One Over X News

Progress Report On Book 1-2e

I have no really clear idea as to where I am in terms of 6x9 11 pt type set pages but I am well past half-way through editing, revising and at times rewriting One Over X - Episode One: From The Inside To The Closer. Having essentially read the book for the first time in over two years, having had the feedback and input of many readers that I have seriously taken to heart and into account, I kind of feel like I am producing the new and improved next model of something.

Okay, I am the author. I get that. Although I have to go through the whole registering thing with the Library of Congress for a second time, paying my fee to have the copyright registered again, it seems worth it to materially alter the book. Don't get me wrong. There are many things that I love about Book 1-1e. I will still argue that the notorious and even infamous 56 pages of narrative early on in the book served a purpose other than to lull the reader into a near comatose state. But, yeah I heard all the criticism and I could see the point. I appreciate the help, folks. I really do. I would also like to sincerely apologize to anyone that I may have inadvertantly swore at in the process of receiving the good intentioned criticism.

I probably need to explain how Book 1-1e came to be as it is. It was grossly over-edited and yet it had errors, typos and mistakes. That can and did happen as there were too many versions of the text being shuffled back and forth. At some point a wrong version of this got mixed with the right version of that and you have a novel revised by committee.

I could use convenient excuses like I was working my ass off at the time or that I was distracted in this way or that. I may have even trusted others to do what really should have been my charge all along I should have spent more time focusing on the first book instead of continuing to write the series. Still, things progressed in the weay that they did and a lot of very good material came from it, even some material that created a better series of books and a whole new storyline that I really feel carried the entire series and has served to produce a second series as well.

I assume the blame for everything that was wrong with Book 1-1e just as long as I get credit for everything that was right. All along, it was a very good story. It has spawned five other books directly. Along with the additional plotlines and such that are directly attributable to something that happened just shy of five years ago, it inspired a sequel and even a prequel. Granted as I have said Ela'na and the fantastic world that largely she engendered had a lot to do with why I wrote so much and carried the story forward for as long as I have. But Book 1 is where everything began.

In revision I have been reading everything. Anything that was unclear, confusing or didn't make sense to me, I have rewritten. Hopefully it is better, now. Hopefully that is because I have evolved as a writer. I really do not want to write a Book 1-3e. It should not be necessary.

I have to tell you though that I am reading this book with fairly fresh eyes, all thing considered. Of course as the author of ten other books that are based on the same general themes and shared characters, I know a lot more now about what I was writng about then than I did when this book was first submitted for publication. Frankly I am amazed at how little of the plot that I have had to revise considering all the other material that I have written that is based on this first novel. In fact the plot is essentially unaltered except for having had to correct a wrong name or word here and there, the changing of which corrected the focus and lessened some of the confusion that readers have voiced at certain points. Even in its original form this one book established a firm base for building some pretty elaborate storylines.

Reading Book 1 now it is almost as if I am a first time reader. That has been an interesting even if often sobering experience. I had forgotten some of the detail in Book 1. Occasionally something is fresh enough that I go, "Wow, that was pretty clever." Or, "Holy crap, I actually wrote that!" Sometimes I have sat back and wondered what int he world I was trying to say; those are the things I had to fix.

One of the amazing things that has happened is that I have found minor characters that I love and feel that they support the depth and overall quality of the fantasy world, creating an illusiont hat these characters are read people. At times I have thought in terms of why didn't I develop them further? There is time in that only two of the books are in print. But then I also know where everything else leads and to develop them further would create some unnecessary distractions.

In the future I may want to write books based on some of these minor characters. Edgar in Book 1 is a case in point. Where in the hell my warped mind came up with him, I am not sure. He reminds me of some people that I know but no one so much as a guy I worked with in a Bridgeport Connecticut home improvement store, someone named Steve. Granted Steve was not a total pain in the ass like Edgar seems to be but he was all about protocol. I suppose he should be, he was an advisor to the Mayor at some point in his career and even though he was sturggling at the time to get by like all the rest of us that worked in that store, he had an appreciation for quality things and the parts of life that make it worth living.

