Tag: An Undying Quest

Still Having A Ball

Forty pages remain to edit in the Incomplete States series’ fifth novel, An Undying Quest. I’m still grinning with enjoyment as I’m reading and editing.

Just forty pages, I think. I should finish tomorrow. Then I begin writing the sixth book, The Final Time, with full-time energy and focus. I’m looking forward to it, because as I’ve been working on it on the side while editing, new, exciting, interesting ideas occur to me. The series gains complexity and textures as novels one through five progress, and what’s shaping up in book six spins my head.

I look forward to people reading the series. I know several friends and fans who will absolutely love the series. I can imagine them reading them and laughing as they realize what’s going on. I can imagine the final pause of thought after they close the last book. That ending is gaining substance in my mind, but there’s so much to write to get there. Each of the first five books have their intense chapters, but what I feel rising in the sixth book is such an intensity that my body feels like it’s thrumming like a guy wire in the wind as I contemplate it.

I caution myself, well, you might just be crazy. True enough, but WTH, I’m happy in my craziness, at least for today. It might be different tomorrow.

Deep breath. The coffee is gone, the fog is gone, the sun is out, and I’m ravenous. Time to stop editing and writing like crazy, at least one more time.

4

A Reminder

I was down yesterday when I began my writing and editing session. I’m still editing Book Five in the Incomplete States series, An Undying Quest. Halfway through it, I was bummed about what I was reading. I thought, man, I have some work ahead of me to fix these issues.

I didn’t feel like addressing those issues, so I made notes, and continued editing, working on subsequent chapters. When I did, I discovered that those chapters addressed the holes and plot issues, and fixed them.

I was friggin’ astonished. Thinking back to then, I remembering writing and arranging the chapters. I hadn’t realized I’d done this. By that, I mean, I knew that the story went sideways at that point. I knew it as a deliberate choice. I didn’t appreciate how sideways it went. I do remember thinking hard about it, recalling Part One of The Sound and the Fury (Faulkner, 1929), a book that I strongly admire. Back when I first read that novel in sixth grade, I remember gritting my teeth and thinking, “WTF? This is crazy.” Finishing Part One was challenging. But everything is illuminated (sorry,  Foer) with the subsequent parts. So I thought, be brave. Do it.

Now, after editing it, once I grit my teeth through the doubted chapters, the rest are magically explained. It comes together.

It’s not the first time I’ve done something like this. A friend, after reading one of my novels, said that he’d created a list of questions about things that bothered and confused him, then he said, “I was amazed because you brought it all together.” I loved that feedback.

So, I’m hanging with it as written. We’ll see if it makes publication, or what changes come about from outside feedback.

Meanwhile, it’s a powerful reminder that when editing, go through the whole damn manuscript before addressing any major changes. I specifically decided to edit the entire series before having any of them edited or read by another because the series is organic. Events opening in the first chapters of the first book are resumed in subsequent chapters and books. Changing one means hunting down and addressing those changes in other chapters and books. It has multiple points of views and storylines. It’s a complicated exploration. Events and decisions are rarely fully explained, as I like inviting readers to take the information and conceive the answers.

The series was originally conceived as a single, fat novel. I felt breaking it apart into eras of growing awareness and development lends itself to telling the story. I was also aware of my wife and her friends’ complaints about holding up large books to read, yes, even in this era of digital publishing.

Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.

 

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Laughing All the Way

I found myself laughing as I edited today, because I was dealing with the holes.

Still editing Book Five, An Undying Quest, of the Incomplete States series, I have half of the novel edited. The thing about the holes and the society that use them is that I hadn’t planned these holes. The holes in discussion are worm holes, but small, controlled to some degree, such as the way that we control water by channeling and funneling it, and managing levels and temperatures, etc., that are located in a cavern on another planet. The people use the holes to travel to other places, and sometimes to other times, and, if they’re brave enough, to visit the dead.

As noted, they were completely spontaneous when I was writing that section, and created a history and structure on the go. Reading, editing, and revising it today, this society’s depths, history, and complexities surprised me. There’s a sense in reading it that it’s historic fiction, and that you have some sense of what’s meant by the terms and relationships because that’s your history.

