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.
Filed under Death and Life, The Redemption Saga, Writing.