There's an old saying -- "It's not finished until it's finished." Which, in the case of my stories, tends to be never...because considering how I've been working on The Vanishing of Owen Taylor since forever, it's like I'm out to prove how true that is.
I've already torn the first chapter apart, mainly due to the fact that it's too detailed and very confusing. Jake's trying to explain what happened in Rape in Holding Cell 6 as background, and even though I wrote it, it was getting me lost. So out it went, for use later. Maybe. We'll see how it fits in somewhere else, now.
That is one good aspect of taking time away from the story -- I can look at it with a clearer eye and see how overwritten it was becoming. That's not Jake's voice. He doesn't load his sentences with soft works and filagree. He talks plain and direct and honest. He keeps secrets...hell, who doesn't? But only because they're no one's business but his own. No pity for Jake; he doesn't have time for it.
This recent head-butting is finally proving to be productive. I could see where I was slipping into Tone's voice instead of his, at times. Gotta be careful about that.
And yet, I understand why a lot of the extraneous stuff happens in the book -- Jake's building a family. A gay family of people who will support him and care for him and work with him, in the face of society's hypocrisy and hate.
And don't tell me things are getting better for gay men and women in the US. Compared to the evil that used to be aimed at us, maybe things aren't quite as bad in some parts of the country. And it's true that people's attitudes are changing dramatically about us. But there are still far too many people out there perfectly willing to have us killed or thrown in jail and forced back to being second-class citizens, and far too many people who will say nothing in response to the attacks.
Too bad so many of them are Democratic leaders.
That is one good aspect of taking time away from the story -- I can look at it with a clearer eye and see how overwritten it was becoming. That's not Jake's voice. He doesn't load his sentences with soft works and filagree. He talks plain and direct and honest. He keeps secrets...hell, who doesn't? But only because they're no one's business but his own. No pity for Jake; he doesn't have time for it.
This recent head-butting is finally proving to be productive. I could see where I was slipping into Tone's voice instead of his, at times. Gotta be careful about that.
And yet, I understand why a lot of the extraneous stuff happens in the book -- Jake's building a family. A gay family of people who will support him and care for him and work with him, in the face of society's hypocrisy and hate.
And don't tell me things are getting better for gay men and women in the US. Compared to the evil that used to be aimed at us, maybe things aren't quite as bad in some parts of the country. And it's true that people's attitudes are changing dramatically about us. But there are still far too many people out there perfectly willing to have us killed or thrown in jail and forced back to being second-class citizens, and far too many people who will say nothing in response to the attacks.
Too bad so many of them are Democratic leaders.
2 comments:
Take your time. It will be worth the wait.
God, I hope so. Who knew writing a simple mystery story would turn into such an event?
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