Archive for the ‘The Redemption Saga’ Category
March 27, 2013
I’ve been playing with some of the old mythology of Raya that informs The Redemption Saga, revising and reworking some of the short tales that comprise it. I’ve been conceiving of them now as “Short Fiction” that perhaps I may send off to some journals or magazines and see if anything sticks. Even though there is absolutely no chance of its being accepted there, I submitted “The Quest of the Fire Heart” to the New Yorker Fiction. That is the tale of Adhenil Eniwi’s quest to reclaim the Nerrimadhe from Gollithis. See all those weird words that no one who has not yet read the story could ever understand? That’s one reason the New Yorker will never even consider it. Savages.
But in the meantime, I rewrote “the Despair of the Inaya”, the first part of the Anyaria (Creation of Raya). I finally (finally!!) worked out a metaphor for creation that I really like (its presentation still needs work). Ever after reading the Ainulindalë by Tolkien, with its description of the creation of the world being presupposed by music, I’ve wanted to discover something equally cool. I don’t think it’s equal, but what I’ve come up with at least satisfies me on the metaphor-of-creation level. Rewriting the Anyaria also caused me to rename Gollithis to Gollíkur, who is “wreaker of corruption,” rather than “worker of corruption.” This is important. No really.
I’ve long wanted to mimic Tolkien in creating a mythology that is the background for a language or languages. Hence, I spend equal time on the linguistics of the Shayatsi as I do their mythology.
Anyway, the writing of these myths and legends now serves two purposes: first, it allows me to think about the themes of the Redemption Saga which will help inform its new shape; and second, I am writing “short fiction” that maybe, someday, perhaps, who knows, I might be able to sell.
Posted in The Redemption Saga, Writing
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February 16, 2013
I’ve reached 20,000 words on Death and Life, which is good. I feel like I’m on the verge of getting this stuck-in-the-mud train finally moving again. But I’ve felt that way before.
Meanwhile, my lingering dissatisfaction with Looming Thunderheads has led me at last to the decision that I will leave that novel aside and rework the entire Redemption Saga series from the beginning. I do not do this lightly. I’ve been toying with the idea for a while, but every attempt to rework the story has led me back to embracing Looming Thunderheads as it stands. Nevertheless, that dissatisfaction lingered.
Part of the problem with scrapping the book was that I love most of it. I want to keep it. There are moments in the story that I need to present in whatever final version of the Redemption Saga I produce. Therefore, I intend to use the Looming Thunderheads manuscripts as a junkyard, pulling scenes and stories to incorporate into the new version. I think this will immensely help the overall story.
But at the moment that project remains only in the planning stage, and my focus ought to remain on Death and Life. I do need to get that one written so I can get it out of my system. That too has been a long-time project, and its original version was a completely different presentation of the same story. Hopefully, as it benefited from reimagining, so too can Redemption.
The Redemption Saga page, the Looming Thunderheads page, and the Current Projects page have all been updated to reflect this decision.
Posted in Death and Life, The Redemption Saga
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January 22, 2013
I did graduate last Spring, and I’ve moved back to Florida. I am now an Adjunct Professor at a local college.
Last fall I rewrote the prologue to Angie to give it a “softer” open, and Angie is now near some editor’s desk awaiting consideration. I also spent a bit of time reworking a few chapters of Looming Thunderheads to make them stronger, hopefully. I’m going to read through the text again and then hopefully Looming can go sit on some editor’s desk for a few months too.
I’ve applied to a few PhD programs, and we’ll see if I get accepted into those. If not, I may spend some of my time doing my own Literary Critical research and thinking. I have ideas, I do.
Meanwhile I think I want to return to Death and Life, as I have been mulling over how to narrate that story for some time, and I want to try and see if it works. That means redoing what I have, but for the better I think. We’ll see.
I also intend to update the website soon, and that may mean ditching this WordPress journal for something I write myself. Not sure if I want to spend the time programming that project, but for very many reasons I want to change this part of the site.
I apologize for the long-broken sections of the site, and the weird accumulation of various stages of page revisions. Hopefully as I move forward with this project I can fix that. We’ll see.
Hey, if you’re reading this, drop me a line. Thanks!
