AUTHOR'S NOTE - The Living Document

It never previously occurred to me that like subsequent editions of the George Lucas epic, a novel could be constantly retrodicting it's narrative.


I was talking to my friend Paul Ingraham, who runs the very informative Save Yourself website about his process. Paul is a former Registered Massage Therapist who now writes about pain management (and other stuff, but mostly pain Management) and his writing practices are pretty interesting, but they are his and I'm not going to get into the minutae at his semi-proprietary expense. But I need to give credit where credit is due and it was directly through my discussions with him that I realized that a novel could be written as a living document. His site (which once upon a time began as a blog) is constantly being updated with the most up to date information and evidence in the world of pain management. And he does it non-linearly. He will go back a month, a year or ten and update an article - even completely change his stance if the evidence is compelling and revolutionary enough. Funny how when I type it out it doesn't seem anywhere near as fantastic to me as it was a revelation in the moment we discussed it.


As I have noted more prominently elsewhere, I am essentially a discovery writer. In the case of this massive work I have had a growing story developing detail in my head for years, but when it comes down to it I'm not the sort to write an outline, or do character-sketches or any of the myriad things that many authors do to map out their story before they begin. 


I simply begin. Page one, paragraph one, word one. I only know where my final destination is at the outset and that destination often changes as I go. 

CASE IN POINT: When I began this post it was going to be about a number of the mechanics of how I expect this process is going to work. But by now, it is obvious to me that it is only about the aspect of the living document.

This process works quite well for me on screenplays and other work, but when it comes to writing a narrative that could easily stretch to a quarter or even a half million words... suddenly it becomes extremely daunting.


The rewrite is any author's best tool. This is doubly the case for a discovery writer. I am very accustomed to the reality that as I forge forward I am going to come up with an idea that either needs to be seeded earlier in the narrative; or renders a previously written section moot; or that requires a significant overhaul of a previous section. Most times I save those changes for once I am done the first draft. Usually they are so bloody obvious that I can't help but remember them, but sometimes I leave myself a little reminder. As such my first drafts are often a fairly comical mess. Few people other than me ever see them.


And here's where the departure comes in...


I really just want to try to write this story and "get it out there." I'd already thought about publishing it as a blog - but knowing it was a massive tale and that I couldn't even begin fairly publishing it until I was done at least the first book of the trilogy (and possibly more) was an obvious impediment.


But then through my talks with Paul an idea arose. Why can't fiction work the same way as his website? Is there any good reason outside of some practical housekeeping applications? The short answer is "No. Of course not!"


And thus, here is how this works...


I am writing this novel linearly. From Book One, Part One, Chapter One through to Book Three, Part (probably) Three, Chapter Whoknows. But rather than doing as I normally would and not worrying about going back and re-jigging anything that needs to change due to new ideas as I normally would, for this project I am worrying. That may mean that there are parts of the book that will be rewritten multiple times.


It also makes you - the reader an accomplice in my process. How you take part in that is up to you. There will be a future author's note called something like "you are the editor" - I'll discuss how you fit in in more detail there.


At any time anyone who starts at the beginning and works through the numbered and linked chapters in sequence will always get the most up to date version of the book.


If you started reading the day of the first post (and no-one did because I decided to get at least the first full chapter up before I told anyone about it) you can either read each new posted chapter as they come and simply "suck it up" as far as the innumerable contradictions, logical flaws and other inexpicables are concerned, or you can occassionally check out my updates. As of this writing I haven't quite decided how the listing of updates is going to manifest, but be assured that I have a few options in mind. Indeed before too long this section on me not knowing how updates will be handled will be updated and will be no more.


Some updates (such as the one I predicted just above) will be made, will be permanent, will be given a token acknowledgement and the originals will never bee seen again. For the most part these will be copy-edit type changes. Typos, grammar and incidental reworking of text - that sort of thing. Some updates will disappear and I'll save a copy elsewhere 'cause I may suspect they'll return for some reason. Others, when I think there may be some interest, will simply be shifted to an alternate post (probably labelled "PAST VERSION" or something similar) so that people who came to it late can (if they like) see what once was and get a sense of the process that people who have been reading along from the start have had. The past versions will not link into the story, but they will appear around the same place as the most up to date versions in the chronological archive.


Oh yeah... the chronological archive... 


Part of my hesitancy to publish this as a blog is the nature of each new post coming up in the sequence as they are published. Of course there is no reason that they have to. Posts can be re-dated as necessary. I don't know why I was feeling precious about that previously, but I'm not any more. So let it be known that the dates of publication really don't mean much. Generally speaking you can assume that any given chapter was indeed posted originally on the date and time tagged to the post. Most "author's notes" and  "insight" will probably be the same - unless clearly indicated. I can't imagine why I'd change the date on anything labelled as "news." All the other stuff... "past versions" and any other post types that I haven't imagined I'll use yet - who knows, the dates could be wildly out of sequence with reality.

