For being retired and having no set schedule, the week was exhausting. I'm writing this on Sunday morning while trying to decide if it's worth it to go to California for groceries or if I should just make do with what's at our little local grocery. Or if I can put it off another day or two. Probably.
I wrote 43,000 words this week. That's five chapters of Double Take and ten chapters (they're a little shorter) of Wayzgoose's Municipal Blondes. I got into rewriting Municipal Blondes a couple of weeks ago when For Blood or Money closed on my Advance Readers' site. Very few people knew that I wrote a sequel to For Blood or Money back in 2006, right after I finished FBOM. Even fewer people know there's a sequel to Municipal Blondes called Stocks and Bondage. BTW, the original title of FBOM was supposed to be Security and Exchange but people kept thinking it was a book about Microsoft email servers.
So, when I dug out the old first draft of Municipal Blondes, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was pretty damned good. My writing style has improved significantly in the past fifteen years. I think that showed in FBOM as well. But I should have finished this book and published it back in 2008 when FBOM originally came out.
Especially, now that the comments have been coming in on the end of FBOM here on SOL. And they're running about even between people who love it and people who hate it. Here's a selection of comments and email I've (Wayzgoose) received.
"What an extraordinary story! Thanks."
"Well, fuck!"
"Wow! Best ending--ever."
"AAAhhhhhhh I do hate unhappy endings. Oh well a very good story just the same."
"Magnificent story. The ending suits the tale."
"Too bad you seem to prefer unhappy endings to your stories."
"A great ending. More please."
"The ending was very disappointing. I'm not just talking about the unhappy ending, but all the loose ends. 1) The unsolved code 2) No letter to Riley explaining his decision 3) Nothing for Billie 4) Maizie will eat his dead face when he's not alive to feed her. After the Gutenberg Rubric, this story was a major disappointment. But thanks for writing."
Of course, of all the comments and email, the one I fixated on was the last one, not because it was negative but because it itemized the problems. That really spoke to me. It got me thinking about the nature of death and what it does to us. Well, it kills us, I guess. But I don't know of anyone who was truly prepared to die. No one has all the loose ends of life tied up in a neat package with every string resolved. Every time I think about this, I think of all the things I need to get put in order in my life before I go traipsing around the world next fall.
Does someone have the password for my computer? Does anyone know who to contact? Will I disappear from my story sites and leave a hole that goes unfilled like an Indiana pothole? What happens to royalties and patronage? Heck! I should clean my refrigerator!
Dag's life is not tidily wrapped up. It simply ends. It is no longer his concern. It leaves unanswered questions. It is left to those who survive to write the next chapter. One more comment I received:
"Thank you for the great story ending, it took me a bit and I had to re-read the last chapter to understand it… Any story that makes you pause and do some own self thinking about one's life choices is a good story. Your story is a great story! It made me just sit and think, as I'm dating a girl right now. Have I made my feelings toward her as known as I want them to be? So, I had a sit down and chat with her."
And the next chapter is what I wrote back in 2006, with a few updates and some improved storytelling and grammar. I plan to release it here on SOL next month, probably in parallel with Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits. In fact, I'm planning a coincidental commercial release in June.
I've been slow in responding to email and comments this week because of the amount of time I'm writing but I'll try to get answers out this week. If I miss you, my sincere apologies. Your comments, email, and votes are greatly appreciated.
Let me reaffirm to you that I write stories with happy endings. Under the name of aroslav/Devon Layne. I write serious commercial fiction under the name of Wayzgoose/Nathan Everett. If it's happy endings you want, stick with aroslav.