Dead Reckoning: Might burnt it yet, or, Get out the violins and the hankies so we can all have a weep

Burn it? As I had the guts.

Dead Reckoning, this gallstone of a novel I’ve been struggling with since 2001, wants to come out. I’m not sure it’ll ever be fit to be seen. Drafts five and six exist as first-person and third-person limited-variable versions respectveily of the same story, told in a linear fashion – that beginning-middle-end thing I get on my high horse about. I’ve shattered the narrative, for thematic and image reasons, but underneath that I need strong through-lines and character development – of devolvement, depending on the character.

So it’s hard to work on for the narrative strategy. The subject matter – violence, power, festering rage, alienation from conceptions of God – isn’t easy, either. And it’s set in the early eighteenth-century: yes, by, I’m a dialogue expert there.

A painful chronic condition has acted up, too – dandy, should have quite the edge on today. Which could help.

Gotta go deep.