Book: The First - Part: One - Chapter: 1 - Installment: ii

Detective Scott Edmond parked in the False Creek Boat Club parking lot where the uniformed officer had directed him.  He collected a flashlight and a pair of latex gloves from his trunk and followed the path Eastwards under the bridge.

Another uniformed VPD officer stood roughly halfway under the bridge.

“Good evening, Detective.” He said as Edmond approached.  He was tall and dark skinned.  Indian or Eastern Mediterranean, Edmond judged in the light of his flashlight.  He looked at the officer’s name tag – ‘Singh.’

Indian, Edmond confirmed to himself.

“Where are we, Singh?”

“Just up this rise.”  Officer Singh pointed towards the South end of the bridge.

“And the girl?”

“Taken to St. Paul’s for medical.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

“It’s a mess, Sir.”  The tall officer led Edmond up the bank.

“What’s her story?”

“She says he was chasing her and he fell.  She said she picked up a rock and in her rage, threw it at his head.  Killed him.”

“That’s easy enough.”

“Wait ‘til you see it.”

Three generator powered lights were set up in a wide triangle, illuminating a wide swath around the body.  Two more uniformed officers stood within the lights, still fifty meters away.  The telltale sight of a covered body marked the center of the pooled light.

“Honestly, I think she stumbled upon a collapsed homeless man.  Maybe, if she’s lucky, he was already dead.  God knows what possessed her but she decided to see what would happen if she put a rock to his skull.”

“That’s pretty perverse Sergeant.  What makes you say so?” asked Edmond.

“He was in no condition to chase a healthy woman in good shape.  She says she was out jogging when it happened.”

“Then why’d she call it in?”

“That I can’t explain.”

“Well tell you what.  Let’s say you leave the deductive reasoning to Homicide.”

“Yes sir.”

As they approached the victim, Edmond couldn’t help but notice the shallow profile of the covering. 

A small man, then.  A half-starved heroine junkie perhaps? 

He knew that sight all too well.

There might be some credence to the Singh’s theory.

“Okay gentlemen, let’s see what we have.”  He ordered the two other officers.

“Yes, Detective.” answered the police officer closest to the body as he reached down to the opaque plastic sheet. “I’m warning you, it’s pretty grim.”

“Just do it.  I’ve seen pretty much the worst one can by now.”

“I don’t know about that.”  Said the officer as he yanked the sheet up and away.  “Holy shit.”

Ho-ly shit.

The body beneath was a dripping, bubbled mass of blood.  Oozing foamy pus, the flesh slouched around the skeleton, practically falling away from the bone in places.  The head was only identifiable by reference to its position on the body.  A blood stained rock sat half a foot past where what must have been the face had been caved in. 

Hot on the heels of the first glance was the smell.  The pungent odor of concentrated sulphur wafted up from the sopping corpse.  Stinging the noses of all four police officers, triggering a reflex from all as they turned their faces away to fresher air behind them.  The wind swept the worst of the smell – built up under the sheet for twenty minutes – away after a moment.

Edmond could tell there was no chance the deceased had been alive any time recently.  In fact it struck him as utterly foolish of Sergeant Singh to have suggested that perhaps the poor S.O.B. had simply collapsed.  This was clearly an advanced stage of death, although not in any way a typical state of decomposition.

Some form of acid possibly?  That might help explain the smell.

“Jesus Christ, sir.”

“What?”  Asked Edmond.

“It wasn’t like this when we arrived.”  Said the first officer as he let the sheet sink to the gravel.

“No.” confirmed Singh.

“No?”

“Not even close.  I mean it – He - was… whole.”

Ridiculous.

“Don’t fuck with me, Constable.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t fuck with me.  I’ve been sober three years straight.  Even so, I’m not an idiot.”

Singh stepped in “I saw it to.  He’s not yanking your chain.”

“I swear to God, Detective.” Offered the young Constable sincerely.

“Okay.”  Edmond acquiesced, “Cover it back up.  Where’s forensics?”

The two uniforms stretched the plastic sheet back across what was left of the body.  Their eyes watering from the rising fumes.

“They should be here any moment.”

“Was there any ID?”

Singh presented a clear plastic bag from his pocket. “Just this.”