I quite enjoyed reading it. Will it work for others? Maybe, maybe not. I think it was James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon) who said something like, “Tell the story, and let the reader catch up, if they can.” That’s what I’m employing in this instance.

I must admit, one aspect of the holes was inspired by a scene from Field of Dreams (1989), when Terence Mann (James Early Jones) accepts the invitation from Shoeless Joe (Ray Liotta) to enter the corn. Love that scene.

Done writing and editing like crazy for another day. Off to join the real people, the real world, and the real sunshine.

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Surgery

Today’s editing was like surgery. I wrote Book Four, An Undying Quest, in a coffee-stoked and idea-infused blaze. Feeding me, the muses took me in different directions simultaneously. One over-arching arc was eventually uncovered as definitive. Excising paragraphs, merging, and clarifying the one great arc and staying true to the final concept and story involved a lot of reading, thinking, and revising.

Thank god for coffee. Terrific day of writing editing like crazy. Time to call it a day.

I might go get a doughnut.

2

The Heat

Now we come to the part of the novel that I say, “Huuuhhh?”

I’m editing and revising the fourth novel, An Undying Quest, in the Incomplete States series. I remember writing these chapters last December and January of this year. First, there were five chapters, which became ten, a reflection of the multiple POV. These chapters were being written in parallel in a mad heat of intensity. The muses were crazy and insistent during that time, and I sat back and typed as fast as I could.

Typing as fast as I can leads to a lot of stumbling over the keys, and a great deal of swearing as I miss a stroke, realize it and back up, muttering, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” as I do. The chapters were interesting to edit in the first pass after writing them because sometimes the tense changed. In reflection of that, I came to see how I was sometimes doing method writing, imagining myself to be the character to take in their senses, know their thoughts, and act correctly. I wonder, in retrospect, how that writing process affects my relationships and interactions with others. It intrigues me, too, that I can’t remember what I wrote, but I remember writing and editing it.

The weave pattern of these chapters means they’re more challenging to read and edit. The twists give me pause. To track them, to ensure they’re correct and consistent, delivering the end of that stretch while staying true to the concept, arc, and ending, required me to drop back and create another document. The document’s contents are, “This happened here,” and, “That happened now.”

Yes, it’s tricky, but it delights me. That worries me that I’m not being objective.

Yes, it’s tricky.

Time to write edit like crazy, at least one more time.

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Impulse

I considered my plans for today last night.

It was about midnight. Today, from what I saw, would be part of a continuum, another day of editing and revising. While I’m happy to make progress and I enjoy what I do, sometimes I get tired of the unending routine. Sometimes I long for a break.

Then I brightened because, hey, I was beginning to edit the fourth and final book in the Incomplete States series.

While I’d been thinking these things, I’d been preparing to close down the computer for the day. Instead, I opened the file for the fourth book’s cover. I regarded and admired it for a while. I’d created covers for the four books as carrots, to make the books seem more tangible and remind me of my goals. With covers, the effort seems to have more promise. It seems more real.

Sitting down, I opened the book’s Word document and began reading and editing.

There wasn’t any plan behind this impulse. One chapter began two. Soon, without me noticing, it was one thirty in the morning. I’d read and edited six chapters. Short chapters, I’d worked through but forty pages. This is a six hundred page, one hundred fifty thousand word draft. There’s a lot more to go.

Despite complaints from my butt cheeks, eyes, neck, and hands, and a more sensible side reminding me that I need to sleep, I didn’t want to stop. I was enjoying what I was reading, and pleased that I’d written it. But prudence finally won.

Now, guess what? Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time. I think I may need more coffee.

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Grounding Myself

Here we go, more self-indulgence. What’s new? This is a vanity blog with a primary purpose of understanding myself and my thinking through writing and coping with my writing efforts, with secondary purposes of entertaining myself and sharing ideas with others.

I struggled with how much to share today. I’m telling what the series, Incomplete States, is about. I decided that I typically don’t have many visitors, so I have little to worry about. I expect this post to get eight views and five likes, and perhaps two comments.

