JOURNAL ENTRY #41
May 17, 2009
For me, and probably for most novelists, the most difficult aspect of writing a novel is putting together the first draft and making the pieces fit. I don’t think I’ve ever given my editors a proposal that ultimately looked anything like the final product. During the writing, the narrative comes alive, the characters tend to walk off in unplanned directions, and better ideas show up. If none of this happens, it would probably be best to junk the project and move on. But for reasons I can’t understand, everything becomes easier once you have a title.
I’ve been struggling with a fifth Alex Benedict novel, due for publication in November 2010. In Alex’s time, 10,000 years from now, the Orion Arm seems empty, save for the Ashiyyur and us. But there is always someone out there looking for another civilization, or signs that one existed. Among these true believers was Travis Esterbrook, who devoted his life to the Great Hunt. His friends and colleagues urge him to give it up. He’s only wasting his life. It’s useless. But he hangs in. Though ultimately, as the years pass, he gets discouraged. Eventually he gives up and retires. Ten years later he dies quietly.
Time passes, and he is forgotten. Until, a half-century later, Alex comes across evidence that he in fact DID find something. But what he found, and why he never said anything, remains a mystery. I’d been having problems putting the pieces together, and while I knew why he’d said nothing, I wasn’t sure how the climax should work. Moreover, as changes occurred in the text, the working title, Sanctum, didn’t fit. (I hadn’t liked it anyway.)
Yesterday, Maureen and I went out for dinner with friends, and spent the evening playing pinochle. Somehow, I came home knowing how the climax should read. And with the title in hand. It will be SIGNS OF LIFE.
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Kevin Anderson sent me a copy of his new novel, ENEMIES AND ALLIES. It’s the first meeting of Batman and Superman, set back in the fifties. Doing a believable superhero narrative is not easy, but Kevin brings it off with elan. Among the book’s highlights: a party at Wayne Manor featuring lots of the personalities from the period.
I am probably giving my age away when I admit that I recall the first actual meeting between the two. It happened on the Superman radio show, circa 1945. They didn’t do nearly as good a job with it as Kevin does.
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I’ve also gotten into David Sanger’s THE INHERITANCE. Sanger writes effectively and passionately about problems and missed opportunities from the Bush era, and where we might be going from here.