Rough night, but happy news. I got several hundred words so far into the new scifi novel draft of Cinderellavator. The first draft of anything is always exciting, and I’m glad I can share this news today.
Cinderellavator isn’t just a new novel, it’s the next step in my storycraft. With this project I used a character bible, story maps AND story cards. They help me build the overall structure of the narrative before I write the first word. Some of that work still needs to be done but it’s time to start. Like coding programs, you figure out enough of the design and then you let the design and work happen in parallel. This will help me end up with a better answer than I’d ever find on my own.
Meanwhile, had some interesting discussions over on Imgur about the 20th Anniversary of 9/11. I don’t have a 9/11 story to tell, but like everyone else it’s a pain on my heart and watching the old footage just brings it back. One tremendous missed opportunity from 9/11 was the answer to the question: “What does OK look like, and how do we get there?” Civilization never graduated from the hysterical ‘safety-at-any-cost’ mindset that allowed the powerful to harm the powerless and manipulate the ignorant.
What’s it like to write a novel where your protagonist is nothing like you? Stay tuned, I’ll have some thoughts about that later.