I was thinking about all of this in connection with where I stand with editing and revising the second novel, and by extension, the series. I felt a need to ground myself about where I’m at in the series, where it is, and where it goes.

To begin, consider three questions.

  1. Do you ever feel disconnected from your life, as though things have happened that you don’t remember or understand?
  2. Have you ever thought, didn’t I already do this?
  3. Is there ever a time that you feel like you’re a completely different person, resulting in a struggle to fit in? Perhaps you think, I was a male, and now I’m a female.

If you feel that you’ve experienced these things, it’s possible that you have an entangled LERE. A LERE is a Life-Experience-Reality-Existence. Entangled LEREs are caused by Chi-particle issues. Chi-particles are imaginary quantum particles that are lack mass and energy and travel faster than light. As they slow, they acquire mass and energy, becoming a fundamental quantum particle before devolving into some aspect of classic physics. Chi-particles exist as isotopes and variants just as elements often exist as isotopes and variants, which affect their behavior.

This is the situation that my characters experience in the four book series, Incomplete States.

I was exploring and thinking about the series as I walked this morning. Specifically, I thought, oh my God, what have I done? 

No, that’s not true. That was inserted for comedic effect. It’s sometimes true that I think this, but that wasn’t the case today.

Today brought a more rational review of the books and the story arc. I’d conceptualized, what if there is only now, no past, no future, and no cause and effect? What if the arrows of time are a convenient commodity we use to explain our existence (including our Universe) because it fits with our organic biology and creates a simple framework for being?

When I think about this, I’m forced to think about multi-verses, but also to challenge the ideas that our Universe is expanding. We believe we observe its expansion through light shifts because that cause and effect is the prevalent belief of our existence, along with the arrows of time that go from the past to the future, shooting through now. In my reality, E = mc2 is a fallacy that we cling to because it fortifies our foundations of being.

We hang onto the concepts of a greater being in the same way.

None of these things are easy to lose. Grappling with not accepting them and actively rejecting them is hard to keep in mind when you’re writing. I kept wanting to return to cause and effect and our universe’s foundations.

As I played with those concepts, I introduced characters who were undergoing the symptoms expressed in the opening questions. Unlike you, they often also remember what else happened. They remember other worlds and other lives that they lived and then come to a grudging grasp that they’re still living in these other worlds and lives.

All of this is told through their stories. Throughout, the things that happen to them cause gaps in logic, cause and effect, and expectations. They endure twisted memories and confused understanding, resulting in a knowledge vacuum.

Humans dislike vacuums. We always want to explain what’s going on via some mechanism. That mechanism can be via magic, religion, science, and technology. Those are the broad categories. People also suspect they live dream existences, but struggle to understand which part of their LERE is the dream existence, and which is the reality, coping with the possibilities that maybe both are dreams, or maybe both are realities. They struggle with plots to explain what’s happening to them, plots that involve governments, conspiracies, virtual realities, and other intelligent life forms.

The existences, experiences, and coping become a huge matrix, but the matrix is different for each of the six main characters. The delta between their matrices fluctuates.

That’s where the tension resides, evolving into wonder about which theory filling the vacuum is correct, and how the stories will resolve.

I had several writing rules I employed while writing these four books. Chapters were addressed as episodes. Cause and effect can be perceived, but readers can’t depend on it. Consistently inconsistent logic would be employed. Life — or reality — is a vacuum, and our search for understanding and explaining it all is a farce. What we interpret as life through our experiences forms a reality that’s a slice of existence that doesn’t linger.

I don’t treat my science as junk science. I treat it seriously in the novels. I don’t expect it to hold up to scientific reviews or validate string theory, loop quantum gravity, or the theory of everything. I offer no math to support my science, although I’ll point out that in my concept, anything anyone offers to support or tear down my science is wrong because of the inherent observer’s bias held by being in and part of this universe.

Yeah, it’s fun. It makes me laugh. That’s what writing’s all about, innit? Entertaining ourselves.

Hopefully, after reading the series, the typical reader will think, “I see.” And then they’ll wonder, “But what is it that I see?”

 

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