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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

NEWS FROM ROME #1

    As you may know from my Twitter feed (and if you’re not following, start before I send an angry old Russian woman to box your ears - @tonypetracci) I’ve been writing my first novel, The Trial of Marcus Aurelius, for over a year now. The first draft is finished, clocking in at roughly 143,000 words. I’ve got the story and the characters down, and now it’s time to tackle the yeoman’s work and make the book actually, you know, good. So, I thought I’d start updating you all on the book’s progress and my thoughts on my own evolution as a writer, what I’ve learned, what I still have to learn, and whatnot. But first thing’s first...

  SPOILER ALERT!!!

“Tony, you’re spoiling your novel before it’s even finished? What’s your problem?”

I’ll explain. The Trial of Marcus Aurelius is historical fiction, which means it’s a bunch of made-up stuff incorporating other stuff that really happened. But historical fiction is not a sub-genre I patronize frequently. The majority of what I’ve been exposed to has incorporated only the giant, textbook-sized events and made up the rest, usually contradicting the very nature of the characters its portraying. This, to put it mildly, frustrates me. In my opinion this signifies a disrespect for history and an inability to recognize a good story. History is brimming with fantastically rich stories that do not require a rewrite. The life of Marcus Aurelius is one of them, and I don’t intend to alter any more of it than I absolutely have to. I’ll change minor details and some of the chronology, nothing that will impact the story, but I will not rewrite history. I’ll extrapolate from it and expand upon it, not ignore or contradict it. All you have to do is read Marcus’ Wikipedia entry, and you’ll know everything that happens in the book. But that’s the plot, not the story, and if the novel works, it will work because of the story.

So... why am I writing a fictional biography of Marcus Aurelius?

A couple of years ago I was thinking about what I wanted my first novel to be. I had a few ideas and started to explore them, crafting characters, concocting plots, writing scenes, just trying to get a handle on one of those ideas and see which one took root. Eventually one of them did, a sort-of fantasy with some interesting, if not entirely original, ideas. I ended up writing a third of a draft before realizing that the story’s narrative and thematic foundation wasn’t as strong as I’d originally thought, and the ending I’d written myself into didn’t resolve anything. Maybe one day I’ll revisit it or recycle some of its elements into something else, but right now those pages are sitting in a drawer (I write longhand). 

While all this was going on, and I was writing short stories (which I will continue to do), I was listening to Mike Duncan’s The History of Rome podcast. I was already enthralled, being an enthusiast for ancient Rome, by the time Mike got to Marcus Aurelius’ reign. Mike is excellent at putting a beating human heart into the stone effigies we think of when we hear the names of the famous ancients. Inside Marcus, he put the heart of a long-suffering man forced by circumstance into a life he never wanted, but who rose to meet every challenge and fulfill his responsibility. But when we got to the end of Marcus’ reign, and he had to face the reality of his son Commodus succeeding him, Marcus’ story took a decidedly sad turn. Mike noted how, in his biography of Marcus, Frank McLynn illustrated how Marcus was faced with a stark decision regarding the issue of succession. He knew Commodus was going to be a train wreck of an emperor, but on the other hand, he couldn’t name anyone else. Commodus was his only son. If he named anyone else emperor, the parasites would come out of the woodwork once Marcus was dead and swallow Commodus with their talk of, “Who’s this usurper denying you your birthright? You’re the son of the great Marcus Aurelius! YOU should be draped in the purple!” And Commodus would go, “Yeah!” Before long... civil war. It had happened before, and it would happen again. Therefore Marcus had to name Commodus as his heir... unless he had to name someone else because Commodus wasn’t around to be his heir. So, Marcus either had to name Commodus his successor, or kill his own son. 

What must that have felt like, I thought. You dedicate your entire life to fulfilling the gravest responsibility your world can offer someone, against your own wishes, your own desires. In the end you have to make a decision that will ensure all your work was not in vain, and you can’t do it. What would’ve been running through Marcus’ mind as he lay on his deathbed, the Antonine Plague eating away his body? I started reading more about Marcus, and everything I found further convinced me that Marcus' life was a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions. I started writing, figuring out the characters and the story and the tone, everything. But I knew that, as a writer, I needed to find my own personal avenue into the story, that deep connection that makes me, as the creator, emotionally and psychologically invested in this story. Eventually I found it. What was it? None of your business. But as soon as I had it, I knew that The Trial of Marcus Aurelius was going to be my first novel.

My goal is to provide new updates every couple of weeks. I’ll probably focus on some different aspect of the work with each new update. I also have a lot of ideas about how I’m going to try to drum up interest in potential readers -- marketing ideas, that sort of thing -- and I’ll let you know about those when it comes time. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens. If nothing else, I hope these updates get you a little excited about the prospect of what the novel could be and make you more inclined to check it out once it’s done. But keep coming back here. I’ve got short stories I’ll keep posting too, and for godsake, TWITTER: @tonypetracci.

Thanks for reading, and don’t be the internet.