Posted in Angie Star, Death and Life, Life, The Redemption Saga, Website
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October 4, 2009
I finished the last (red) edit of Looming Thunderheads last week. I’ve sent out a few queries and have had one rejection (already!). I just wrote a 6-page synopsis, very bare and plain, and that needs some serious revision before I start including it in query packages. I’m very eager for this book and I’m hopeful for its prospects. I do think it will be easier to sell than Angie, as its themes aren’t quite so dark.
I think that my next project will be a draft of Death and Life, rather than Baleful Deluge. I’ve decided to do this despite the danger of setting aside The Redemption Saga for two reasons: first, if I do not sell Looming Thunderheads before I complete Death and Life, it will be better to have two separate stories to try and sell rather than a part one and a part two; second, I’ve already written this story as The Invasion, and although Death and Life is a complete re-creation of the story, it is more complete than Baleful Deluge. I anticipate it progressing swiftly once I begin the endeavor. Much like Angie, it’s a single-perspective story (I’m going to try it in the first person and see if that works), and so I expect the same facility such a narrative voice gives (Looming Thunderheads suffered in its early drafts from a surfeit of characters).
We shall see…
Posted in Death and Life, The Redemption Saga, Writing
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September 14, 2009
The heaviest edit of Looming Thunderheads, the blue pass, is now complete. The next pass, with red ink, will be a single read-through, and after that I will type in all my corrections. I am very close to a point when I can begin the process of trying to sell this manuscript.
I am uncertain if I will now let the manuscript sit for a few days before I embark upon the final pass, or if I will begin it immediately. I have edited this novel so many times that I’ve probably redone every page five or six times at least, and some pages ten or eleven. I foresee the red pass being very light in its touch. The passages that will require the most editing will be the changes I made in the last edit, and most of that will be for clarity and pace and language.
I want to try to embark more fully on Death and Life as I wrap up work on Looming Thunderheads. I think I’ve decided that writing Baleful Deluge might limit my chances of selling a manuscript: it would be difficult to sell part two of a series before I’ve sold part one. Therefore, writing a new story will multiply my chances. The main hurdle I see for Death and Life is its length. I know this one will be quite long. Between the Stars would be a better intermediate project because it should be much shorter. Unfortunately, that story is not as fully formed as Death and Life.
Alas, as Stephen R Donaldson says, I do not choose my stories; they choose me.
Posted in The Redemption Saga, Writing
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August 21, 2009
I am now living in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and at last I have internet at home. After the move, while I have been away from the internet, I was able to complete a great amount of work on Looming Thunderheads. This has all been in the form of rewrites of several scenes, a few additional scenes or extensions of scenes, and going over Pah-Tukh’s and Dindriad’s character arcs.
Ever since the very first draft last year, I have been disappointed with Dindriad’s story, and I have always intended to revisit it during one of the revisions. I tried a few things in some of those revisions, but it wasn’t until now that I finally found a satisfying way to bring his story together. I am very pleased with how it has turned out. This has all been part of my “blue” editing pass, and tomorrow I will begin the final “blue” pass with a rereading of the entire book from beginning to end. After that, all that will be left will be the “red” pass. (I discussed my editing process in an earlier entry on this journal.)
Tonight, after I had spent the day redoing some of Quorin’s story and some of Mellian’s as well as a few other things, I decided to step away from Looming Thunderheads and try out some new material.
From 1997 until 2006, I worked on a book called The Invasion. In 2004, I had a draft of nearly 300,000 words when I realized that my skill at prose had grown so that the last chapters of the book were so much better than the beginning that it seemed to be two different books. It was as if I had come to a point in painting a broad and complex mural where I looked up and found vivid and vibrant color depicting a lively and engaging scene of complex humanity, but looking back to the start of the mural at the corner of the wall, I saw that the depiction there was stiff and formal, black and white and clumsy. I decided that the only real option was to start the book over.
In 2006, I had brought the (much more colorful) manuscript to just over 100,000 words, but the story had lost its appeal. I was frustrated with the material, even though I felt that my writing had improved considerably. I set aside The Invasion and turned to Angie Star.
Since then, the story of The Invasion has toyed with me from time to time as I have had new insight on its themes and structure and the character of Oren. These past few weeks a few of those thoughts finally came to a boil and I started thinking seriously again about the book.
