Wrap Up and Reset
2022 was supposed to be the year everything moved into place and things were going to change. It’s true that everything moved and change was initiated, it just didn’t go the way I thought it would. But that’s okay. In the end, I’m as happy (and maybe happier) than I would have been if my predictions had come true. The added bonus is that from this vantage, I can enjoy everything a lot more than I might have otherwise. The world turns, mysteries still abide.
Writing was committed.
(And hey, there’s some discussion of GLASS ONION down below so when you see that pop up again, there are potential spoilers. You can’t claim you weren’t warned. It’s not my fault if you’re skimming…)
Hi, I’m Jason and I write stories for you to enjoy if you choose to seek them out.
Through Light and Laughter FlowORGAN OF RECORDIn July I finished a draft of one novella and thought I would dive right into fixing up the other one I had in my hard drive. With some disappointments both personal and professional affecting me more deeply than I had thought at first, I fell into a funk that I didn’t come out of until September. (And that’s the end of the recap, promise.)
But in September I attacked the remaining manuscript and did a bunch of work in revising it. Draft after draft after draft, I was still in love with the story I was creating in THE ENVOY and now, having completed five distinct drafts, I’m still in love with it. I’ve read it a dozen times at least and each draft improved it measurably until its current state of readiness for beta readers. I’m not nervous about sending it out (I’ve been sending a short story out regularly all year without any bites, so I’m even more hardened to rejection) and I know my beta readers are a little anxious to get a look at what I’ve been working on.
Here’s a tentative pitch, which is the part I struggle to write the most:
A secretive military order goes public in their bid to take over the galactic Empire of Futusin Sah to enrich and empower themselves. The entrenched government wants to maintain the status quo. As the struggle spills into public, Walt’s life and family are in danger. A once powerful envoy trusted by the hereditary ruler of the Empire until his exile, he’s ready with a third option.
Political intrigue and family drama collide in this slam-bang space opera spanning worlds, cultures, and events at once familiar and strange. Can the envoy save anyone?
This is a first blush, or the first blush I’m willing to share, and it’s sure to change but you saw this here before anyone else. It’s running around 43,000 words and will hopefully be out in the first quarter of 2023. I’ll be sure to let you know.
But that wasn’t all I’ve been working on. I’ve got half a dozen short stories almost or completely done and I’ll be figuring out what to do with those in the new year, too. Then there’s the other novella that’s close to ready but needs some love. It will drop before the middle of next year, too. And I’ve begun outlining another solo novella that will continue the story of THE ENVOY from another perspective and I promise that makes sense because there are two more in that series. Stay tuned on that front.
As writing goes, 2023 will be a productive year and will include projects that may never see the light of day but which will inform the writing that does get out into the wild.
Which is the point of writing. The more you do it, the better you get and it’s not easy to begin with. I haven’t reached the heights I thought were my sure destiny 10 or 15 years ago but that hasn’t discouraged me.
There’s a fire in me stoked by completing a story, a novella, a novel, a script. I want that fire burning hot and I work hard to make sure it’s got the necessary fuel. When the flames flicker and gutter nearly to extinction, that’s a low point like it was this past summer. If I let that happen, if I stop trying to create, I’ll wither.
Maybe you need to hear this as much as I need to keep saying it to myself, but don’t give up on your creative output. It’s easy to say and fucking difficult to follow through, (for me at least) but each time I think I want to stop I find I can’t. I’m not ready to give up and I’ve been trying to do something positive and creative for over 30 years with varying degrees of success.
I can’t stop. I won’t. I need to keep going.
Don’t Underestimate Our ResolveI only read 13 books this year, not counting comics and graphic novels, but that’s easily more than I read in the previous two or three years. My favorite book was NOOR by Nnedi Okorafor who I think is an author that every science fiction fan should venerate alongside all the Grandmasters of the genre and I loved NOOR because I’d read her REMOTE CONTROL right before it and I am enamored of all the stories of hers I’ve read.
Okorafor is a fascinating thinker, too, and between her and Haruki Murakami (his FIRST PERSON SINGULAR hit me hard when I read it this year) I’ve got new heroes to learn from (also including N.K. Jemisin whose latest book is in my to read pile.) Move over Vonnegut, Bradbury, and Heinlein.
And my wife and I finally made it back to a movie theater to see GLASS ONION for the week it was released. We re-watched on Netflix the other day and we found it, both times, to be as much fun as KNIVES OUT was though in different ways.
I tend to not actually review things here, only say I like them and give a brief explanation of why. (I try very hard not to talk about things I don’t like but AI art may eventually make it into a blog in the future. Sorry.) But there’s a thing in GLASS ONION I want to mention.
There have been a couple of articles I’ve seen that seem to write off the character of Derol as just a chance for the actor and director to work together again. This actor, Noah Sagen, played the enthusiastic Trooper Wagner (no first name mentioned) in KNIVES OUT. In his first scene there’s a big deal made out of the fact that no one should pay attention to him and Edward Norton’s character plays him off by saying that Derol is “going through some things” and staying on the island but isn’t to be taken as being part of the events of the movie.
This raises some questions for me. It’s classic misdirection and when you note the opening date (May 13, 2020) the story takes place in the midst of the pandemic. Now who knows how far apart KO and GO are in their universe, but there’s no date assigned to KNIVES OUT. That seems like a clue and misdirection is another clue. And each time Derol pops up, it’s to remind us that he’s there more than anything else.
So here’s the thing: KNIVES takes place before ONION so it’s not that much of a stretch for Rian Johnson to be building a story out of three movies (which he was denied the chance to do in the Star Wars universe, a complicated and typical adventure, all things considered) by taking a character like Trooper Wagner (no first name given) through the pandemic the same way we traversed it. Wagner is, after all, the fanboy of KNIVES and a kind of Greek chorus for the audience.
I believe that Trooper Wagner IS Derol and we will find out what’s going on with him in the third Knives Out Mystery, whenever that drops. The kicker is that Derol is there watching everything blow up with Benoit Blanc at the end, before Blanc asks his final question of Helen, who ran into Derol when she was creeping through the house earlier.
There are just too many clues for it to be two friends continuing to work together. I’ll be happy to be wrong about this, but I don’t think I am. Unless this somehow gets to Rian Johnson and I’ve spoiled the fun. I hope not. I don’t know what’s happening with Trooper Wagner/Derol. I only know that I want to know.
At CapacityThis missive has gone on long enough. I leave you with the thought that I hope you have a happy holiday season, that you are warm and fed and loved and have a good piece of entertainment to distract you. I’ll be back in the new year with more about my writing and what I’ve liked.
Thanks for being here and reading along. I love you for that. I’ll see you when I see you.