Edmond shone his flashlight on the bag.  An aluminum bracelet sat inside.  It too was covered in gelatinous bloody goo.  Edmond took the bag and rolled it over in his fingers.  Through the blood he could see the stamped pharmaceutical insignia of a medic-alert bracelet.  Flipping it over, he could see the engraved ID numbers.  The blood and the poor light made it impossible to make out the digits, not that it would have meant anything without checking the Health Services data-base.

“Okay, I’ll run this.  You guys wait and assist forensics.  What’d you say the girl’s name is?”

#

Detective Lieutenant Edmond approached the information desk in the East corridor of St. Paul’s hospital.

“Moira Chan?  She would have arrived in the past forty five minutes, with police escort.”

“Cubical seven.” answered the nurse at reception. “She’s fine.  She can go.”

“Thank you.  I’ll let her know.”

The officer attending the woman was familiar to Edmond.

“Hey, Scott.”

“Clare.  How is she?”

“Par for the course.  Shook up.  She’ll be okay.”

Clarence pulled back the curtain for Lieutenant Edmond.  She was sitting up-right in bed, staring at her hands.

She spoke before Edmond could introduce himself.  “I’ll be the arbitrator of whether or not I’ll be okay or not thank you.”

“Sorry, Ma’am.  No disrespect intended.”

“Take a break, Clare.  We’ll be fine.”

Clarence didn’t need further prompting.  He was late for a meal and headed for the cafeteria in pursuit of chow.

“You’ve had an exciting evening.” Offered Edmond.

“And everyone seems bent upon patronizing me.”

“Sorry, Miss Chan.”

“So what do you want?”

“Well, I’m getting a lot of conflicting information.  I thought I’d come and see what you have to say.”

She stared him coldly in the eye, matching his with her dark Asian, nearly all black eyes.

“I killed a man tonight.  He had it coming, but I’m ready to face what’s in store for me.”

“I don’t think you did.  I can let you go; relax your observation.  Just tell me the truth.”

“I’ve already told the truth.”

“Miss Chan, there’s a dead body sitting under Burrard Street bridge for – I don’t know how many hours – probably doused in some sort of acid by the state of its disintegration, and I’m telling you, who ever it was has been dead for longer than it’s been there.”

“Well then, you’re looking at the wrong body.”

“You know that if you were telling the truth, a defense lawyer would be very disappointed in your candor.”

“Why should you care?” she snapped.

“Because it just doesn’t add up and it’s my job to work that kind of algebra.”

“Move on to calculus if you have to, ‘cause I’m telling you he chased me up from the path, he tripped and I put a rock through his skull.  It was self-defense.”

“Motive is irrelevant – “

Edmond was interrupted by the bleating of his cellular phone.  “Yeah?”  He asked, in answer.

“Lieutenant, this is Sergeant Singh.”

“Carry on, Singh.”

“The forensic team has traced two fresh sets of foot-prints up from the walk-way.”

“Yes?”

“One is most likely a woman from the gait – we assume they’re the Chan woman’s, but we’ll confirm.  The other, match the shoes and stride of our deceased.  They were both running, and followed the exact same course.”

“For certain?”

“Ninety-nine percent on the match, the rest holds up too.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”  Edmond flipped shut his phone.

“Looks like your story plays out.”

“So, I’m a murderess.”

“You really are a cake and eat it too sort, aren’t you?  It’s clear you were being pursued.  You’ll be released under your own surveillance, I’m sure.”

“Seriously?” she asked.

“I’m not a judge.  But I know how these things work.”

“Thank-you.” She whispered.

As he left the cubical he heard her gasp as she caught her breath on the front end of tears.

Chapter 2

Book: The First - Part: One - Chapter: 1 - Installment: i

Pushing.  Pushing.  Harder.  Ignoring the pain, she pushed on.  Left after right, right after left.  Lift and stretch as far as her will could force her legs to in the rapid succession of a jog. 

She’d hit her wall on the East side of the Island.  The other side had to come soon.  She ran on, past Fisherman’s Wharf and up the hill away from False Creek towards Vanier Park.

The sun had set as she was leaving for her run.  Now, blocks from home, twilight was dimming and she was cursing herself for going as far as late as she had.  She had yet to get her second wind and was coming to Burrard Bridge. 

Don’t run under the bridge at dark.  She told herself.  Don’t be a fool.  It’s too dangerous for a woman to be alone under the Bridge in the dark.

But it’s not dark, rationalized another part of her brain. It’s just dusk.  I’m a healthy, fit woman and anyone desperate enough to come after me under the bridge is under-nourished and homeless.

The operative word is desperate.  Desperation buoys a strength within.  Don’t do it.  She kept arguing with herself.

Don’t be a fucking baby.  Just fucking run.

