Back to the Drawing Board

An update to this blog seems like a visit from a ghost, but anyway...boo.

In recent days I received some encouragement from different people to finish what they told me was a decently written first couple of chapters to Contagion.

This word came from separate and unconnected quarters and I took it as a sort of muse signal because I had been thinking about doing just that for a few months.

So, I am going to attempt to craft a novella or short novel from the basis of these meager beginnings.

In doing so, I have understood there is some  re-writing in order.

I began the story after just arriving back in Oklahoma some six years ago and wrote off the cuff with no regard to the layout of the infrastructure in my tale--directions are wrong in a few places I have characters supposedly fleeing from Tinker AFB right back in the direction of the base, as a glaring example.

I also show a very real and genuine lack of knowledge of fire-arms which I'm sure is apparent to gun hobbyists.

There are some actual writing issues...the voice has changed from chapter to chapter because of the vast periods of time between posts, there are some plot and character incongruities.

And it needs something more elemental to good story writing as well--I'm not bothered by the fact that I borrow from a dozen tropes so much since most post apoc/zombie books/movies/games seem quite cross pollinated to the complete delight of people who like that genre and expect certain things from it, but it does need something of it's own, and I'm going to search that out.

I know what I'm writing is not literature but I don't believe the joy of storytelling is the exclusive property of a Hemingway or a Poe or a Maugham, so if someone enjoys this story--and a few people have told me they were enjoying it, then to me it is worth writing, not least of all because I was enjoying it myself!

I have decide that my re-write will begin after a personal recon of the areas in my story, street by street, train track by train track, building by building. And as the tale spreads if I cannot psychically walk or drive to these scenes, I will carefully study maps.

So, for my cousin R.B., my friend M.O. and my lovely wife, as well as for yours truly, I will begin this work immediately!

Stay tuned for the coming novel!