Sunday, February 28, 2010

O ye gods, not another book

I've been brooding about doing another book. Not a new one actually but reworking a screenplay to demonstrate what I mean by a "new form for fiction." It would be easy to do. I could include as introduction the essay I plan to write, making a package of the argument with an example of what I mean. Except for the essay, it would be grunt work -- and a tangible example of a new vertical fiction form would result. Fanatic as I'm becoming about this notion, I may do it. I could do it all over the upcoming term break quite easily. Maybe it would inspire some one. That's the only point of this exercise, to inspire a young writer to see the future in this and run with it.

I'm not committed to doing this yet but knowing how my own obsessions work, I suspect I will. I know just the screenplay to use as foundation.

LATER. Did a few pages of this experiment. It's grunt work, to be sure, but I'm not sure it's worth it. The essay definitely is worth it, and I could attach a few pages to show how it works, but to spend the time translating 100 pages this way, well, it has the ring of a fool's errand. Damn few folks probably agree with my sense of all this anyway, and if it ever happened, it would be later. In other words, if this is a real suspicion about the future of fiction, then I'm ahead of the curve.

I'd rather practice the banjo than do a fool's errand. If I were younger, I'd do this in a flash. But I don't see what the point is at my age. The essay will suffice.

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