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This is number 158 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I GET A LOT of miscellaneous garbage in my Facebook feed, supposedly determined by the algorithms that track what I like and respond to—in other words, which click-bait gets the best results. I’ve also noticed that the feed is influenced by what I do on other sites. I order shirts online from Macy’s and Facebook is suddenly filled with ads for shirts.
The same is true of searches I conduct—often in the interest of researching a story or a product for inclusion in a story. For example, I wanted to include a luxury car that a rich CEO with a private driver might have. I looked at Mercedes and that also got me to Maybach, which was a brand I’d often seen in short dramas. You guessed it: Luxury car ads and reviews in my feed, including many for Maybach.
Oh. This was all about a specific show that came into my feed once and I clicked on it because I enjoyed it. Then nearly every ad or reel was suddenly from that show. I have now seen a hundred different memes featuring the same photos of Picard and Riker, usually featuring some horrible pun. And that was what led my mental algorithm to Star Trek the Next Generation and this blog post. Aren’t you glad I’ve given you an insight into my mental algorithm.
Where was I?
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m ‘acting’ in a staged shadow cast production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We opened this weekend. The week included a technical rehearsal, two dress rehearsals, and two performances. Five nights that I was out until ten or later and then was so wound up when I got home (and sometimes hungry) that I seldom got to bed before midnight. Have I mentioned that I’m at that age when I am seldom dressed after six and in bed by nine most nights?
What is cool, though, is that my daughter is directing the production.
Yeah. That’s ‘the next generation.’
I majored in theatre both as an undergrad and graduate student. Although I was primarily a designer, technical director, and playwright, I was also called upon to direct some shows. Kismet. Anything Goes. Christ in the Concrete City. Well, not all were especially big-name shows. But watching my daughter direct and choreograph is so different than when I directed.
She has a better sense of humor than I had, without losing any of the intensity. As a choreographer, she actually knows what she’s doing, unlike my choreographing a dance in Anything Goes. (De-Lovely) It’s not just that she knows her stuff, but she’s more in tune with her actors and tech crew than I ever was.
The Next Generation.
I find myself dealing with this often in writing novels. In fact, there are even words for some of them that I thought I made up but proved to be actual terms. In my longest and highest rated serial, Living Next Door to Heaven, I published the original (Book 1) and eight sequels starting in 2014. Each picked up literally from the moment the previous one ended. Then, at the urging of a friend, I wrote a tenth volume in 2018 that ran before, after, and during the first nine, but from a completely different viewpoint. The characters in the original series were incidental to the action, told from their parents’ perspective.
The term is ‘paraquel.’ I thought I made that up, but it is actually a defined term for a story that takes place in parallel with another. Of course, I could also have called it a ‘circumquel,’ because it has events preceding and events following the main series.
The thing is, I frequently received requests to continue the story with some of the intriguing children from the original series. Oh, yes. That would be a ‘next generation’ story and really have nothing to do with Living Next Door to Heaven. The most frequently requested is that I continue the story of Brian’s daughter, Xan, the child that didn’t speak, but used sign language. When she finally spoke, people listened.
I think such a story would be at least as much work as the original series was in the first place, even if it proved to be shorter. The very thought of launching that project makes my fingers hurt.
The entire 10-volume Living Next Door to Heaven series is available together or individually as eBooks at ZBookStore or for free online reading at SOL or my own website. On SOL, it was published as three serials, the first containing five 'books' and the second containing the next four books.
This is number 157 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I WOULD LIKE, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.
Ring a bell? By the time I saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in 1979, it was already a cult classic. People went to it more to participate than to watch. Costumes, dancing (Let’s Do the Time Warp Again!), flicking lighters, putting newspapers over their heads, and shouting out lines or comebacks for lines that almost drowned out the soundtrack from the movie.
Well, years ago, live theatres building on the campy idea started doing shadow cast performances during October. Essentially, people playing the roles perform in front of the screen showing the movie. It adds a whole new level of chaos to the Rocky Horror experience. I recently saw a ‘memory’ from a friend who was in a shadow cast in Everett, Washington twenty years ago! Productions got a big boost in 2025 for the 50th anniversary of the movie’s release, and then again this year, after the sad passing of actor Tim Curry.
And this year, I’m deep in the cult, acting out the role of the criminologist/narrator with a cast that is mostly kids half my age or less. I’m having a blast.
It is so much better than pumpkin spice.
This is number 156 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
I TURNED 77 TODAY. I think that’s a lucky number, right? It’s my golden-golden birthday. 27 on the 27th plus 50. I just made that up.
I started writing in my newest journal (mentioned last week) on Thursday this week. The first entry began “Breakfast at IHOP.” Pretty mundane entry for this fancy a journal. The book itself is imposing. Large pages, narrow lines, gold leaf edges, and I’m writing about breakfast.
