You’ll forgive me, of course, if this entry seems disjointed, disorganized and dissolute. After all, I spent the last week writing eight hours a day. Can I be blamed for feeling a tad burnt-out on words?
The longer short story I mentioned and excerpted in my last FIK-shuhn entry (05.31.07) has morphed into a full-fledged novella. Its current (though not necessarily final) title is Slouching Deathward: A New Myth. At this point it is one revision process away from the time when I will allow a few copies to be read by a few choice individuals. After that, the final rewrite will begin in earnest.
It’s a quick little read and it’s the first time I’ve written anything that could in any way be called “plot-driven”. That’s not to say that I sacrificed character development or forwent any sort of emphasis on style. It merely means that I’m attempting to improve certain areas that I once believed unimportant to literary fiction.
The story is a dystopian satire that owes a lot to my love of books like 1984 and Brave New World. It centres around an anonymous gentleman in the Detroit area who struggles to reconcile his disgust at what the world has become with his own role in turning the world into what it now is.
Most of the characteristics of the near-future world I’ve created are logical (to me) extrapolations on what I’ve been seeing on CNN and CBC the last few years. I don’t want to reveal too much but I will say that xenophobia, religion, vanity, corporate control and climate change play important roles in this world. I will also say that, yes, I do see what I’ve written as an inevitable future if things in this world remain as they are today.
In a philosophical sense I attempt to suggest that entropy—the tendency of systems to move from order to disorder—is not limited to natural systems but can also be applied to government, economy and religion. The idea is that the “Arrow of Time” dictates that everything must fall apart, that “the centre cannot hold”.
At the same time that I issue this clearly fatalist dictum I try to inject a sense of hope. I want the reader to come away with the feeling that, though these systems must fail, we as a species must make an effort to survive.
Usually I try not to talk about what my stories mean. As I’ve said more often than I care to remember, what I put into a story is less important than what you get out of it. However, since I’ve gone this far into the no-no land of explaining my themes I may as well conclude by saying that I hope that, upon finishing the story, at least a few people will ask: Should we try to survive because mankind is capable of behaving decently, or will we try to survive merely because self-preservation is a simple, biological imperative?
Other themes, if you care, include the uncertainty of the modern world; disgust at commercialism; the possibility of redemption and the devastation and experience of loss.
The writing of this novella was an exercise in writing a dystopia. As many of my friends know I have, for ages now, had this world living and growing in my mind waiting for the day that I could develop the skill (and find the time) to write the epic novel required to appropriately tell the story.
By no means am I saying that now is the time—I’m quite sure that novel is a few years off just yet. What I am saying is that I feel myself getting closer all the time. I really feel as though my ability as a storyteller has advanced significantly over the last year or so. When I read what I’ve written in just the last three months and compare it to the things I wrote at this time last year I’m shocked, frankly, at the improvement I’ve made.
I have to say, it feels good.
Now what I have to worry about is finding a way to publish a novella. It’s not exactly a popular form in North American literature. It’s too long for magazines and publishing companies don’t think it’s a profitable venture. (Probably because they can’t charge $20 a pop for a 120-some-odd page book, not because people won’t buy it.)
So I don’t know what will happen to Slouching Deathward but I assure you, if anything does happen with it, you’ll hear about it here.
Also: is anyone else hoping Conrad Black goes away for a long, long time? I get so sick of these rich, white, business criminals. Popstars, too. If only we could get Paris Hilton to commit a really atrocious crime… you know, something slightly more atrocious than her simple existence... like a warcrime.
The longer short story I mentioned and excerpted in my last FIK-shuhn entry (05.31.07) has morphed into a full-fledged novella. Its current (though not necessarily final) title is Slouching Deathward: A New Myth. At this point it is one revision process away from the time when I will allow a few copies to be read by a few choice individuals. After that, the final rewrite will begin in earnest.
It’s a quick little read and it’s the first time I’ve written anything that could in any way be called “plot-driven”. That’s not to say that I sacrificed character development or forwent any sort of emphasis on style. It merely means that I’m attempting to improve certain areas that I once believed unimportant to literary fiction.
The story is a dystopian satire that owes a lot to my love of books like 1984 and Brave New World. It centres around an anonymous gentleman in the Detroit area who struggles to reconcile his disgust at what the world has become with his own role in turning the world into what it now is.
Most of the characteristics of the near-future world I’ve created are logical (to me) extrapolations on what I’ve been seeing on CNN and CBC the last few years. I don’t want to reveal too much but I will say that xenophobia, religion, vanity, corporate control and climate change play important roles in this world. I will also say that, yes, I do see what I’ve written as an inevitable future if things in this world remain as they are today.
In a philosophical sense I attempt to suggest that entropy—the tendency of systems to move from order to disorder—is not limited to natural systems but can also be applied to government, economy and religion. The idea is that the “Arrow of Time” dictates that everything must fall apart, that “the centre cannot hold”.
At the same time that I issue this clearly fatalist dictum I try to inject a sense of hope. I want the reader to come away with the feeling that, though these systems must fail, we as a species must make an effort to survive.
Usually I try not to talk about what my stories mean. As I’ve said more often than I care to remember, what I put into a story is less important than what you get out of it. However, since I’ve gone this far into the no-no land of explaining my themes I may as well conclude by saying that I hope that, upon finishing the story, at least a few people will ask: Should we try to survive because mankind is capable of behaving decently, or will we try to survive merely because self-preservation is a simple, biological imperative?
Other themes, if you care, include the uncertainty of the modern world; disgust at commercialism; the possibility of redemption and the devastation and experience of loss.
The writing of this novella was an exercise in writing a dystopia. As many of my friends know I have, for ages now, had this world living and growing in my mind waiting for the day that I could develop the skill (and find the time) to write the epic novel required to appropriately tell the story.
By no means am I saying that now is the time—I’m quite sure that novel is a few years off just yet. What I am saying is that I feel myself getting closer all the time. I really feel as though my ability as a storyteller has advanced significantly over the last year or so. When I read what I’ve written in just the last three months and compare it to the things I wrote at this time last year I’m shocked, frankly, at the improvement I’ve made.
I have to say, it feels good.
Now what I have to worry about is finding a way to publish a novella. It’s not exactly a popular form in North American literature. It’s too long for magazines and publishing companies don’t think it’s a profitable venture. (Probably because they can’t charge $20 a pop for a 120-some-odd page book, not because people won’t buy it.)
So I don’t know what will happen to Slouching Deathward but I assure you, if anything does happen with it, you’ll hear about it here.
Also: is anyone else hoping Conrad Black goes away for a long, long time? I get so sick of these rich, white, business criminals. Popstars, too. If only we could get Paris Hilton to commit a really atrocious crime… you know, something slightly more atrocious than her simple existence... like a warcrime.
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