NEWS FROM ROME #2

     The last time I sent you News from Rome, I wrote that I wanted to do so on a fairly regular basis. That was on February 23, so I guess we know who the asshole is. Well, life got in the way as it often does. I wrote “Immortal Anonymous,” which is the most popular story I’ve put up here. Once it was finished and I got over feeling good about it, I got back to writing The Trial of Marcus Aurelius. Then life hit me in the face like a grapefruit from James Cagney. My grandfather got cancer, and I helped take care of him while he died. Some of you don’t particularly care about your grandparents. More’s the pity as far as I’m concerned. For those of us who do care, it hurts when they leave. But eventually the hurt started to recede, and I dove back into Marcus Aurelius. But it had been months since I put a new story up here, and I wanted to write a new one. I latched onto an idea and started plotting it out. I figured out who my protagonist was, what he wanted, and what his obstacles were. I mapped out a beginning, a middle, and an end. I had the tone, the style, and the point of view. This was going to be good.
     NOW, writers, pay attention, because this happens. I started writing and loved the first couple thousand words. Then I ran into problems that kept compounding themselves. I wrote to the point where the story unleashes its first big reveal, and our hero has to make a key choice. But approaching that point became tougher and I started caring less about what was happening. I’ve had this problem before, and I know that it means I’ve made a wrong turn in the narrative at some point. So I backtracked and found my mistake. The problem was that my buildup to that big reveal was too diffused. I wanted the story to be drum tight, so I condensed the action, cut little bits out here and there. But now the piece’s rhythm was screwed up. I fixed it by inserting one little detail that I hadn’t included in my earlier drafts. It was a huge improvement to the story and the tone, but that one bit of data now prompted a big question concerning logic: why wouldn’t our hero already know about this big reveal? Sure, I could just shoehorn in some background exposition, but I want to be a GOOD writer. I had to find a way to organically work this explanation into the couple thousand words I was happy with. But if I did this, the character’s entire motivation was shot. His whole arc would disappear, and there would be no story worth telling. 
     I was going to have to rewrite the entire first act of the story, and at that moment I didn’t know what to do with it. A setback like that can really crush your enthusiasm for a story, and I’ll be honest. That one stepped on my nuts a little. I had a choice to make. I could either slog through a story I was quickly losing perspective on, or I could shelve it. If I slogged through, the story would likely blow. If I shelved it, I ran the risk of losing all passion for it and never finishing it. That can happen. But I knew that even if I did lose the story forever, I could always recycle elements and put them into a future story as I have before and will again. So I shelved it. 
     I hate when a story beats me, but the good news was defeat prompted me jump back into Marcus Aurelius with, as the cliché goes, renewed vigor. I attacked that son of a bitch like it was Lynn Swann and I was George Atkinson. I tightened up the story, came up with some nifty little devices that advance the story and illuminate character simultaneously (you’re gold when you can do that), and deepened some of the secondary characters, who I think should be as rich as the leads in their limited way. The other good news was I ended up starting a new short story. It’s an idea I’ve had percolating for a while, and I finally figured out how I wanted to write. I just wrote half of it, and it’s growing into quite the little badass. We got the post-apocalyptic thing going on, Western conventions, zombies, sadistic pricks, desperation, and a female anti-hero who will fuck shit up like Adrianople. I should start posting the short story in early November, and with any luck The Trial of Marcus Aurelius will be finished by the new year.
     So that’s this News from Rome. Thanks, everyone, for your patience, and I’ll try not to keep quiet for so long. ‘Til next time, “An easy existence, untroubled by the attacks of Fortune, is a Dead Sea.” – Demetrius the Cynic