Yesterday I believe it fair to say that I officially began Faceless, my latest novel project. I provisionally started it in January, but I found my opening page lifeless and scrapped it for the new prologue, which I find considerably more interesting. This novel is concerned with the life and times of an intriguing Japanese-American secret agent with a very special ability, and if God blesses the writing of it, it promises to be an extremely enjoyable (and perhaps in some ways slightly challenging) story to write. Right now I'm going to estimate its length at 300-350 pages, but that is about as an exact science as predicting how far the barometric pressure will fall tomorrow. (Doubtless there is someone out there who could predict that with relative accuracy, but I couldn't, and thus the analogy holds.) I've been deliberately cultivating a different tone and feel for this story, and so far I've been quite pleased with the result. I would say that I'm somewhat influenced by Cormac McCarthy, at least in some respects: for instance, gutting a lot of sentences of commas to give them a kind of spare and hard-edged force. Commas tend to soften things, I think. Periods or simply nothing harden. So far those who have heard the prologue have been confused as to what's going on, which I also consider a success, as that was my intent. :-)
On a different subject, I think it's time I sum this up on my blog, as I realized I have been giving this news out rather piecemeal. By the end of this month I shall have moved to Southern California, which will be my permanent residence until the end of August, at which time I shall drive two-thirds of the way across the country and live in Michigan for most of the year (but it is to So Cal that I shall return for breaks, though not exclusively, as I plan to revisit Oregon fairly often, to see my grandparents and keep contact with the Deckers and my very dear church). This is a general note, therefore, that after the beginning of March anyone combing the Northwest for my whereabouts is going to have a big headache and no Connor Hamilton by the end of the day. ;-) I do find it rather amusing that the county in which I'll be living is more than three-quarters the size of my home state. But California has no Columbia Gorge, no Mt. Hood, no proper winters, none of Portland's quaintness. I'm going to miss old Ore while I'm away--after all, I've never been out of the state for more than two weeks at a time for 18 years, as I can recall.
Although I have no idea where I'm going to end up after college, I do imagine I would fancy living in the Northwest again, so it's quite possible that in five or six years I'll be back where I started. We'll just have to trust God and see. :-)
Oh, I should also note that, God willing, I am now officially going to Italy this summer. :D Destinations: Rome, Pisa, Florence, Pompeii. Duration: 12 days. I'm not specifically very excited right now, oddly enough, but I imagine that as the summer draws closer that will change.
And now, I'd best go work some more on Faceless. Valete!
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10 comments:
Salve!
As one writer to another, how do you estimate the size of your books?
Nathan
Hey, Nathan. Well, as I said, it's rather inexact. For Faceless, though, I took the current length of Kiriana (411 pages, almost done) and figured that, since Faceless will also contain a lot of information, but is intentionally written in a somewhat terser way, it might end up a little shorter than Kiriana. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen, but that's how I got my estimate. :-)
Oh, and in a general sense, I guess I get a feel, more or less, for what works for my novel-wise. Right now it seems to be broadly 3-500 pages. My longest is 518 and lengths have been shortening a bit since, which is probably a good thing, at least most of the time. :P
Ah, dankes. Unfortunately, I still haven't finished even one of my three in-the-works novels. Yeah, I know: sad. *goes off to amend that by writing Agent*
Congratulations on the Italian job. ;-)
And it's interesting that Cormac McCarthy is exactly who the style made me think of as well, so I think you're succeeding in creating the proper "feel" for the story.
Go McCarthy, and go to Italy!
Sam
How many novels have you written so far, then? And when are you going to start publishing them?! I'm dying to read the Nelwinar books again--I never did finish reading the third one...
And did you ever finish the Irish one from four years ago?
Hey, Mary, good hearing from you again on here. If you count Kiriana as being finished (I'm on the last chapter) then I've completed four of what I'd consider to be genuine full-length novels. I have three others in various states of progress, and a number of what I'd probably call novellas (I'm not sure where they fall in actual word count). These were stories I wrote when I was beyond the all short story stage but before my writing had matured enough to sustain a long plot. :-)
Unfortunately the third Nelwinor story slowed, staggered, and has never since regained its feet. I set myself a virtually impossible time gap of eighteen years that I could not for the life of me find sufficient material to fill. The same thing happened to the Irish story (the staggering part, not the time gap). I did like the story, though, and I suppose it's possible that I might some time arm myself with some actual historical research and take another shot at the basic idea.
So, this is turning out rather long--sorry! Publishing-wise, I'm not sure. In an ideal world I'd like to try this summer, and I don't think it's impossible, but it's rather daunting to make the plunge. But I suppose one has to stick his nose out and just do it or I'll find myself out of a job. :-)
Hey, if you ever do tackle that Irish story again, I could reccommend some books. ;-)
Glad to hear you're still writing! :) You should come visit your Arizona friends sometime, since you'll be living closer when you're not at school! Maybe not during the summer, though...:)
Bonnie
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