Steve was a great, caring person but was also arrogant and self righeous. I know that may seem contradictory but it is also the case that people are a complex balamce of many attributes. That dynamic in him was just as marvelous as it is in any other real person. I think a lot of people in that store were convinced that Steve was gay. I can see why but it never mattered as far as working with him. He was competent and dependable and that is all that ever mattered as far as working with him. He had the ability to be enthusiastic even iif he was not feeling good. His positive outlook infected others and may the store a more friendly and helpful work environment. You need to have a few Steves in every work place and it is completely whatever his private life, personal preferrences in interpersonal relationships.

At some point I went over to his place at his reqyest to fix his computer. That was about as far as I ever ventured into his private life. To me he seemed a classic anal rentetive sort and his residence was meticulously well maintained. He had decorted it to be comfortable, functional and make a statement about his personality and personal tastest. Steve bought a few quality things but did not clutter his surroundings with the display of the things that he liked.

I honestly doubt that he was gay. I never asked and since he never offered the information or came onto me it never was an issue. He was a great person and I respected him a lot and always enjoyed working with him. I looked forward to our conversations.

I think I have mentioned my experiences in Austin. I lived in a part of town in an apartment complex that I could afford. It happened to be populated with gays, tranvestites, bi-sexuals, hookers, Blacks, hispanics, Whites, Asians and a couple of rednecks (which I consider a whole 'nother category from Whites. My apartment complex was a strange corssection of the American meltingpot in that it was not demographically balances wither to the general population distribution of America or even of Austin. At times it was a fascinating place to live and was perhaps a perfect location for an aspiring writer to sense the diverse fabric that made Austin a very vibrant and unique city to experience.

Anyway I never had issue with anyone in that apartment complex. I was accepted even though I come from a long and not particularly distinguished line of rednecks and the others may have had every expectation that I might be a White Supremest Racist asshole. Anyway I could be wrong about this but I have developed a sort of sixth sense about people. I can generally tell a lot about people just from spending about three or four minutes of them.

Steve could be Gay. He could be one of those people that eat from both sides of the buffet table, as one of my redneck friends likes to refer to bi-sexuals. It never changed what he did for the store or what he contributed to the quality of the days that I spent in that store. What I appreciated was his geniune friendship.

When I was in the military I learned that one way to categorize those around me was in terms of those I could count on to cover my back and those I needed to cover. I know the military distorts, dissects and oversimplifies everything about the human condition into black or white issues of extreme contrasts when everything about mankind is in the gray scale between. I would have counted Steve among those that would have covered nmy back. There was nothing fake about him. He was always exactly what he was: the real deal.

So maybe I will work on something about Edgar ne Steve. At this point I do not see it as a novel but maybe a novella or at least a short story. I can write short stories now. I have given myself the permission.

I would like to get one of the shorter things published in a magazine to legitimize my efforts. Whether a magazine has the insight or vision to print something from a virually unknown, obscure writer does not matter to me. I write and that is what I do. It might be a birth defect. I don't know why but it is part of who I am not just what I do. I will write until the day that I can write no more which will most likely be the day that I wake up and realize that I died at some point and forgot to notice. I write to help, assist, inspire, entertain, and participate in the overall human experience.

Having prefaced this last remark with all that has preceeded it I have to tell you that the war is over. I have declared a general truce with the forces that have always opposed me in all of my efforts and in exchange those forces have granted me a special amnesty. If I just lost anyone there, well you will have to read a good bit of the way into the first series to know what is really going on.

What I want to get acorss is that above anything else, I want the books to succeed. Even if I have to make deals that I might otherwise reject. What I have created has taken on a life that is largely beyond my control really. It is now important beyond me or even the contribution to literature. What is in the books is important to everyone that will read them in the future. Even if I die before they books are ever well received, I need for them to be available to others to read.

Trust me that it all will make sense. It is about a basic as I can get as to why I even bother to write night after night.

E

posted by Unknown @ 9:52 PM