The Pitch

Today's Word Count: 3,384 words.

The ideas are coming freely, but the words are coming slowly. It's laborious; I keep hopping around between chapters, writing bits of scenes as they occur to me. I have about 7 chapters nearly-completed overall, but no shred of continuity just yet. Still, the story is so near completion in my head that I haven't lost faith in it just yet.

I've been trying to solidify how, exactly, to explain this, to sell it. So, without further ado...the rough draft of the Pitch:
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America is still recovering from its involvement in World War III. The president who pulled them through victoriously, Ezra Lynch, is enjoying his third term after the repeal of the 22nd Amendment. A firebrand and religious zealot, President Lynch is a revolutionary of Faith and wildly popular among the people. The war was not without its casualties, however; a generation later, the U.S. populace has fallen into a depression--not one of economics, but one of the mind. The protestors of the war had become increasingly violent, and are now their own brand of terrorists--and the definition of terrorism becomes broader each day to deal with the threat. Freedoms are slowly taken away from the American public, and most willingly sacrifice this for their security; a special military force, The Coalition, has been established to work alongside local police and keep watch for threats from these rebels. Their system of information gathering relies on civilian intelligence, and these domestic spies have given way to a generation of vigilantes.

Another war is breaking out, beneath The Coalition's nose; when the night falls, it is open war between terrorists and vigilantes, and it is hard to tell who is worse. Property damage, petty crime, blind violence, acts of hate--these are the symptoms of a country riddled with strife. The government does nothing; The Coalition turns its back once the sun is down. Crimes are committed by both sides but the media invariably mentions only those the so-called Liberal Terrorists are responsible for. Chaos is brewing in even the smallest towns of the United States, beneath surveillance and military presence.

Meet Davin. A college student and hesitant member of an Underground resistance movement against The Coalition and its ideals, he is uncertain where he stands. He is confused about his religion, sexual orientation, and involvement in the war; he hates politics, hates violence, and wants only to live a normal life, an option not afforded to him when his sister and best friend are deeply entrenched in The Underground and when every move he makes is monitored by The Coalition for suspicious behavior.

He watches as his world begins to crumble around him; people who seem trustworthy become traitors; good people are punished, and bad people rewarded; he falls in love with a woman who may be part of the vigilantes themselves. All the while, The Underground is growing more and more militant, and the civil war is becoming larger and more impossible to ignore.

Davin must choose a side; for the first time in his life, he must find something he believes in enough to die for.

And he must learn that a war without witnesses is a waste of lives.

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It's not fantastic, but I whipped it up in about 10 minutes, and it's 4:35 AM. It's a start, at least, non? Back tomorrow with more exciting updates....now, I must sleep.

Illuminations

I finished reading Victor Hugo's Les Miserables a couple of days ago. It took about two months to get through, due to pacing and the sheer size of it, coupled with a relatively busy summer and a short attention span. I'd picked it up because I was interested in the musical, which I have on CD, and wanted to get to know the story better. In places, it was pretty good to mediocre, and in a few passages it was almost painful to get through, but for about 250 pages I was riveted. That 250 pages sold me on the entirety of the book, solidified it in my head as perhaps the best piece of fiction ever written, and gave me a brilliant, beautiful flash of complete inspiration.

Have you ever been sitting there when you felt it, a nearly-solid feeling of something dropping into your mind, like the last piece of a puzzle, the final cog of an intricate clockwork? You feel something hit your mind, solid, and completely formed, and you draw into yourself, examining your thoughts for hours, when you realize that everything suddenly makes sense, that you know things you were unaware of ever having learned, that your problem has been solved without conscious effort?

Writers, professional authors, have the tendency to discount inspiration as hogwash, but I know for a fact--from experience--that it exists. It's not something you can count on, perhaps, but anything it provides is always whole, and pure, and beautiful. Les Miserables gave me that level of enlightenment.

I'm torn now between writing out all of the details of my inspiration in favor of planning, or letting them simmer in my head to continue connecting and breeding. I think I lean toward the latter, but it means I'll have to make a point of writing every day. Yes, I say that often, but this time it's true. I'm going to give myself a deadline, post it on my forehead if I have to, and I'm GOING to finish it by that deadline, whatever it takes. Let's see....

I expect the novel to be roughly 30 chapters; each chapter, on average, has been about 5,000 words. Roughly a 150,000 word piece then, decent length for the genre....anyway. I can generally average 2,500 a day if I try, so that's 60 days. Two months.

Now, to be realistic, I really can't finish it in two months, because school and other things will pop up....so I'll give myself a 30-day leeway. This book will be finished in 3 months.

My Deadline:
October 20th, 2005.

That will have been 3 years, almost to the day, of work since this was first conceived. The book will be written and edited and publishable by Christmas. This is my goal.

This starts in the morning. I'm allotting myself a portion of the day during the summer when things are slow--around 3:00pm or so--to sit offline and write 2,500 words, or more if I get the inspiration. I'll have to change my schedule and make it more rigid once school starts. We shall see.

Hmm...maybe I'll alternate days. Some days will be internet days, some days will be writing days. Every other day? yeah, I like that idea better actually. Tomorrow will be a no-internet day; the next day will be a no-writing day, unless I'm so disposed.

At any rate. The book will be in the hands of a publishing house by Christmas. Mark my words.