Inching towards a novel

[pjthompson]

I am moving forward on the WIP, but some days it's just not there, or I only get a little bit done. I don't feel stuck, exactly, but it's definitely inching along. Rather than waste my precious writing time on the days when the WIP isn't moving, I've been working on other things. Stories. Older novels. Novels-coming-up-next.

*sigh* This book has really blown my novel-a-year pace out of the water. Maybe I'll get back to that pace some day because the imagination certainly hasn't deserted me.

One thing that's been tickling my mind is an old novel, my second, Blood Geek. Not the novel so much as the world I created for it: a small, very strange carnival traveling through the Midwest in 1938. Sound familiar? When people started telling me about the HBO show, Carnivale, I despaired and was glad I wasn't trying to market my carny novel. Subsequently, I've learned that while the outer trappings of that show are the same, my novel is very different.

Besides, what's tickling me these days is not really the old novel but a character who played a minor role in it. Those who read the novel expressed a lot of interest in her and I've always thought she deserved her own story. I guess I must be seriously considering it because I just went online and ordered volumes one to three of A Pictorial History of the American Carnival by Joe McKennon. There are a number of books on carnivals now, but back in the day when I was doing research for Blood Geek (1992ish), there was not a lot to be found. Tons of stuff on the history of circuses, but carnivals are very different fish. Although they've featured prominently in fiction and movies, there wasn't a lot of hard facts to be had, or it was in rare book collections and hard to get access to (for someone with no travel budget like me). McKennon's book was a lifesaver when I found it at a local library. The used book trade online wasn't really up and running at that time, so I still had to depend on the UC system library catalogue (online/offline) and etc.

And what about Blood Geek? I did try to market it back in the day, but I probably won't be marketing it again. It's the closest thing I've written to a paranormal romance, but it's not really a true paranormal romance. Loads o' sex, sure, but there are some very dark elements—and it is an early novel, after all. I haven't reread it in years, and shudder to think what I might find there, but there are characters in it who really think they deserve books of their own and who might be rather interesting protagonists. Maybe they'll get a novel of their own—one of these days, if I can ever finish the current WIP.

Comments

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about the book a year pace. That's just an artificial qualifier, after all. It's no use writing them quickly if that means they're not as good. ;-P

Is this character a relative of Ramona? Wouldn't surprise me if so...

[pjthompson]

Yeah, I guess I've left behind the whole book a year thing.

Is this character a relative of Ramona? Wouldn't surprise me if so...

In a manner of speaking...It's Paul Goss. :-)

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

Interesting...

[pjthompson]

The story has farcical elements to it at this point, but I'm letting it lead me where it wants to go.