But that’s the way life is.
When writing a novel, I’m concerned about moving the story along, creating tension, having a hook that keeps the reader engaged. But life’s not like that. Life is lying in bed under the electric blanket as long as possible on a chilly morning, and then having breakfast. It’s realizing I forgot to put my hearing aids in this morning, so I can’t listen to my phone in the restaurant. It’s enjoying the first sip (or cup or pot) of coffee in the morning, thinking about my lines for the show, and putting gas in the truck. ($130!) Things that aren’t even related to each other by anything other than being part of my life. There’s no hook at the end of this chapter. There’s just my bed and the warmth of my electric blanket when I’ve had enough of the day.
It’s not at all depressing. It’s life. It’s realizing life is not a novel. There won’t be a world-shaking crisis to resolve in this story arc, nor an even graver crisis in the next chapter to keep the audience reading. For that matter, there is no audience—no readership to keep interested. Life simply is not a novel.
Which is one of the problems with writing a novel.
I’ve read books and have seen movies, and have even written books, that require a sequel. The problem is: to maintain interest, there needs to be something even more critical to be resolved in the sequel than there was in the original. I’m convinced the proportion of sequels that garner greater readership than the original is quite small compared to those that fall off.
I think of it this way: Book one—the hero saves the life of his one true love, and they live happily ever after. Except in book two—the hero saves the village from the destruction of the monster so they can live happily ever after. Except in book three—the nation faces a crisis that will plunge it into devastating war if the hero doesn’t rescue it so they can live happily ever after. Except in book four—the world faces a cataclysm that will end civilization as we know it unless the hero’s brilliant scientific mind can bring it back from the brink, so they live happily ever after. Except…
What comes next? A threat to the solar system? The galaxy? The universe? When do we actually get to ‘happily ever after?’
That’s life! No sequels. Whether it is happily ever after is entirely up to us. At 77 years of age, I can happily say I have already survived the worst day of my life so far. Should something happen in the future that I don’t survive… Well, I’ve already lived happily ever after. Don’t wait for the sequel. It’s already been written.
When I first conceived of Nathan Everett’s (Wayzgoose on SOL) City Limits, I’d already started the outline of Wild Woods. I knew there would be a sequel, because I couldn’t adequately explore the subject in one book.
Are we nothing more than the accumulated memories and experiences of our lives, or is there something deep inside us that makes us what we are, able to rise above those memories and experiences?
Gee Evars arrives in the city of Rosebud Falls just in time to dive into a raging river to save a drowning toddler—and to lose his memory. I thought of the two books as season one and season two of a television series possibly called The Man Without a Memory. I’m sure television execs would have come up with a better series name. Ah well. Season one: Gee’s arrival in Rosebud Falls and loss of memory. Building a life for himself based on what he perceives as right and wrong. Season two: Discovering a purpose in his memory loss that makes him the perfect counselor for damaged and abused children.
Was there a season three planned?
Not really. Not because Gee wasn’t an interesting character, but that the normal life he lived from that point on was much like the lives of most of us. His day started under his electric blanket and ended when he returned to it. I didn’t want to keep inventing bigger crises for Gee to become the hero of. He was the hero of this crisis. Now there was happily ever after.
City Limits and Wild Woods are available as eBooks from ZBookStore and in paperback from online vendors.
So, does this mean that I think of life as meaningless and uninteresting?
No. It’s just not a novel. My life is quite full. I’m joining my daughter and our family to see a production of Hamlet this afternoon. This evening, I’ll go to rehearsal for the shadow production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Red Curtain Theatre, in which I play the role of the Criminologist/Narrator. I’m eleven chapters deep in my new work in progress, My Name Is Vengeance, and am preparing another book, Code Kitty, for editing and publication.
I ordered three new shirts that arrived this week, as well as path lights to install in front of my trailer. Oh, and two new fountain pens in vintage rose and emerald green as birthday presents to myself. I’m enjoying the flow of ink from my pens as I write in my journal—even when what I write is not profound.
Life is filled with adventures. They just aren’t necessarily what novels are made of. I think sometimes we believe our lives are incredibly boring just because they aren’t filled with manufactured plots and crises. It’s not so.
It’s just that life is for living, not reading about.
This is number 155 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
That doesn’t resolve my dilemma of what to write in my new beautiful journal. As I mulled the situation over, I came to a realization: I don’t write in the journal to be profound. I write in it for the joy of writing, of feeling the paper, of seeing the ink flow from my fountain pen in multiple colors as I switch pens and load different inks.
Having a beautiful book like this to write in will give me great joy, no matter what drivel I write. Perhaps it will be what I had for breakfast and where, or the next chapter of my current WIP, My Name Is Vengeance.