I have renamed it Death and Life (as a working title at least, though it may stick). I knew the opening line a few days ago, and tonight, after I finished my day with Looming Thunderheads, I decided to see what I could discover about Oren and his situation. The result was shocking. It is far more overwhelmingly despondent than I thought it would be—but the feeling of it seems so right. I am very pleased with what I have done. And the best part is that I have discovered more details about the story. I think that I will soon be able to embark fully upon this project, although Baleful Deluge and Between the Stars are still waiting, among many others. We shall see where I will turn when Looming Thunderheads had gone through all of its revision. In the meantime, Death and Life may be a worthwhile respite from the toiling slog of editing.
Posted in Death and Life, The Redemption Saga, Writing
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May 25, 2009
I did not get very far on Between the Stars except in concept and a few ideas. I think that book needs to simmer a bit more before I can really start writing it. Meanwhile, I have begun the (hopefully) final revision process on Looming Thunderheads. With Angie last year I created what I’ve called a “three-color-pass” version of editing/revising where I go through the manuscript three times, each time with a new color pen. The first pass is in green, and I pretty much just read the book front to back and correct typos and uneven grammar or unclear prose. I also take notes as I go through the green pass for things that I need to work on for the next pass. The next go-through, with a blue pen, is the really intensive revision, where I make broader changes, rewrite scenes or passages, add and delete, tweak character responses and scene descriptions, make sure time and place are consistent, etc. The Blue pass is the most time consuming and difficult. Although, since I have already revised Looming Thunderheads so many times, I do not expect any major overhauls. It will need a few clarifications and I still have to work on Dindriad’s arc a bit more. The final pass is in red, and that mimics the green pass in checking for readability and grammar, except that I am reading my hand-written edits and cleaning those up as well. After that, I go back to the electronic manuscript and type in all the corrections. At the last I will do an on-screen reading, this is merely to check for typos and glaring errors. That is the most difficult, because I do not like to read on the computer screen for an extended time. (Maybe a good reason to get a Kindle.) I hope to be done with these edits by August and the move to Alabama, so that as soon as we’re settled in to our new house I can start sending out queries for Looming Thunderheads and hopefully find an agent. After that, I will either begin on Baleful Deluge/Baleful Downpour or try again at Between the Stars.
Meanwhile, I am writing an essay called ‘On Fiction,’ which I hope to complete and put up on the web site in June. So far it is 5,000 words, and I expect it to be at the very least twice that. It’s a nice diversion and a good way to focus my thoughts as I work on revision.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 23, 2009
I finished the restructure/rewrite of Looming Thunderheads tonight. I was perched on the edge of completion for the past few days, with only a half-chapter to go, but until tonight I did not get through that last section. In any case it is complete. Now Jenny will get (have) to read it, and in a month or so I will go back and start rereading it myself (after letting it cool a bit) for error and style and readability. A few passes for that kind of revision, and it will be ready for the great agent search.
In the mean time, I have another book idea in mind that I want to test the waters of. This is a science fiction book that deals with conflict on a Generation Ship. My title for it at present is Between the Stars. I will update on that as well as further work on Looming Thunderheads as I go.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 15, 2009
The Restructure/Rewrite of Part Three is complete. I didn’t change as much in this section beyond the fundamental reordering of the chapters. The only sections that got dramatic alteration were Dindriad’s chapters. I never was entirely happy with his development, and I always wanted to rework it. I’m not sure how it works as I’ve changed it, and I won’t really know until I go back over it later. For now I press on to the next Interlude and then Part Four afterward. I think I will wind up rewriting even less of Part Four than I did Part Three. If that is the case, then it will go much faster. At the moment, the Interlude is taking some attention, and I need to step away and reconsider it before pressing on. I will continue it tomorrow. I expect to be very near the end of the book by month’s end, if it is not in fact completed. We shall see how that turns out.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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April 8, 2009
I have finished revising and at last completing Part Two of Looming Thunderheads. I didn’t change any of the action, mostly I adjusted how the characters interacted with each other and what information they shared. I adjusted Pah-Tukh’s emotional arc so that he would be in the right place when he got to that last chapter. It is not yet right, but it is closer, and that is good enough. I know that I will spend a few months after I finish this draft honing and revising in a more line-by-line manner to get a lot of those details right. As it stands, I am ready to embark on Part Three. I have been looking forward to the first chapter of Part Three for a while now, as I really like the version I had in the original draft. I think the rest of the book will go more swiftly, as most of it is already written in disparate form. I just have to put it together and add a few scenes here and there. We shall see.
Posted in The Redemption Saga
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