A bigger hammer

Writing Escape! is kicking my ass big time. A few pages more is debilitating, each and every one of them. If I get three a day, it's a big deal, breaking down in tears when I nail it. Endless revisions for grammar, elegance, surprise, humor (probably too much of that) and sex scenes that make sense and teach people how it's supposed to be, when you're so unimaginative and simple that it becomes beautiful. That's the human condition in a nutshell among the folks who do highly skilled professional work —except Red, of course, a public menace, tall, strong, and buxom. I should be ashamed of Red.

 

I don't think shame matters any more. In any case, the story is so gigantic that I will be happy to see it finished someday in the distant future. I'll need a bigger hammer to do that. Pull out all the stops, glad to go forward, willing to swing hard, bounce it to pdf, see a clinker and thread the needle more closely. Rand was decidedly unhelpful. "A theme is the summation of the novel's abstract meaning. The theme of a novel defines its purpose." (The Romantic Manifesto)

 

I'm all alone, 300 years in the future, in a space colony far from Earth, orbiting the Sun in a big frisbee with characters I like and respect. A little conspiracy to wonder about, a murder or two, intersecting a love affair that went too far too fast, which happens if the chemistry is ideal. Temptation everywhere. The physical reality of space, deadly meteor showers, and collision course with an asteroid big enough to crush the colony and kill everyone.

 

Unfortunately, adventures aren't shit in terms of fine literature. Adolescent action adventure was appropriate for Chris and Peachy, because my theme for them was "the emotional life of a warrior." Close enough for government work, and I wouldn't change a diphthong. But the theme of Escape! is kicking my ass. I used Prager as a devil's advocate, an evil to defeat. "The heart is deceitful, not to be trusted," he says with a satanic grin, happy to destroy love.

 

Be that as it may, the grim truth is that pages do not write themselves. Sometimes it's war to focus a single line, an adjective, fighting for a moment in a character's inner life with the ring of truth. If I use the same word twice in a paragraph it's a disaster. Chandler said that style determined if a story was believable. Thanks a bunch, Ray.

 

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