It doesn’t need to be profound!
I have made a couple of concessions. I ordered new extra fine point nibs for all six of my fountain pens. The lines in this journal are closer together than I’ve used in the past, so I can’t comfortably use a medium nib to write on them. I’ve also decided to write on both the left and right pages. And finally, I’ve decided to continue with my next entry wherever on a page I happen to end the previous one instead of turning to a fresh page.
Your first thought might be, it will take forever to fill a journal like that. True. But I think of it as extending my enjoyment of writing in this beautiful book.
In coming to this conclusion, I’ve also realized how similar what I’ve gone through is to what many aspiring authors go through, whether they work with a pen and paper or with a computer and word processor. They sit around and wait for the right words to come to them instead of sitting down and writing. That is far more important than deciding the right word.
I have a motto that I live by (even though I just made it into a phrase I can repeat).
YOU CAN’T REVISE A BLANK PAGE.
A major part of the writing process is editing and revision. In my current WIP, My Name Is Vengeance, I realized the first five chapters I’d written were really too short. I’d rushed through concepts and episodes much too quickly, something I tried to remedy in Chapter six and following. Alpha reader Les even commented that the first chapter could have been darker.
I realized if I spent another six hundred words or so on it, I could make it appropriately darker, without going into graphic scenes of bloodshed. But it’s not a problem. I have content that I can revise. If I hadn’t written it, I could not revise it.
I guess this is all my way of saying, don’t wait for something important, or perfect, or brilliant, or even right to start writing. The difference between a writer and a non-writer is that a writer sits down with pen in hand (or keyboard at fingertips) and writes. If you have always wanted to be a writer, I hereby give you permission to simply sit down and write.
November is coming. Even though National Novel Writing Month is no longer an official organized event, many of us who participated still challenge ourselves to write 50,000 new words during the month of November. If that sounds like too much to you, challenge yourself to write 10,000 new words. Use a pen and paper or a keyboard and monitor. Or even dictate it into a microphone if you prefer. Use whatever means is necessary to get your creative juices flowing and write something.
Later (in December) you can revise.
Enjoy!
This is number 155 in the blog series, “My Writing Life.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community to support my writing.
That doesn’t resolve my dilemma of what to write in my new beautiful journal. As I mulled the situation over, I came to a realization: I don’t write in the journal to be profound. I write in it for the joy of writing, of feeling the paper, of seeing the ink flow from my fountain pen in multiple colors as I switch pens and load different inks.
Having a beautiful book like this to write in will give me great joy, no matter what drivel I write. Perhaps it will be what I had for breakfast and where, or the next chapter of my current WIP, My Name Is Vengeance.
It doesn’t need to be profound!
I have made a couple of concessions. I ordered new extra fine point nibs for all six of my fountain pens. The lines in this journal are closer together than I’ve used in the past, so I can’t comfortably use a medium nib to write on them. I’ve also decided to write on both the left and right pages. And finally, I’ve decided to continue with my next entry wherever on a page I happen to end the previous one instead of turning to a fresh page.
Your first thought might be, it will take forever to fill a journal like that. True. But I think of it as extending my enjoyment of writing in this beautiful book.
In coming to this conclusion, I’ve also realized how similar what I’ve gone through is to what many aspiring authors go through, whether they work with a pen and paper or with a computer and word processor. They sit around and wait for the right words to come to them instead of sitting down and writing. That is far more important than deciding the right word.
I have a motto that I live by (even though I just made it into a phrase I can repeat).
YOU CAN’T REVISE A BLANK PAGE.
A major part of the writing process is editing and revision. In my current WIP, My Name Is Vengeance, I realized the first five chapters I’d written were really too short. I’d rushed through concepts and episodes much too quickly, something I tried to remedy in Chapter six and following. Alpha reader Les even commented that the first chapter could have been darker.
I realized if I spent another six hundred words or so on it, I could make it appropriately darker, without going into graphic scenes of bloodshed. But it’s not a problem. I have content that I can revise. If I hadn’t written it, I could not revise it.
I guess this is all my way of saying, don’t wait for something important, or perfect, or brilliant, or even right to start writing. The difference between a writer and a non-writer is that a writer sits down with pen in hand (or keyboard at fingertips) and writes. If you have always wanted to be a writer, I hereby give you permission to simply sit down and write.
November is coming. Even though National Novel Writing Month is no longer an official organized event, many of us who participated still challenge ourselves to write 50,000 new words during the month of November. If that sounds like too much to you, challenge yourself to write 10,000 new words. Use a pen and paper or a keyboard and monitor. Or even dictate it into a microphone if you prefer. Use whatever means is necessary to get your creative juices flowing and write something.
Later (in December) you can revise.
Enjoy!
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