Anniversary Post

Anniversary Post

Good morning to everyone. Over the next few weeks, this page will pass a few milestones that require some reflection. December 27th is the first anniversary of my Substack. Thank you to all my readers! Your support and encouragement have meant the world to me. I don't want to go too much into it, but things have been challenging for me lately. Last month, I experienced a substantial life change, and this project and your support have been the only things keeping me going. Thank you.

In addition, December 31st marks ten years since I began writing this novel. When I started writing it, I had no clue that it would become the thing it has. When it emerged from the ruins of a failed screenplay project, I was in a desperate place. I needed something to give my life meaning, and writing a novel seemed to be the next step. The last ten years have been full of success and failure, confidence and despair. I have been told more than once that my novel sucks and that I should throw the thing in the trash. And yet, I continued. My perseverance resulted in a personal discovery of the pleasure of sentences, the fortunate collision of words, and a suspicion that a profound thing hides between the funny-looking symbols on the page. But I’ve been lucky. And I thank the metaphorical Mistress of Song for gifting me this flawed and beautiful music. It has transformed me from one thing into another. Who could ask for anything more?

Over the last few weeks, I have been working hard to revise my novel. I often think of it as being possessed. I will open a section intending to change one word, and an hour later, I am still working on it. Then, when I finish my revisions, I feel tired and blissful. Yes, something does possess, and that something is language. So, over the last few weeks, I have revised most sections up through Section 59 and updated the page. Long-time readers might be interested in rereading their favorite sections to see how they have been revised. I am especially pleased with my revisions to section 16, “Every Novelist Loves KFC.”  Here is a standout passage:

And Adlai?

Our Adlai had seen a holy thing.

On the top of a scritta-white building at the undying nexus of Karl Johan Gate loomed a clamshell electric sign cradling an analog clock striking a forever rhythm of chaos and design, agency and fate, nothingness and God. Adlai saw the sign and danced to the edge of ecstasy in time with the clock’s beat. Yes, just one look, and he knew. Because with a single graceful stroke, the sign had spelled out an enchanted word in five cursive, scarlet letters: F-r-e-i-a, eternally melding in Adlai's fancy the novel city and the quirky girl he had barely met into one luminous thing. Freia. Even the buildings called her name! Was this the marvelous work of Elohim or THE GREAT I AM? A miracle? A message waiting for Adlai and Adlai alone since the foundations of the world? Frei-a. A needle-prick on the Veil's sheened skin? Was it finally happening? Oh, God. Freia. Freia. Freia. The foolish pilgrim had stumbled into the holy of holies and now stood face to face with a divine thing.

Freia.

His eyes would never be the same.

Understandably, Adlai had no idea that Freya spelled her name differently from the spectral sign. And details can be such pesky things.

“Adlai, that sign is a local landmark! It’s a local chocolate company!”

After finishing my revisions for this section, I believed I had taken my prose to the next level. But then, I have been wrong before.

I hope you and your families are enjoying your holidays, whatever those holidays may be.