Novel Three - Preproduction

So, today I'm just lazing around and not doing much of anything and, wham, it hits me. It being a stray bolt of inspiration sleeting through the universe that in defiance of all probability happens to slam into one of the neurons in my fevered little brain and causes me to think. This particularly nasty little idea was for yet another book to write. And, well, it's one I've been building up to for a while – if you take a stroll through the archives you'll see the echoes of it bouncing backwards along my lightcone. But everything went on hold until I could hack out an outline for it and a few thousand words of scene-establishing prose.

This novel is big, by the way. Mammoth in scale and gargantuan in undertaking. But I think I've got the approach down. You see, way back when I still took writing classes I knew a writer who focused on writing from a child's perspective. Didn't matter what the assignment was some how, some way, she'd figure out a way of getting a child in there. It got to the point where she was subjected to my peculiar brand of genteel mocking about it. And it got beyond then to the point where I actually asked her why she did it. And she told me that writing a child, a realistic, believable child, was the hardest thing she could find to write. And that it was so important she had to challenge herself because, eventually, she'd get it right. I laughed, of course, and told her that she should stop with the kid's stuff and write about the serious stuff that actually mattered.

Then, just for kicks, I went and tried it myself

And damned if she wasn't right.

Anyhow, the stories not going to be told from the perspective of a child but multiple children – in one way or another. I'm still working on the settings and the details but it's going to be a fantastic, sci-fi, space-opera that will be grounded thanks to the focus on characterization. It'll show – from childhood on up – how the wheel of history rolls over the lives of a select group of individuals and society at large. This is what I've been trying to write lately – smaller stories, more self-contained stories, less complicated stories – so, of course, my most ambitious story to date pops out of the woodwork. I picture writing each main character's story in isolation then splicing them together to create a complete work. So it's going to be a series of interlocking novellas and vignettes. Here, just look at my hollywood pitch:

Working Title: Crux. Bound together by interwoven threads of fate, the destinies of five individuals are what determines the future. One's a teacher with the world's rarest genetic condition. One's a doctor who routinely creates life in the laboratory. One's a small girl out for a walk in the woods with her mother. One's a mediocre pilot looking for a chance. One has no idea she's a secret agent for the other side in an undeclared war amongst the shadows. From their formative years onwards worlds will crumble and nations will fall as forces beyond mortal control reshape not only their lives but the lives of everyone around them.

So, not even finished with the first one, haven't even started on the second – that's next month's project – and I'm already moving on to the next one which throws out the world I'm meticulously constructing. I'm beginning to understand why the holidays have the highest suicide rates.