Research

This week I've written little but have been doing a ton of background reading, largely on the 60s, for my novel -- and loving every minute of it because almost every page suggests some nuance or refinement of my protagonist and of my themes. This clearly is the hardest book I've tried to write but it has a kind of recklessness that was common in my early writing but which I abandoned as I became more skilled and, to an extent, safer from a narrative perspective. This is wild and chaotic this early but even polished, if I figure out how to put all the pieces together, it will be layered the way my play The Half-Life Conspiracy is layered.

What it needs, and what its key is, is the same mad energy of the play, which isn't there yet. I haven't quite found the voice, though I'm getting parts of a wild structure in place. This needs to be one of those hugely complex assemblies that comes off as simplicity itself, as if it were done by a three year old. The gold is in the layers. If I do it right.

Well, I'm having a hell of a lot of fun trying, this early on. Best, best by far, I keep falling more and more in love with my protagonist, even though I suspect I may have to kill him off at the end. I have a wild notion of how to do that.