This evening I was listening to the radio. I usually listen to NPR in the car. On the program was an interview with a famous director. OK, I pay no attention to celebrities, I can't tell you what his name is, but he is best known for a highly regarded film called Train Spotting.
What he said hit me right where I live. Ten years after the film was released he decided to do a sequel. A screen play was written and they began preliminary work on the film. They couldn't make it work. He said that it took him a while, but he finally realized that the reason it didn't work was the characters. These were powerful characters, beloved by the fans of the original movie. The sequel that failed in production didn't work because he had no good reason to revisit them.
While I had removed Pattern Opus a few days ago it struck a chord. My stories are OK, you like them. I try to make them original and steer clear of the tropes most commonly seen on SOL. But my characters are what you truly love. You have a lot invested in Tony, Rebecca, Cheri, Tina, Anita, and their friends. I get it, I put a lot into them as well.
But we don't, as yet, have a good reason to revisit them. I told Mr. Spock some time ago that I felt I was forcing a story out of them. I was creating unnatural events surrounding them and forcing them out of character. Yes I wrote some very good scenes, but in the end I was linking those scenes together into something artificial to the characters.
So I have put it behind me. I regret it, but it needs to be done.
Am I still writing? Yes. I have many projects in many different phases. The latest is kind of a sci-fi, coming-of-age, post-apoc, Peter Pan kind of thing involving an aborted attempt to colonize a planet surrounding 61Vir.
Ambitious enough?
While I'm not sure of the character limit of SOL blog posts I will try to offer you, over the next weeks a bit of a booby prize. I'll post a few of the best scenes from the unfinished Chaos book for your perusal.
Ezzy