Waiting
Day 244 of Writing
I have not added an entry in several weeks. The Relentless is set around ten years into the future. That is not that far ahead, so what is happening today could effect the story. To be more specific, what is happening tomorrow could impact the story.
Tomorrow, election day, offers two very different futures. One leads us on a long journey to get back to normal. The other leads to chaos and the end of our democracy as we know it. Things are already almost unrecognizable from what they had been just four years ago. There has been wholesale destruction of our institutional norms, a rejection of science as a guide for government, the elimination of meaningful oversight, loss of respect for the truth, and almost no one has faith in the integrity of this election.
One of the two candidates will take America further down a dystopian path than my novel imagines. Realizing that, I have not worked on the novel in over a month. I just lost enthusiasm for writing when I knew I might have to do major rewrites. I have some political elements in the story that presuppose our democracy stays the way it has been before the current administration. That might not be the case, as will be determined to tomorrow.
I have been focusing on other writing projects. Fortunately, there is no end to them. I dove into working on a book I have long wanted to do; part two of a five-part series of non-fiction books. I wanted to get an idea of how fast it would go, and I have now done enough to estimate it will take about a year with about three hours a day devoted to it. So, realistically, a couple of years. I find working on it calming to work on as it deals with more positive subjects.
This is one of those super long-term projects that I just hope I am able to finish before I leave this earth. It is a big project. The first book came in at around 450,000 words. The next four will be much shorter, but still pretty big. If I do finish it, it will be my magnum opus.
Right now I, along with millions of my fellow Americans, await tomorrow with great anxiety.