Typed At 3rd And J @ 10:00PM Last Night
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real events as described in this book is, granted, highly suspicious, but for the purposes of legality, they are entirely coincidental.
That was my own version of a copyright page back in 1992 and although it seems absolutely astounding for me to type these next words, that took place fifteen years ago. Fifteen years, man. It seems hard to fathom it now, but it really, truly, happened.
Falling From Grace wasn't the first novel I shepherded through to completion, but it was the first major piece of writing I felt comfortable with once it was done. The writers on my list know this doesn't happen every time and when it does, it's a sensation to be grabbed onto with both hands and cherished, because especially when you start off on this ride, you're just trying to get through the minefield with everything still intact once you hit the other side.
It's kind of funny and at the same time very affirming to look back on the 65,000 or so words that make up this book; it's got a hell of a lot of pseudo-toughness in it, enough so that a more unforgiving critic might be tempted to label it "soap-operaish," and they would probably be very well correct to do so. The phrasing doesn't always come off right, although some might say it's something that every writer struggles with until the day they die. I think that's probably accurate, too. There's not a whole lot of plot complexity to the book; the narrative travels from Point A on to Point B, picks up steam at Point C and finally concludes at Point D. Back when I wrote this book, I was still very much entrenched in the whole "it's not how you get there, it's what you see along the way" school of thought. This nets its share of moments both good and bad, and I'd like to think Falling From Grace has more of the former than the latter... but then again, I'm biased.
There's a lot of good to the book, too... and most of it is the feeling it brings up in me when I look back on the first page and start reading about the lives of those characters. Slightly nostalgic, in some places, I'll grant you. In others I get a little smile at some of the unintended humor contained within (because nothing screams conflicted intellectual meandering like a two-page diatribe on the horrors of high school dating in the middle of a chapter about getting liquored up like the last lord of creation at age eighteen). And in a few places, I take a step back and marvel silently that at that age I was able to square away some of my thoughts so seamlessly into the narrative, disguising my soapbox as a boy-meets-girl story and actually pulling it off in places well enough that the wooden boards beneath the flowers don't show at all.
Most of all, though, I enjoy looking back in time and seeing the lurking face of that younger, more idealistic and unquestionably nicer version of myself that is captured forever between the lines of Falling From Grace. The guy who was there before he got his teeth busted down his throat, over and over again, by this crazy little thing called life. It's nice to look back on that guy and know that somewhere beneath the callouses built up over the years, he's still alive.
So with that in mind, on April 2nd, we're going to start a new serial novel. I hope you're all ready for Nightfall.
Peace.
That was my own version of a copyright page back in 1992 and although it seems absolutely astounding for me to type these next words, that took place fifteen years ago. Fifteen years, man. It seems hard to fathom it now, but it really, truly, happened.
Falling From Grace wasn't the first novel I shepherded through to completion, but it was the first major piece of writing I felt comfortable with once it was done. The writers on my list know this doesn't happen every time and when it does, it's a sensation to be grabbed onto with both hands and cherished, because especially when you start off on this ride, you're just trying to get through the minefield with everything still intact once you hit the other side.
It's kind of funny and at the same time very affirming to look back on the 65,000 or so words that make up this book; it's got a hell of a lot of pseudo-toughness in it, enough so that a more unforgiving critic might be tempted to label it "soap-operaish," and they would probably be very well correct to do so. The phrasing doesn't always come off right, although some might say it's something that every writer struggles with until the day they die. I think that's probably accurate, too. There's not a whole lot of plot complexity to the book; the narrative travels from Point A on to Point B, picks up steam at Point C and finally concludes at Point D. Back when I wrote this book, I was still very much entrenched in the whole "it's not how you get there, it's what you see along the way" school of thought. This nets its share of moments both good and bad, and I'd like to think Falling From Grace has more of the former than the latter... but then again, I'm biased.
There's a lot of good to the book, too... and most of it is the feeling it brings up in me when I look back on the first page and start reading about the lives of those characters. Slightly nostalgic, in some places, I'll grant you. In others I get a little smile at some of the unintended humor contained within (because nothing screams conflicted intellectual meandering like a two-page diatribe on the horrors of high school dating in the middle of a chapter about getting liquored up like the last lord of creation at age eighteen). And in a few places, I take a step back and marvel silently that at that age I was able to square away some of my thoughts so seamlessly into the narrative, disguising my soapbox as a boy-meets-girl story and actually pulling it off in places well enough that the wooden boards beneath the flowers don't show at all.
Most of all, though, I enjoy looking back in time and seeing the lurking face of that younger, more idealistic and unquestionably nicer version of myself that is captured forever between the lines of Falling From Grace. The guy who was there before he got his teeth busted down his throat, over and over again, by this crazy little thing called life. It's nice to look back on that guy and know that somewhere beneath the callouses built up over the years, he's still alive.
So with that in mind, on April 2nd, we're going to start a new serial novel. I hope you're all ready for Nightfall.
Peace.