I came across this entry in the 1976 journal and it seems as if it would’ve been a perfect blog post at the time. Short and to the point, it describes the beginning, after six months of notes and outlines, … Continue reading →
The period from March 2011, when The Martian Marauders was accepted for publication, to January 2023, retirement from the library, already finds expression in the blog, but I hope to pull together more insight here. It’s tempting to just narrate … Continue reading →
I’m quite proud of the six books I assembled this year; I feel I’ve psychically moved forward with these projects and other unpublished work. But I’m also somewhat dazed to find myself at a stopping point. It feels strange, as … Continue reading →
It’s been difficult to write 1994-2011; this is quite a long era, from my thirties to my fifties, with several deluded sub-eras as well as breakthroughs. But the period seems anchored at each end: beginning with The Soul Institute charting … Continue reading →
So Zarreich is Finally Out There For decades I’d considered this 1981-1982 novel an unpublishable first draft, but it was so rich and opened up such new territory I could never let it go. After a disastrous attempt at a … Continue reading →
Why I sometimes reread first drafts of my novels, usually amazed by how the sprawling but somehow compelling mess eventually congealed into a publishable story–or in some cases, was so bad I abandoned it. When I rediscovered the first draft … Continue reading →
Since one of Zarreich’s aims was to make sense of and tie together numerous Other World dreams I’d had over the years, I went through my journals in May 1981 to make a compilation of such dreams in preparation for … Continue reading →
I cleaned up Draft 2 a bit since the previous blog post but froze it there and created a document for a potential Draft 3. Along the way I decided I wanted a cover to focus the project, and wound … Continue reading →
This summer’s successful resurrection of The University of Mars got me wondering if I couldn’t do the same for another older novel I’d once declared dead. I’ve just finished a second draft of Zarreich, but this novel isn’t ready for … Continue reading →
In a dysfunctional 2065 where religious zealots restrict the world to outdated twentieth-century technology, eighteen-year-old Zeke Venan dedicates himself to the life of the mind and to the further evolution of humanity. He drags his Australian girlfriend to an impoverished … Continue reading →
