The Times of Clouds and Sun...a few thoughts on writing

I have been working on a novel called The Times of Clouds and Sun, which I started November of 2018 as a “50 thousand words in 30 days” National Novel Writing Project novel.

And now it is February and I’m chest deep in this thing. And I just had some thoughts I wanted to spill out.

My story is about a man who works in a troll factory at some unspecified time in the future, where the internet has undergone a transformation where millions of people have been kicked off and objectionable people have been scrubbed from the record…

My hero works in an American troll factory modeled after the Russian version. This is a job he got 7 years ago after his superior (but not winning) performance in a “Twitter contest,” (something I made up but maybe could be real somewhere….) and he falls in love with a woman who just started working there. He is enormously shy in real life and will take some time to get to know her, which becomes mighty incompatible with his goal of taking a generous buyout from his company, who is looking to go younger and fresher…

I read it over the first time and was pleasantly surprised that the whole thing was at least mildly coherent.

Then there was the second time, where I made some red marks and notes for things that I need to change.

Now the third time through it, I am dissecting plot holes and trying to smooth over huge issues like…when does X happen and when does Y occur? And then there are those central facts about the logic of the story that need to be smoothed over and made consistent like…in the first draft, there is no social media anymore…so WHAT DOES HE TROLL???

Then there are back stories that need to be told. And whole sections that could be so much better if I just work on them…

The whole story had undergone several revisions and there are so many more to come. The whole thing was helped by my reading of a book about trolling on the internet and the battles that are waged every day. The book made me realize that while I was on the right track during my silly frenzied first draft, I was only scratching the surface. There’s still so much to do. (The book is called Like War by Emerson T. Brooking and P. W. Singer, and I highly recommend it).

But in the end, I believe in this one. And I don’t care how long it takes. I look at every problem with the novel as a welcome challenge. One day, The Times of Clouds and Sun will hit a shelf, somewhere. Maybe you’ll see it.

Pain Center: the Novel was my last book and you can check it out relatively pain free with this link.
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...