My writing

I realized I haven't talked about it at all yet, so here's an update on the status of my current projects:

Sunshine In the Valley: Sixth novel. Metaphysical fantasy about a village surrounded by living walls. I sent this out to a few publishers until I realized I wasn't happy with the draft--my main idea was to convey an inconceivable time and place, and then I realized a few Americanisms had crept in. I'm going to get rid of them, tighten the structure a bit, and try again. It's the only of my recent novels in which the plot can be understood, though it's by far the most complex. At some point I'm going to write a sequel that has absolute nothing to do with it.

The Life, Times, and Tragedy of Edward William Locke the Third: Meta-text; examination of literary theory; postmodern chronicle; exercise in character study (in which nothing in learned); extremely surreal, with extensive influence from avante-garde theater; like I said, extremely surreal; treatise on history and time. I just finished it about a week ago, so the last chapters are in a really shitty draft right now, but I really like this. I've wanted to write this character for years now (without realizing it), and it felt really good finally to get the chance. Also, since it's technically historical fiction rather fantasy--or magical realism, I suppose--I'll have an easier time pitching it to literary publishers.

Absence: Still doesn't work quite right. Possibly it contains the best writing I've ever done, but I made the mistake of writing a mosiac novel (even though I hate mosaic novels). I thought it would be cute to write a novel (loosely) about the Christian that was completely devoid of Christian symbols but was instead full of ideas from philosophy, particularly Descartes and Spinoza. It has some really fucking cool ideas in it but a horrible treatment of homosexuality and revolution. I've tried writing around them until I finally relized I would have to write over them.

The Reawakening: is set to be rewritten as a short story six to ten thousand words long. It's gonna be fucking awesome.

Green Lights/Purity of Vision: Tentative title for novel number eight. It's going to be completely different from anything else I've ever done before--a contemporary novel about... life, with actual likable characters--though with an equal degree of formal innovation. I have a really cool structure in mind: all of divided into six to eight sections, each named after a color (with some colors repeating), in which the components of reality alter according to the color, with some characters getting taken out, others getting replaced completely, and some gigantic shifts in time and place. (Did I mention... surreal?)

I've also got quite a few short stories (and one experimental play) showing up in small publications in the next few months. I'll post links here when they come out. Then, of course, I have two stories in Quantum Genre On the Planet of the Arts--and next summer... Voices.