Volume One
Click here
to order directly
from the publisher
Book One: $23.99 US
Book Two: $24.95 US
“Book titles are trickier than they first look.
One has to think about Google.”
|
Background:
How the book was written, sort of
Selma, who inspired the feline character
|
If you think I had an outline when I started writing this book, think again.
I started writing "The Return of the Pleiadians" at the end of May 2004 and by June 10th, less than three weeks later, the first draft was done. Just like that. No outline.
That first draft was skeletal, only 30,000 words or so, but it is the story which over the next nine months would be filled out, rewritten, and revised to its current 60,000-word size.
But the 30-chapter structure, plot lines, and characters remain intact from that first draft. What you're reading now is just a filled out, polished version of that three-week burst in the spring of 2004.
The main character, Andrew, I already had on my hard drive from a little project a couple of years earlier. Click here for that story. That little exercise had been gathering dusty electrons going nowhere for some time.
A friend and colleague of mine, Ralph Hamelman, suggested a science fiction story when I told him about the discovery of the new planet Sedna and what it might mean astrologically. Click here for that summary. A light switched on inside me with his suggestion.
That was when the Andrew story got pulled off the shelf. I knew instantly Andrew would have to be the lead character in such a story. That was where the story would start.
But as for the rest of the story, I had no idea. So I simply did what I know how to do best. I just started writing, letting the story unfold by itself. I had no idea at all where this story was going as the book was being written.
Like a lot of writers I write at night, and some nights the grey of dawn would be breaking before I finally pulled myself into bed. I was compelled by the story, in fact driven by it. It exploded through me onto the computer screen in front of me.
I remember long ago as an undergraduate, an English professor intoned to us sleepy sophomores that the reasons that writers write is because they have to. Correct! Not knowing where the story was going was what was driving me to write. I wanted to see how this thing ended!
I knew I wasn't creating this yarn, it was just blasting through me from some other place, and I've been around the block enough times to know that other place is metaphysical.
Interestingly I knew from the outset this is going to be a multi-volume set of books. Don't ask me where that came from, except it came from the same place the rest of the story came from. Right now, there's no set number of volumes, which is equally interesting.
Still, it doesn't take a lot of thought to see it will take a few volumes to get through all the numerous and complex cross-currents and characters at play here.
While a few characters came from the earlier Andrew story, most of the characters just popped up out of nowhere as the writing took place. And away those characters went. Rathouse, Sonja, Cleomedeos, General Rammet, Zelda, to name a few.
My main job was to get out of the way and just let them do what it was they were doing, but to accurately observe and record it.
My training as journalist kicked in. Yes, I was once a reporter, and a damn good one if I say so myself (and I do), although my career at The Canadian Press was by my own choice brief. Still, I learned how to accurately observe but not participate in the affairs of the world.
Detachment also turns out to be a good skill for a writer of fiction pulling events out of the metaphysical planes. Observe but do not participate. Okay, philosophically observers are part of the process, particularly at the quantum level, but I'm not going to split hairs like that here. I've got some books to write.
Another set of skills came from the Second City acting troupe here in Toronto. I actually made it halfway through their courses in improvisational comedy. By then I had the good sense to move on. An actor I am not. Trust me on that one.
But they taught me invaluable lessons about how to dive into a scene full of fun fictional characters and just let the scene unfold however and where ever it happens to lead.
That turns out to be a valuable skill transferrable to the world of writing fiction, particularly when I realized I would have to be introducing several comedy elements into the story to offset the bleak world the characters live in.
The Second City dictum of "whatever presents itself, just go with it" guided me in my writing, and for the most part, I just let the story unfold in its own directions, trying ever so hard to avoid what I consider to be the fatal trap of fiction writers, playing God.
You see, I'm well aware that I'm not particularly good at being God. (I'm not a Leo. I'm a Virgo.) Long experience has taught me to leave the job of God to Someone or Something far more qualified than myself.
However, mea culpa, I must admit that I succumbed to the temptation once in the book to play God. That was when I wrote up the disastrous ambush on Tompkins Road. Initially the R-Street gang was created just for the purpose of being blown out of the water. I had no idea where this was going to take the book. I was just playing God.
For those of you interested in watching an author play God, here's how it went. First create some characters, in this case the R-Street gang. Now set them up. Okay, you characters, you've just made what you think is this very cool plan with your barricade.
Now play God. Mess up the situation. Make sure everything goes terribly wrong. (We're playing an Old Testament vindictive God here, in case you haven't figured this one out.) Okay, you characters, things are now a mess. What are you going to do, now that you've blown it, and blown it very badly?
The characters will be working on the answer to that question well into Book Two and even later. Things really did get messed up royally.
In retrospect, I'm glad I did that. It created a great little subplot. Wouldn't have had Rathouse as a character, or the gang for that matter, and Rathouse is a great character. So are some of the other gang members. You'll be seeing lots more of Rathouse and her gang in Book Two. Promise.
Only the cat character, whose fictional name you will discover when you read the book, was drawn from real life, a cat I had many years ago.
The real-life cat, Selma, lived to the ripe old age of 15 when she peacefully passed on. Last we heard she's blissfully abiding with the Great Catnip Plant in the Sky.
In journalism, which is my writing background, the story is written first, and the title, or headline, is written as the very last step before going to press.
Did the same thing with The Return of the Pleiadians. The book didn't have a final title until three weeks before it went to press in the spring of 2005. And where did the title come from? Get ready to wince in pain, gentle reader. The title had to meet three criteria:
- Fairly represent what the book is about
- Be eye-catching
- Be Google-friendly
Yeah, book titles are trickier than they first look. One has to think about Google. If one is not thinking about the internet, forget doing books in the modern world.
FWIW, the working title for Book One was somewhere between a dog's and a pig's breakfast, at least for an initial volume in a series. And no, I'm not saying what that working title was because a niggling little voice inside me is tugging at my sleeve saying it just might be the perfect title for Book Three or Four, so you'll just have to wait, I'm sorry to say.
The book cover was a lot easier. I knew exactly who I wanted to do the cover, and he did a terrific job. Thanks again to Ralph Hamelmann who was publisher of Inq Magazine while I was the magazine's managing editor. He also teaches graphic design at a local community college and knows his stuff.
So now we move on to Book Two. Y'know what? I haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen in Book Two. Really. I plan on doing the same thing in Book Two that I did in Book One. Just start writing and see what happens.
As Book One wrapped up, I had no idea what Andrew did for a living. Still don't. So one thing I'm going to have to figure out really quick what Andrew's job is. He does have a day job, and that's about all we know in the first book.
Sonja won't be much of a problem in the second book. All we have to do is wait for her to start screaming at an employee, which she's good at, and that plot line takes off.
The Pleiadians might be a bit more complicated, because they are working with a different rule book than the humans are. It'll be fun to explore that rule book to see what they do with it.
So, I'm still the observer. Just like you.
|
Site Search:
“Now play God.
Mess up the situation.”
“Y'know what?
I haven't the faintest idea what's going to happen in Book Two. Really.”
|
|
