Rewriting the Remembrance, from 16 May.

I spoke with Nikki about this over the phone. She loved the idea of Schuler hallucinating about the real enemy far before it actually shows up on the Homeland’s doorstep. She says that Schuler, while homeless, should have one prized posession – a battery operated radio. That first day, after the TV and radio signals went away, when the cities were getting hit, Schuler was scanning the dial, just like Jason was, and “got lucky”. He picked up Diane’s broadcast.

He would obsessively tune into it, listening to all of the rebroadcasts. He’d learn about the meteors that had wiped out (or very nearly so) the major cities all over the world. He would learn about the Locusts, and what survivors were learning about them as they fought back. He would learn about how cunning and nearly insurmountable of an enemy they were, and their seeming need to wipe out humanity. Here was an enemy worse than the VC! Here was an enemy worth fighting!

I’ve decided to split up my Writing Journal entries into two parts. Part the first, where I write about my own writing thoughts, will still be called Writing Journal. Part the second, where I react to something that Nikki has brought up as an issue in my writing, will be called Editor’s Note.

Rewriting the Remembrance, from 13 May

If a scouting party is easily defeated, or, I guess, defeated at all by Schuler alone, it’s not much of a threat. Even if he had the help of a hastily-assembled crack commando team, civilians would dismiss the threat as defeatable – nothing to worry about. After all, if they can be defeated once, they can be defeated again. There would be no cause to rally together as a community, no “Them” to define an “Us” against.  Okay, if the “Them” isn’t the Locusts, who could it be?

Reality shifting is a possibility. It’s come up a great deal in the first two chapters. Could Schuler – the entire Homeland – be formed by the fever dreams of a drunk, homeless Vietnam veteran?

If Schuler is a way to express teenage angst about father figures (don’t ask), it’s important to consider who he is to be now, because changing how he came about will change who he is at a fundamental level. His motivations will change. Perhaps his reactions will change as well.

If Schuler modified reality, there would be plenty of justified paranoia. A threat would lurk around every corner, just waiting to strike. People would be being followed by lurkers in bushes, behind corners, on rooftops. Lives would constantly be in danger; the civilians would need to be protected at all costs. Only with his demented fantasy made flesh, given reality, will Schuler be able to regain his agency and interact with the world around him constructively.

Who should the enemy be? Viet Cong? Urban gangs? Corrupted military pencil-pushers and those who were gullible enough to be led by them? Could the Locusts figure in? Could he hallucinate about the real, actual enemy? How would that work?

I’ve decided to split up my Writing Journal entries into two parts. Part the first, where I write about my own writing thoughts, will still be called Writing Journal. Part the second, where I react to something that Nikki has brought up as an issue in my writing, will be called Editor’s Note.

Rewriting the Remembrance, from 04 May.

In Chapter 3, shortly after the caravan of survivors battles its way through the advancing line of Locusts, they stumble on the Homeland. Nikki raised the point that since we had shortened the timeline, she wasn’t sure if they now had enough time to be as organized as they are written to be.

I went back through it, skimming for the battle and the Homeland. I was relieved to find that I at least had it in the right order. The Caravan wanders into the Homeland directly after the battle, which means that the line of Locusts had been through only hours before. My first read through had me thinking it was fine. The barricade was hastily constructed, Schuler was just setting up his command and control in the TV shop, so they hadn’t had much time to put together any sort of infrastructure. They were just using what still existed from before.

Right?

For everything to still be functional, the Locusts can’t have made it inside. For the Locusts not to have made it inside, several things need to happen. There have to be borders to be guarded and patrolled. That means that in the week since the meteors landed, the Homeland must have come together as a like-minded community, in reaction to some outside force. Even then, to have enough defenders gathered to keep the locusts entirely at bay is a tall order.

Schuler has to have his wake-up call. Before, his wartime experiences burst through the years of alcoholism, depression, and homelessness when the Locusts attacked the suburb he was wandering through. He can’t have rallied and protected the Homeland in the hour since the wave went through. Even saying that an advance scouting party of Locusts had come through and triggered Schuler feels half-ass, and unlikely to produce the desired result.

…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?