Journal Entry #50October 1, 2009
I finally completed, yesterday, what should be a rational draft of Harbinger. Maureen’s reading it now to see whether it makes sense. In case it doesn’t we celebrated last evening down at the pier. Maureen’s reading is always the critical point in a novel.
You can’t trust yourself. I missed opportunities to give the original version of The Hercules Text considerably more juice. (I rewrote it several years later.) I’d written ninety percent of my second novel, A Talent for War, before realizing it didn’t have the emotional kick I’d anticipated. As originally conceived, it was a straightforward recounting of the experience of Christopher Sim during wartime.
It was okay, I suspected, but there was a much more interesting story to tell. Or, to be more exact, there was a much more interesting way to tell the story. What happens if, instead of doing everything through Sim’s eyes, I go forward a couple of centuries and have an historian try to figure out what had really happened? The more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed. And, fortunately, I didn’t have to toss everything. Still, I had to unload about 60,000 words. But, I thought, not a historian. That was too obvious, and maybe too academic. An archeologist, maybe. But no, not with Indiana Jones running loose out there. I needed someone from a quieter profession. Say, an antique dealer. Which is how Alex Benedict arrived on the scene.
Originally, I had no inclination to revisit Alex and Chase. But I kept thinking about futuristic mysteries. Half a dozen people disappear out of a starship. They’ve apparently no place to go. And no visible way it could be accomplished. That became Polaris, and I could see no point in inventing another detective when Alex and Chase were handy. Readers seemed to like the characters, and I’ve always enjoyed a good mystery, so they will appear next year in their sixth incarnation. A lesson here, by the way, for anybody who wants to write novels: The project will probably take about a year to do. You don’t get much time off. So you’ll find it much easier to manage if you enjoy what you’re writing.
Maureen and I had a good time at Con*Stellation in Huntsville last weekend. Guests included GoH David Weber, artist GoH John Picacio, Fan GoH Gary Shelton, Lou Anders, David Drake, Eric Flint, Les Johnson, Travis Taylor, and Toni Weisskopf.
The most interesting panel was a two-hour make-up-your-own topic called “The Pirates Stole My Topic.“ It developed into a discussion on the effects of religion, negative and positive, with a ton of audience participation. I’m not sure we arrived at any conclusions, but SF con panels are the only places I’ve ever been where you can do a free-wheeling religious discussion and keep it civil.
Also present at Con*Stellation was Jeff Ugly Shoes and the Cemetery Surfers. Didn‘t get a chance to listen to them --I‘ve never been busier at a con--, but I understand they put on a sharp performance.
On our way to Huntsville, we’d left a car in Savannah to get serviced. Consequently we had to leave early in order to be able to pick it up on the way home so as not to have to make the 140-mile round trip to the dealer next day. We bailed out of the hotel at 3:30 a.m. local time. The route home took us along I-20 toward Atlanta. We drove through heavy, and occasionally torrential, rainfall. We picked up the car and got home okay. But I-20 flooded shortly after we passed over it.
Got to be a lesson there somewhere.