Sunborn

As I said in the previous post, I’m debating whether to change the title of the book I have been writing all these many years as Sunborn. The main reason is that another SF novel was published in the last year or so called The Sunborn. Now, you can’t copyright titles, so that’s not the issue. Causing confusion among readers and booksellers, however, might be an issue.

I’ve always liked the title Sunborn, and it’s one of those rare cases where I actually thought of a title I liked right off the bat as I sketched out the idea for the story, so that makes me reluctant to let go of it, also. On the other hand…there is that confusion thing.

So I’m thinking of calling it Starborn instead.

(The story is set in the star nursery of the Orion Nebula, where stars–suns–are born. And where there is trouble in Star River City.)

If you folks out there in blogland would like to be my focus group and weigh in with your opinions, I’d be glad to hear them.

I’m currently squirreled away at a bed & breakfast on Cape Cod, taking a 3-day writing retreat to really concentrate on the last 120 pages of the rewrite of Chaos Chronicles #4, which I have been calling Sunborn all along (though that might change). My wife fixed this up for me back in August, as my birthday present. (Good wife!) I’m sitting in front of a fire with my laptop, trying to figure out the remaining thorny questions in the storyline/plot/background of the book.

Just taking a few minutes to post this update. However, I’m also going to take this opportunity to say Happy Birthday to my friend Victoria, member of my writing group for significantly more than 20 years! (Slug that I am, I forgot to say this on her birthday, so I am trying to make amends by shouting it to the world.) Happy Belated Birthday, Victoria!

This is about the longest I’ve gone without a post. Yikes! But yes, I really have been focusing on the rewrite of Chaos Book 4, and the rapidly approaching deadline. So it’s going to be like this for a while, I’m afraid. I’ll touch base when I can.

Here are a few highlights of what I wanted to write about, but didn’t have time:

Xena is now Eris, and Pluto is now a dwarf planet. Well, nuts. Still, Eris as goddess of chaos and discord isn’t bad. Sort of describes the current state of astronomy. And the world.

Another family brag: my sister Nancy Lorey and her video production partner Matt Star received three Telly Awards for videos they produced at their I-Conn Video Productions firm in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. There were over 13,000 entries for the award, which recognizes excellence in local, regional, cable, and nonbroadcast video. Way to go, Nancy!

On the national political front…oh, just new legislation abolishing habeas corpus for political and war prisoners, and legitimizing torture any time the prez decides to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions…nothing major (except—doh!—this is not what America is about, guys). Oh yeah, and Senator McCain (for whom I once held some respect) selling out completely to the radical right. Don’t get me started. But do read this New York Times editorial on the subject. Or this from InformationLiberation, which is a little more out there on the edge, but probably not too inaccurate.

On the local front, I am now co-teaching an SF writing workshop in Cambridge, Mass., along with Craig Shaw Gardner, at the Pandemonium bookstore. Depending on how it goes, this may become a regular event.

Also, I’ll be signing books at Pandemonium Books, on Saturday, October 7, from 7–9 in the evening. Stop by, if you’re in the Cambridge area! Craig and two other authors will be signing at the same time.

And now…back to the Chaos!

Ah. Yes. People have been emailing me for years, asking when the devil the fourth Chaos book is going to be out. Not to mention, my editor and publisher, who have been patiently checking in from time to time, hardly ever mentioning the fact that my deadline is so far in the past it’s nearly red-shifted out of sight. (Thanks, Jim. Thanks, Tom.) Guilt, guilt.

Well, it’s not because I meant to take so long, or haven’t been trying. The first thing that happened was that I had another book to do under a prior contract, which was going to take me a year or two to write—and then I’d get right back to the Chaos series. As it happened, that book was way harder to write than I ever imagined, and longer, and it took nearly five years to get finished. (That was Eternity’s End, and I’m happy to say that it’s met with a good response, and earned me my first and only Nebula Award nomination.) By the time I came back to the Chaos universe, the trail felt a little cold. I had to reread the first three books myself. (I’m rereading them again now, to keep the story clear in my head. You forget things, after a while.)

Basically, three things happened at once, as I worked on Sunborn:

1. I undertook a book that was way, way harder to write than I thought when I outlined it. (Lots of really cosmic stuff, sentient stars and so on, but at the same time a deeply personal story, always told on a human scale.)
2. My life as a parent was becoming increasingly full, with lots of activities and competing needs filling the days; and, as well, a need to do consulting work as a writer/editor to help pay the bills. (This is a good place to acknowledge the debt that I, and you my readers, too, owe my wife for bringing in a steady income through her work. Thanks, kiddo. I appreciate it.)
3. Doing all this other work made it really hard to keep the novel centered in my mind, so that even when I had time to work on it, I couldn’t concentrate.
4. I’ve been wandering in something of a creative desert for the last few years, trying to find the inspiration to turn this into the book I envisioned (and promised you, my readers) years ago.
5. Like many of my writer friends, I was trying hard not to feel depressed about the state of my career, the state of the marketplace, the shrinking sales of our books compared to the way they sold 15 or 20 years ago, the loss of readers to competing forms of entertainment (movies, TV, mega-bestsellers, the internet, blogs [oops]). One always tries to appear upbeat in public, but it wasn’t always convincing on the inside.
6. I began to lose my ability to count.

Somehow, though, I kept at it. The constant support and cajoling of my writing group was invaluable—as was other forms of support, from people who cared enough about my ability to keep writing to help in significant ways. And always at the back of it all, the feeling that God had given me a certain gift for writing, and I wanted to make good on that gift. (Plus, all those promises I’d made to you my readers over the years.)

And so, here I am at an important milestone in this project. As I said in the last post, I have a lot still to do. Probably two more complete drafts, anyway. But it should go faster now, and with much greater feeling of hope.

I’ll keep you posted on what’s happening.

But for now, I’m feeling pretty good.

Yes. At last. I have typed the ending words of the fourth book of The Chaos Chronicles! And they are:

“To be continued…”

Which isn’t a joke, of course, if you’ve been following the Chaos series. My faithful readers have been waiting a lonnnnng time for this fourth book in the series, the fourth of a planned six total. (I was shocked myself to look back at the header in the early chapters: I started this thing in the fall of the year 2000. Oy.)

Note the title of this entry, though. First draft finished. I’ve got a lot of rewriting to do. A lot of rewriting. It all came together and made sense (I think) in the end. But a lot of the 706 manuscript pages of this book are…well, I’ll be polite because this is a family publication…a godawful mess. But that’s okay. Really. Because getting that first draft down is the crucial thing. I can always work with it and straighten out the things that are wrong, once I have it down on paper (or phosphors, or LCD pixels) to look at. It’ll take me a while, and it’ll hurt, but I know I can do it.

Yes! Gimme a high-five, please!