My Next WoP/Passion Project

 

Everyone has some type of passion project. For me, my passion is not finishing my passion project. But I am working on it. 

We all need dreams. I've rekindled mine of sorts, been spending a few hours a day over the last two weeks trying to print out this mess of a dystopian legal thriller novel which I envisioned over a year and a half ago. I know this because, thanks to Google Docs, it keeps a version history of my works in progress. 

I think I found the original seed of this epic novel; it's from Jan 7, 2022. Over a year and a half ago. Crazy. 

It is a meeting of potential sexual assault victims to create consensus of filing a lawsuit against a dolphin and the company that manages it. A lot of the original guts is there; five victims, an official rep from the company, at the time called Playa De Blanca; it's now a global vacation conglomerate called Great Holidays. 

Two nights ago I night-dreamed of finding out the names of the agents of my top 10 favourite contemporary authors and sending off a query letter for representation. I had a good start in my head to the letter; giving two examples of roads to success, the one told to Michael J. Fox by his father when he wanted to become an actor and the one told to Kermit the Frog by Gonzo in the original Muppet Movie when he wanted to do the same thing. 

I'm basically the Great Gonzo of writing. 

It was a good letter in my head. Here's hoping I will follow up on it. But first, edit and print one more chapter, which was really the first chapter i ever wrote and is now tentatively Chapter 18 of many...

A Secret that Rocks the Literary World, if they only knew about it.

 

Wow. So many months since my last entry. That's because of all the press I am doing around my other projects is really cutting into this side project. Perhaps if I just admitted that jay royston is a pseudonym for the real me, a few more admiring fans may take an interest in this blog. 

But for them to take an interest, they'd need to bite the worm, which if you've read this far, you have. 

I believe this is called catfishing. I apologize to the real jay royston for appropriating your name and wonderful sense of humor in making this blog. I trust you like a good joke and won't sue. 

So who am I?

Here's your first hint; I have a coffee in front of me. It contains 2 spoons of sugar and some cream, maybe one, maybe two. So cross off everyone you know who drinks it black, or black with sugar. 

Still unsure?

The second hint is I have written 3 (maybe more) fan letters/email to authors of books I have read. There may be more but I don't really keep track of these things. I think if I told you who those authors were, you'd be too close to my real identity. However, I will say that one author was also a pseudoymn and wasn't an elderly wise Jeff Lebowski-type dude but more of a young Jeffrey Lebowski-type dude who wore seasonal Xmas sweaters instead of housecoats. 

I think that is enough hints for now. I shall enter my next set of clues in about 15 months time, in keeping with my current updating the blog schedule. 

Flies Non-Update

 

Well, after the "I got this" talk of Thursday night, it turned out I didn't 'got this' on Friday. 

Instead of resubmitting Flies to another possible publisher, I chose to do other things, like clean up my tool room (which had been on the list for a long time) and finish my rough editing of Karmageddon. 

It's amazing how much I want to change after leaving it alone for 2 (?) years. Does it naturally get worse or is that just me? Anyways, I finished tagging all the things I want to change and have been spending this morning (Saturday) doing that instead of, again, resubmitting Flies. 

I also went to the liquor store yesterday, to get a little something to deal with the fact I am turning 50 and was immediately drawn to this:                                                                                                                                                                                       Now for some reason I can't get Blogger to text-wrap around these pictures I'm getting frustrated and having spent 2 hours on this computer, avoiding submitting Flies, I will once again return to my state of self-loathing and find more shit to throw away, at least making my day somewhat complete.                                                                                                                             So here I am, one less day until 50 with on publishing contract. Not like there's any rush anymore. 

'Where do your ideas come from?' a short bonus feature for the next WIP

Not that anyone asked me this yet, but the question does bother me. Writing isn't easy for me. It isn't easy because I don't write generic genre stuff. I don't write about the good guy chases the bad guy in the world of global espionage nor do I write about On Golden Pond stuff where boy meets girl, boy marries girl after difficult romantic courtship. I don't think I write much about great insights to modern behavior or society.

Anyways, I digress. I wanted to remember this moment as I'm having trouble with a story and this could be part of an 'extras' feature, like they did with DVDs, some bonus content at the end of the book. Maybe this is a turning point (nah) but I guess it does help give a hint or two as to my process in writing this stuff that I question people would want to even read in the first place.

I have a man returning (under extenuating circumstances) to the town where his ex lives. People think he ran out on her, as he simply disappeared one day and never came back. They had a fight over procreating (she for, he against) and that was the last they saw of each other. 

Now, he just came out of the woods to discover the world went full-nuclear. There is no more society as we know it anymore. Nobody wants to tell him 'the news' and thinks it should be her to tell him.

That's not really a spoiler as that is pretty much the first thing he finds out so he's already adjusting to that. 

The question was, what could be so hard to hear after he's been told that the world is basically a radioactive wasteland that nobody wants to tell him?

Now, the immediate thought i think readers would have is that she is pregnant. I don't want to do that because it's completely cliche, and the man has had a vasectomy. I mean, it creates drama, it's part of the reason why he disappeared and adds in the 'well, whose kid is it then?' But then again, he's only been gone for maximum three weeks, so she really wouldn't be showing or anything yet.

So I've been racking my thoughts as to what could be so important that he has to be told personally by this woman but yet the whole town appears to already know.

It took me about three days idly returning to this question.

Then I got it today, just driving home from work. It might change but this is the best I have so far and I'm looking forward to writing the confrontation these two wind up having when he finally finds out what nobody else would tell him; she's dating someone else. It's such a paltry thing in the big picture of the Nuclear Apocalypse. I had thought perhaps maybe she got a couple of cats. But that doesn't seem worthy enough of everyone keeping that info away from the guy.

Yeah, this could work.

edit; I'm liking the idea she has a few cats better...