Alternate reality, sci-fi punk rock western
If the title isn’t jammed full of genre tags, I don’t know what is, and WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Well now, my Dear Reader, allow me to illuminate and elaborate in a long-winded, winding, and, hopefully, engaging fashion.
Around this time last summer—it might have been closer to the end of August—my partner and I were up at a cabin and I was working on some brainstorming for the 3 Day Novel contest, some of which were good, some of which weren’t, and some of which have come to life or started to come to life in some capacity. One story—Stone Overcoat—really stuck with me and ended up being the one I ran with for the writing marathon, and I’m quite happy with it; another was the seed for a novel I’m working on right now of which I’m quite proud and deserves a post of its own later on; and yet another saw itself take shape during a different writing challenge—National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo)—I participated in during the month of November, 2020.
As an aside, looking back at 2020, it was a really productive year of writing with a novel coming together, two serial stories getting ready for flight, and completing a detective novel that will see the light of day this year (I hope…); hopefully there are many more years like this one.
Anyway, the story whose seeds were planted at the cabin began to take root during Nanowrimo, which is a writing challenge that sees one try to write, I believe, 50,000 words in a month; it works out to about 2000 words a day. Let me tell you, the two style of writing challenge—sprint vs marathon— are, obviously, demanding in their own ways. In some senses, the 3 Day Novel is a marathon and a grind because it’s GO GO GO GO GO for three days straight; however, National Novel Writing Month really is the marathon because you need to show up every day and do the work. As you can see from the chart below, the work came in waves for me, with a lot of consistency at the beginning, some skidding into the dirt in the middle, and then WRITING the course (har har har har) to finish in excess of the 50,000-word mark. A heck of a challenge.
“GET TO THE POINT, HENRY!”
Okay! I hear you, Dear Reader! At the time of writing it, I was dealing with some hectic stuff in my personal life and needed a channel to get it out. I don’t know if I’ve ever sat down and said, “I need to get this off my chest and write it out,” but this time I said and this time I did it, and, thus, Saint of Whales came to life. I was thinking a lot about the realities and conditions within which we exist, and how some of them are of our own creation and the others are forced upon us, and within which we are forced. I thought a lot about dreams, perception of self, notions of self-definition, and the circumstances and occurrences that compromise or dictate how we present ourselves within the world. I also spent a lot of time thinking about the illness and sickness we see perpetuated by western modernity and capitalism and fascist political systems and structures. Lots running through the mind, as I said. With the bones in place, the next step was creating the connective tissue, filling the belly of the story with guts and organs, painting muscle and flesh over top, and then, hopefully, breathing life into it all.
I knew where I wanted to set the story—southwestern so-called Alberta—and I settled on writing an alternate reality, science fiction punk rock western. It was important to me to set the story somewhere I love. I fell in love with the land as soon as I set my foot down for the first time and it gave so much to me, and I wanted to try and give something back in my own weird way. So, by virtue of being in the plains leading up to the mountains, a western felt right to me; to have the freedom to explore the things I wanted to explore, an alternate timeline felt right to use; and I wanted laser blasters, cyborgs, and dystopian application of technology, so science fiction was the direction.
What I also discovered through writing Saint of Whales is this is a big story and I hope I am able to tell it from a good place and in a good way. I envisioned good people in an ugly world, and tried to feel my way through their experiences as best I could. Saint of Whales will be serial in nature, so please bear with me as the story shakes itself out and grows. The characters you meet, may be larger in role than we think, or they might not be; those who appear un- or under-represented may have not yet made an appearance; as I mentioned, while I was writing I realized there is a big story, an important story unfolding and I couldn’t do it justice in one novella, one book, one whatever.
“GET TO THE POINT ALREADY, HENRY!”
Okay! Okay! I’m sorry, Dear Reader!
The point is that starting this coming Wednesday, August 18th, Saint of Whales will see a chapter released on a bi-weekly schedule alternating between releases of Stone Overcoat. So, there you go! More stories! More reading! I hope you enjoy it.
