…AS GODS.

Did you get a red ribbon at Penguicon with this URL written on the back? Then you’re one of the lucky few to receive the last of my ribbons from my original release of The Remembrance. In 2006, when I debuted the novel, I made three different convention ribbons. The first was a green one, with the text SQUIRREL KING. The second was a purple one, with the text THE REBUILDER. You have one of the third ones. With each ribbon “release,” I set up an associated page:

SQUIRREL KING – THE REBUILDER – MAY THEY LIVE FOREVER

Most of those pages are outdated, and though you can technically still buy a copy of the book there, I would advise against it.

Why?

Because I’m rewriting it. My wife is using her editorial chainsaw to hack it to bits, and I’m putting the pieces back together, usually according to her amazing advice. The floor is covered in stuff that’s been cut out, and I’m writing a lot of new material for it. The goals are to be able to better relate to the characters, close plot holes, and make more sense as a whole. Those clumsy stumbles in a first novel, where you can’t help but throw the reader out of the story? Yeah, those are enemy number one.

Why again?

Because I want to submit it for traditional publishing. I want it to be the best novel it can be, and it’s just not there. It never has been. It’s always been a “first novel.” I need it to be a “good novel.” I want it to be a “fantastic novel.” I want to put it through the crucible of traditional publishing and see if it will come out the other side.

And when I finally finish its sequel, written over the span of at least eight years, I want to be able to apply what she and I have accomplished to the new story, and keep doing it as I write into the future. I want to learn this lesson.

So, while you can technically go and grab a copy of The Remembrance, I’d rather you check out some of my other work over there in the side bar. One’s a novella and the other is a short story, both at more recent steps on my storytelling journey than the first novel was. In the next few months, a new novella will appear there. I’d love it if you came back and checked it out, as well.

I hope you had a great time at the con, and I hope to see you again!

For The Remembrance, from 15 March.

The first half of the chapter works just as I want is as a journal, recounting events of the past. The second half works just as I want it as normal narrative fiction. I had accidentally transitioned from one to the other while writing it. I didn’t notice the problem until it was pointed out to me. I made a half-ass attempt to shoehorn the second half into journal format, but it was lame and the end result was terrible. Now I’m left with a broken first chapter of the Remembrance – again – and a question. What now?

I could trash the second half and rewrite it. From scratch. I very much do not want to do this.

I could trash the first half and rewrite it. From scratch. I very much do not want to do this.

I could create a framework for the chapter that allows for the first half to be journal and the second half to be narrative. That seems clumsy, and a little bit like lazy writing, but I’m not sure that there’s another option, save from giving up on the book.

Chapter 2 moves in and out of journal mode fairly successfully (despite all of the red ink that Nikki is spraying on its pages), but its model seems significantly different. The opening of Chapter 1 has Jason writing in a journal trying to make sense of what’s going on around him. Could he reach a point in the story where he concludes the effort, or gives up on it, and then the story progresses as normal fiction?

If he could, the point would have to be after he buries his mother, before he heads back to the asylum. I would have to change some time references in the first half, and then add a short bit about what he does with the journal once he’s done writing in it.

Nikki immediately liked this idea, which is only a little terrifying. She suggested the same spot to make the break. So, that’d be it.

What would he do with the journal? Will it be like Herod’s old letter, stuffed in the mailbox? Or would he leave it on the porch? Would he take it with him, to keep safe in case he needed to write in it again? Or would he just want to keep the record of those thoughts safe?

Would he operate on instinct, grabbing it and putting it in his coat without thinking?