Her view of the bridge inched out from behind an apartment as she turned off of Creekside Drive and ran around the sloping bend westward.

This is a major public fucking walk-way.  People walk or bike past here all the time – at all times of day.  Giving in to paranoia is simply allowing the margins of society to control your life.

The bridge blocked out most of the sky as she stepped underneath it.  It was marginally darker under the bridge, but it was already dark enough that the additional shadow of the bridge was nominal.

Left, right, left, right, lift, stretch…

And there he was – coming right out of her blind spot.  Dirty, bloody and charging down the slope from the piling right at her.

She panicked and dodged inland, away from him – off the path, underneath the length of the bridge.

Fuck.  I should have kept going in the same direction - towards the road.  I’m only going further from where people would be.  Fucking foolish girl.

He charged after her with speed and strength that belied his filthy sanguine appearance.

If he really were hurt he’d be calling for help.  Fuck…  Help.

“Help!  Somebody help me!”  She screamed.

That’s pointless.  The closest people are in cars, way overhead.

He was gaining on her – one, two arm lengths away at most.  At this rate she’d never make the stairs to the street before he caught her.  Not even close.

I should have listened to myself.  Jesus, give me my second wind.

“Somebody!  Help!”  She knew it was fruitless.

Oh god.

“Oh God!  Somebody help me!”

Oh god.  I’m going to be raped, killed, both, worse.

“Oh God!  Oh God!  Somebody please hear me!”

She didn’t need to risk a glance back to know that he was practically on her.  She tapped into her own desperation for the last reserves of strength.  The tiniest joules not depleted by her ninety minute training run.

Push.  Push harder.  Ignore the pain.  Your life depends on it.

She screamed from the pit of her viscera at the sound of a sudden crack.  She knew that was the end.  The splash of scattering gravel around her ankles.  She closed her eyes and ran blind knowing that within a split second the true beginning of the end was here.

But it wasn’t.

She kept putting one foot in front of the other.  She opened her eyes and recognized that the only feet she could hear were her own.

Still running, the stairs to street-level a dozen paces away, she chanced a look behind.

Nothing.

No one there.

The empty gravel beneath the bridge stretched on into the failing light.

Her heart was pumping with desperation and adrenaline pulsed through her veins, but the tank was truly empty and there was no threat remaining.  Her feet came to a stand-still at the base of the stone staircase.

Was it my imagination?  He couldn’t just disappear.

Her eyes scanned the gravel.

Where did he go?

And then she saw him – a heap twenty meters away.  Eclipsed by the shadow.  Not moving.

Jesus.

Not understanding her own instincts she took a few steps forward towards his inert body.

Don’t be a fool.  You just dodged a bullet.

She stopped.  She knelt down and felt for a weapon – a jagged softball sized rock.  She stood again.

“Hey.”  She called, “Fuck head.  Are you alright?”

No response.

“I’m not helping you.”

She took a step closer.

He was going to kill me.  He was going to kill me.  If he hadn’t tripped and fell, that son of a bitch would be raping me right now.

“Fuck you.  You hear me.  Fuck you, you fucking sick fucking asshole.”  She barely said beyond a whisper between furious panting breaths.

Her feet carried her within a few meters of him before discretion took over her judgment.

“Fuck you. I win.”

She took two quick steps toward his heaping shape, raising her hand, and then in one movement heaved the rock where her wrath judged his head to be.

The rock struck his skull, cracking through the bone as if it were glass, and out the other side with a soupy splatter of blood and brain.

Oh god.

She fell to her knees and vomited into the stony aggregate.


Installment ii

AUTHOR'S NOTE - A Humble Beginning

This is almost certainly not the only author's note.  It is merely the first.


I kind of wanted to spend a little space talking about how I have come to get started on this journey.


I warn you, this particular note is going to get kind of navel-gaze-y.  You may want to skip on ahead to the novel itself and come back to read this later if you decide you are genuinely interested in my personal back story.


HOW DID I GET 'HERE'?


