundreds of characters, and plagiarizes from nearly every book I had read and television show I had seen up to that moment.

Looking back on it, I can see my progression as a writer during that time. It's composed of fifteen parts, termed "episodes" (plagiarized from Star Wars, of course). The first episode (heavily plagiarized from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) is nonsensical in the extreme. The next two aren't much better. The next three plagiarize more from Star Trek. Only in the last four or five do I manage any real creativity, with the threat of deadly aliens from outside the galaxy uniting warring factions. (It's only fair to mention that many years later, the same concept was used in Star Wars novels in the form of the Vuuzhan Vong. It's only fair that they plagiarize me back.)

This is not my only attempted novel, just the only one that I ever completed a draft on. Before it was a book I wrote in middle school called Space and Beyond, which I came within a few pages of finishing. Next is Floorcraft, which started out as a short story and kind of blossomed from there. Out of eight parts, I've written five and a half. And let's not forget Dairhenien's Library, often begun but never written further than Chapter One.

And now, I've decided that Ferian Fetlock is a book, not a short story. So join the club, Ferian. I won't say wait in line, but be warned--I'm fickle when it comes to finishing novels. You may not fare better than the others.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3

A Tour of My Bookshelves, Part 1 of 33

Confession: I spent nearly six years in graduate school and walked away without a degree. I have no intention of going back. I wonder how much of that is because I'm afraid to, and how much because I really don't want to?

Reading:

• "Riding the Doghouse" by Randy DeVita
  
• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton
  

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Catches a Cold"
  

Revising:

• "The Revenant"

Future Projects:

• Dairhenien's Library - Development
  
• Floorcraft - First rewrite of 1-5, first draft of 6-8
• Ferian Fetlock - "Ferian Fetlock Takes a Wife."
  
• "Motley" - Expansion
• "Fireworks and Earthworks" - 5% into first draft
  
• Untitled School Mistress Story

Unpublished Stories/Status (in chronological order of completion of first draft)

• "Pictures of the Old Port" - 5th Draft, Unsubmitted
• "What Price Stamps" - 3rd Draft, Submitted to The American Drivel Review, July 30th, 2008
  
• "The Frost Fugling" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Black Pudding" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Cora and the Sea" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Motley" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Leaves and Sunsets" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "A Happy Ending" - 1st Draft, Unsubmitted
• "The Revenant" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "Illuminated" - 3rd Draft, Unsubmitted
  
• "A Cup of Coffee" / "Morning Tea" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to Tea: A Magazine, July 29th, 2008
• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse" - 2nd Draft, Unsubmitted
• "Hattie Donnelly's Favorite Doll" - 2nd Draft, Submitted to 24 Hour Short Story Contest, July 27th, 2008

I have a lot of bookshelves in my apartment. At last count, seven bookcases, not counting the eighth one that holds my DVDs... and one shelf of books. In terms of individual shelves, including the tops of some bookcases that I use for extra storage space, there are thirty-three individual shelves of books.

You can learn a lot about a person by their books, and I think that's doubly true of an author. And so, for a total of thirty-three blog posts over the course of the next however-long-it-takes, I'm going to talk about my books.

You'll see a lot of regularity in this first shelf. Here is my collection of novels and short story collections by my favorite author, P.G. Wodehouse. Specifically, Overlook Press is currently publishing a complete set of his novels, a few a year, and I've been gradually accumulating them as they do.

Note the printed-out website on the right. That's my checklist. Every so often I go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and order a bunch, marching up to the help desk with a list of ISBNs to make their job just that little bit easier.

If you're wondering, the books are in chronological order of original British publication date. That sort of thing matters to me.

On the shelf below is a model kit of one of the Naboo N-1 Starfighters from Star Wars Episode 1. To its left, an ancient video camera I found abandoned in a park in New Jersey.

My shelf of Wodehouse has already expanded down to the shelf below it, and once the entire series is published and duly accumulated, it will take up at least three shelves, perhaps four. (Wodehouse was a prolific bastard.)

What does this shelf say about me? Well, notice that there is nothing stacked on top of the Wodehouse books. You don't know it yet, but that's a singular mark of respect... for the most part, I use all the space in my bookshelves, including that above the other books. For these short volumes to receive such treatment tells you just how much they mean to me. It's also on the first bookshelf you come to as you walk inside my apartment... pride of place, you understand.

I've discussed my fascination with Wodehouse a couple of times before (here and here), although not in complete detail. I'm sure I will againt at some point, but let me just say this--I have never read anyone with such a thorough command of the English language. His ability to create the perfect metaphor is unsurpassed. And what's more, he used this gift for comic effect. Reading his books, you can't help but come away with a lightened heart. That, to me, is the best use such a gift could be put to.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 5
  
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
• Pending: 3

Tie-in Fiction

Confession: Intimacy frightens me, now.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• Untitled Dark Fantasy Project
  

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

Several bits of news today. First, my Three-Cover-Letter plan crashed and burned. One of the magazines had a shorter word limit than I expected, and another doesn't accept new submissions until September 1st. For the third, I lacked the submission guidelines, since they were not posted on the site. A quick email to the editor netted me those, however, and I should be able to get the cover letter done tomorrow morning.

I finished the Thrawn trilogy just now. The first book was better than I remember, and the last book was a let down. The middle was simply unmemorable. I can't help but ask myself... have I outgrown tie-in fiction? Probably so. I used to read Star Trek novels non-stop, but now I've sold all but my very favorites, and I don't read those.

