Amusement, parked

 A while back, years, I explained how my first book series came about. At least, I think I did. Eight books were the result of a process set purely on following the story. I didn't so much have an outline as events I anticipated from various protagonists pursuing their wants. A mentor once told me to progress a story all one has to do is move a character closer or farther away from their goal. This contraction and expansion idea has become a bit more complex and nuanced over the years, but in the beginning that's all it was for me. That's how I ended up with eight books. After the first book, it made the most narrative sense for the characters to go in different physical directions. I was not so much energetic as curious, so I followed along. Those three books gained sequels of their own, before things bent back on themselves narratively and wrapped up with the eighth book. When it came time to release them, I did not have the luxury of choosing to put them out simultaneously. This was an issue I had not anticipated, when I wrote them, and I remember at the time not really having a solution. So, I made a decision and ordered the second, third, and fourth. When it came time for the fifth, without much thought at all, I repeated the cycle. The fifth book would be the sequel to the second, the sixth the sequel to the third, and the seventh would follow the fourth. 

A short time ago, weeks, I recognized my lazy assumption for what it was. I don't know if it was the result of something more ordinary, like being able to see with fresh eyes, or something more interesting like wisdom gained over years, but I found myself wondering, "why did I order them this way?" and then another question, "if I'm putting them out myself, do I have to order them at all?" And it was a bit like being pushed overboard into churning waves. I didn't know up from down, and the disorientation made me question everything. I chastised myself for following an old rubric. The point, after all, was to take full control of this project, these stories, and to unburden them with any of my old thinking. And here I am four books in before questioning any of that. Oops. 

Some things do have to be structured. Just about every other book series ever written is organized with some respect to time, and certainly they are ordered themselves in an incremental pattern. Whether they start with 0 or 1, the next number is 1 or 2, respectively. This is practical, meant to help the reader understand in what order the books should be read, with a moderate implication of how the events in the story move based on that organization. And I have a hard enough time as it is with clarity, so why complicate things? But still, the reason I was reminded of this situation is because books 2, 3, and 4 occur simultaneously, roughly, and events in some affect the others. Books 5, 6, and 7 are similar. In one specific instance, events in one give context to circumstances in another, and vice versa. This feels like a situation that reminds "just because you can do something doesn't mean you should."

The other limiting factor is the cover art. Working off of those old assumptions, I had doled out the work to my artist, very confident in the arrangement of things. And now I think, I wonder, if I had the art for all three, or at least the two dependent on each other, I could put them out at the same time. To say nothing of how to name them, in what order to put them in numerically, at least the narrative hiccup would be addressed.  To say that I've been wracking my brain would be an understatement. 

Just this past week, another thought occurred to me, and this had to do with the novella I put out some time ago, also years. In my mind, it would be the first, perhaps only, book to have an audio version. Not because I didn't want any of the others to be heard aloud, but because for this one I had a very specific concept in mind. I had talks with close friends, recruiting them to do voices. I drew up a list of roles that would need to be filled, and I dreamed of it all coming together in a kind of classic pulp radio style. Sound effects would have pie in the sky status, but the different voices, that added texture, that seemed doable. And then it didn't get done, and it didn't get done because I didn't do it. I could also add that life happened, that things got in the way, when it would be more accurate to say that I let things get in the way. Most accurately, just this week I realized, and this is a lesson I very often repeat, that nothing would get done unless I did it (in fact, putting it out at all had been postponed because I was waiting to publish it through more officious channels, and in the mean time was sitting on my hands). I strongly suspect that when one is more established, has more resources, one can out source, like I have with my cover art. Someday, I will perhaps have a team, or a staff, that I can delegate to, but that day is not today. 

So, very simply, I have set about an attempt to make an effort. Right now I am only focused on the first section, which only has a few different voices. A friend has some equipment, and has decided to help. I am much farther than I was, simply by taking direct action, and still am so far away from achieving the aspiration I dreamed years ago, one of several. I feel like I'm going in circles, the way I am having to absorb the same lessons repeatedly, but I do think that I am further along, in other, meaningful ways. I think maybe if this were a carnival ride, it would be fun. Or nauseating.