I've been a writer for... it may have been the Carter administration. I'm Canadian, so really I should be saying "The Trudeau Parliament" except that the Trudeau Parliament lasted from before I was born 'til (with one brief, easily forgotten or at least ignored, hiccough) after I could legally drive a car.
I don't really recall too much about it, but I vaguely remember writing a "book" on a (gasp) standard non-electric typewriter when I was a child.  It may have been as many as a dozen pages long and probably three times that many chapters... each being little more than a few sentences. The story had something to do with a family of water droplets - I really don't remember much more than that, though I have a recollection of realizing that I was in a boring narrative rut where I'd begin a chapter with a sentence about what was going to happen in the chapter (IE. "In this chapter, the Drops are going to the faucet.") That would be followed by a sentence of the action actually happening ("One day the Drops went to the faucet.") Then if I was feeling particularly creative I might include some Sorkinesque dialogue, simultaneously revealing character and plot with arch wit and insight on the human condition. ("'Let's got to the faucet' said Daddy Drop. 'Okay.' Mommy Drop.")  It was all brilliantly non-linear and almost Beckettian - the family seems to have gone through the action of going to the faucet twice before even making the flimsiest of plans to do so.  Brilliant as it was, it stuck a failing grade in that this patter played out with minor variations (more of the Beckett influence) chapter after chapter after chapter. The drops go to the sink.  The drops hang out on a washcloth for a while. The drops go down the drain.  You get the idea.


Skip ahead a decade or so and I found myself at home from school with an ass-kicker of a fever.  The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me. It was kind of mononucleosis-like, but tested negative and fortunately didn't have the long-tail of mono. But in that week I was home it was at the time the sickest I had ever been... and honestly I don't recall that I've been sicker than that since.  At one point my spleen inflammed to some absurd proportion of its original size.  It was so painful that three times on my way to the phone (just at the top of the stairs from my bedroom) to phone for help, my body decided it had had enough and that it was far more comfortable to be unconscious.  I figure that if I had been sicker than that since that I would remember it... but then again it's hard to say that for sure.  I was pretty much openly hallucinating with the fever and somewhere in there, out of virtually nowhere, I wrote a play.  Part of it was written in my right-mind.  Much of it wasn't.  Certainly I adjusted much of it in re-writes once I was healthy again, but it still bore the mark of the state of delusion I was in.  My high-school drama teacher had me submit it to the Canadian Young Playwright's search.  My play, "Don't Ask Me. I Just Live Here" won the damned thing!  The other plays all clearly had come from writers who had been encouraged by their teachers to "write what you know."  Every runner-up play in the showcase they had featured the same set-piece - high-school hallway lockers.  I kind of suspect that I won more on the grounds of being the most unique play in the group than due to any content.
If you must know, the play was a rather pollyannaish two-hander about a dweeby-guy who is told the secrets of the universe by a guardian angel before being carted away for having a messiah complex.


That early success pushed me onwards.  I've written a schwack-load of plays that you probably haven't seen.  I toured the continent for six years with a comedy-troupe that I wrote the lion's share of material for.  I have had two screenplays produced, one of which will never see the light of day and the other which is just becoming publically available around the time I write this author's note.  I've won some other awards and contributed to magazines and blogs and assisted both a Leacock winning author (on a host of projects) and one of the world's genuine extant cult-novelists (as well as adapting his greatest work for the stage).  I have other screenplays and a TV series on the boil and more ideas than I will ever be able to complete... but there's one thing I've never written. A novel.


It's tough to talk much about how the creative ideas that lead to this work came to be without giving up some major spoilers, so suffice to say that this darned thing has been banging around in my head for years, getting bigger and more complex.  At some point I realized that it was a novel not a film or TV series and sometime after that I realized that it was too big to be one book and was better suited to be three.


Generally speaking, I don't outline.  But I do tend to only work on projects that I've been letting percolate in the gray-matter for quite some time.  I'd call myself a discovery writer.  I write linearly from beginning to end of a story (and then edit and rewrite)  But truth be told, I am working off a fairly detailed blueprint that only exists in my head.  This particular blueprint - the one for Necropolis - is about as done as I can make it without putting words to paper.  So it is time.


But here's the thing... this is a big-damn project.  A trilogy.  Generally speaking, no publisher is interested in taking on a trilogy from a first time novelist.  Not as a proposed work.  Not as a completed set.  Not as the "somewhere in between" version - a complete first novel and two planned sequels.  Really, writing a trilogy is about the least sound choice a first-time novelist can make.  But it's the story I am prepared to write, so I have to find a way to reach an audience beyond my own imagination and there is really no better way I can think of than trial by fire.  Lets face it, if I can't interest people in this story when they are getting it for free on the internet, then I have no business writing long-form prose fiction, I should stick to screen and stage.


This is by definition, a labour of love.  I have to pay the rent somehow, so this will have to take a back-seat at times to paying the bills and raising my daughter and so on, but so long as there is interest in this story I will keep writing it.  I hope to get at least a little bit of it out every week - and at least at first I am going to try to get two installments out per week, as well as any additional content I deem relevant or necessary (like other author's notes.)


I encourage and look forward to your comments.  You are not only my audience, you are my editor.
I hope you enjoy this.  I plan to.


Here we go...