I think I started to feel the stagnation. For the most part, main characters don't progress in tie-in fiction. Every Star Trek novel ends where it begins, in terms of the characterization. Any actual character arcs only take place for the guest characters, who in a certain sense, "don't matter" in tie-in fiction. Star Wars has managed to avoid some of those pitfalls by carrying the same characters over from story to story, but even so, the main cast has already gone through their character progression, and have very little room to grow or change.

Unconnected novels, though, aren't bound up by the cross-media restrictions. There's no limit to what can happen. I think I really need that in what I read now.

Finally, you can see that I've chosen a new writing project at last. It doesn't have a title at the moment. The original title no longer applies, since this is no longer going to be a novel. I'm pretty much going to rewrite from the beginning. I'll keep the main character, and her beautiful sister, but I want to develop her foe a lot more. It's too cut and dried. There needs to be some sexual tension in there, some possessiveness, and the main character's dawning realization that she has become what she fears and hates. I'll have to keep the mirrors, of course, and I like the candles.

Once I get past the last currently written scene, she needs to think she's escaped. Let her take the new look out for a spin, start to enjoy it despite herself. Does she have access to all the old forms? That would be a twist. They become collectors, of a sort. Like clothes that can be changed as the occasion warrants. Each one a memorial of murder.

If this doesn't make sense yet, just wait until I announce it's done, and ask me to email it to you.

Publication Status:

• Submitted: 2
• Accepted: 1
• Rejected: 1
  

Coincidence?

Confession: I think too much. I over analyze. I don't know how to stop.

Reading:

• Someplace to be Flying, by Charles de Lint

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising:

• "Cora and the Sea"

First of all, you may notice that I've finished yet another Star Wars book. They're remarkably quick to read. Nothing really deep, just all candy and fluff. So yeah, it's junk food literature, but there's nothing wrong with a little of that now and then.

In reading them, though, I noticed the operation of coincidence over and over. The main characters split up to pursue their own separate plotlines. Through unrelated events, they all reconvene. How the hell does that work?

I mean, in The Empire Strikes Back, we saw the heroes split into two groups. But their reunification was realistic, at least insofar as you accept the deus ex machina of the Force. But in Zahn's books, we have no such tidy explanation. Plot threads are woven into a tapestry. That's true with any story, but in the case of these books, you can see the goddamn weaver!

I like to feel that the past is tied down, but the thread of the future is unbound, whipping out before me, and only set into place when I reach it. But that's how real life feels to me, too. I don't believe in fate, per se.

That may be a bit disingenuous. I do believe in God, and that it is possible to be led in the "right" direction (whatever your definition of "right" is), but I also feel that it is entirely my choice whether I follow that path or not. If the future is predestined, then what point is there in trying?

When writing, I want my characters to feel the same. And through them, I want the reader to know that anything can happen, good or bad. Let the tapestry of the story emerge from what the characters do to it. Let them be their own weavers.

Rejection Counter: 1

Sci-fi versus Fantasy

Confession: I have to be very careful not to read special significance into coincidences. I think I'm just predisposed to find meaning in randomness.

Reading:

• The Van, by Roddy Doyle

Writing:

• "Ferian Fetlock Cures a Horse"

Revising

• "Dolly Hobbles"

I've never been a big fan of utter realism in fiction. What's the point of reading about reality? There's enough of that in real life to go around. But my tastes have shifted from a love for science fiction to a love for fantasy.

I wouldn't say there was ever a point that I disliked fantasy. The Hobbit was one of my early favorites, although I started The Lord of the Rings too early to really get into it properly until much later. But there wasn't a great deal of good fantasy stories for my age range available in the 80s and early 90s. The age of Harry Potter had not yet begun.

No, this was the age of Star Trek. Thanks to Reading Rainbow, I found out that LeVar Burton was in another show too, and that looked pretty cool. So from 1987 until my sophomore year in college, I was a dedicated Trekkie. At one point, I had over 200 of the Star Trek novels, as well as every single episode on tape, recorded off of television. My greatest literary achievement of high school, the fifteen part epic entitled The Happy Wars Saga was heavily based on the Starfleet system outline in Star Trek. Essentially, it was a universe in which I and a few of my friends were happy to play.

By the time I got to college, that fervor started to wane. I can still remember when I stopped reading Star Trek fiction. It was in Wal-Mart when I saw a certain paperback--a Star Trek/X-Men crossover. My illusions were shattered.

Ten years later, I read that book. It sucked, but not as bad as I was afraid of. It still read like Mary Jane fan fiction.

I had an immediate outlet, though. This was 1998, and Star Wars fervor had begun, first with the release of the Special Editions, and soon with the advent of the first prequel. I'm going to go on record right now to say that The Phantom Menace is my favorite Star Wars movie. (That's right, fuckers. That's not even a confession, because I don't feel guilty about it.)

But Star Wars is often held up as somewhere between sci-fi and fantasy, and I always related more to the Jedi than to droids or bounty hunters or X-wing pilots. And there was more.

Without the monthly influx of two or three Star Trek novels, my reading output went elsewhere. It found Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, and revisited old favorites like Anne McCaffrey's Pern series and the venerable Lord of the Rings. Then I discovered Terry Pratchett, and he displaced Douglas Adams in my mind as the king of humorous speculative fiction.

Wherefore this change? I think it's because science fiction is all about dehumanization, and fantasy is all about being human. And between the two, I know which I'd rather fantasize about. I never really read much sci-fi outside of the Star Trek universe, and when you think about it, that show was never really about the technology either, only where it could take you.

I love stories about honor, and by the time you get to the post-apocalyptic worlds of science fiction, honor no longer exists... or if it does, it's in a story like Dune that is as much fantasy as Star Wars.