The idea for CommWealth came from the first part of these notes from a dream (“Their Satanic Majesties Computer Software Guide”), although successive revisions changed much of the plot. The second part, “The Tremendous Romance,” wasn’t used in the novel. … Continue reading →
I’ve always thought of the characters in CommWealth as an ensemble cast in a movie, where accomplished actors divide the plot between them and no one actor has the lead role. I didn’t intend this approach from the beginning, but … Continue reading →
This summer’s Draft 7 of Sortmind completely changed the old library-centric plot of the original novel, and it was only after a small amount of grief that I finally knew I had to let go of the following mini-chapter from … Continue reading →
I haven’t posted a blog entry since the North Texas Book Festival entry of April 7, an unnervingly long time to go dark. However, the seed of darkness came the day of the April 9 festival itself; in order to … Continue reading →
It hasn’t quite sunk in yet that I’ve published a literary, adult novel. This is not to denigrate my Jack Commer science fiction novels or CommWealth, which is also a literary novel but borders the science fiction and dystopian genres. … Continue reading →
I was pointedly hard-nosed about Jipo Jarg in the first version of The Soul Institute as I strove to delineate Jipo and Derrick’s bitter corporate marriage. Maybe Jipo was all shadow-projection on my part, and the below excerpts probably reinforce … Continue reading →
“Back away from the novel and slowly put your hands on top of the Internet. Keep your mind where I can see it.” Sooner or later you come to this point. The time has finally arrived to push the novel … Continue reading →
In my just-published novel CommWealth, Allan Larson browbeats the Forensic Squad acting troupe into staging an infantile play he’s written called Cabaret. (Though he swears his play has nothing to do with the 1972 movie of the same name, one … Continue reading →
I’ve spent two and a half months moving sortmind.com from its ancient FrontPage HTML incarnation to WordPress–as a page-format site, not a blog. The new site focuses on the Jack Commer science fiction series, CommWealth, and other publishable novels, and … Continue reading →
As I did with my previous University of Mars post, I culled this essay from its original sortmind.com page. With the advantage of further perspective, I’m editing it considerably from the 2006 musings I made after scanning and editing the … Continue reading →
