When I’m hunkered down and mired in multiple-month stretches of daily writing – the in-the-trenches work of creating a novel – I still try to post an update once a month or so just to let y’all know I’m alive and working hard.
Wow, I picked a great day for it, huh?
I’ve rewritten this thing a half-dozen times, grappling in part with my desire to say something meaningful. The world is on fire at the moment, and my nation is wounded. And I’m just this person with a keyboard and I am nauseous and heart-sick.
What I’m grappling with right now is, what do people need? As an artist, what kind of work should I be writing and putting out into the world? I try to always be aware of what I’m promoting, what themes I’m working with, what kind of messages I’m putting forward, and that’s never been more important than now.
Vital distinction: I’m not talking about “message fiction” which boils down to a heavy-handed “here is an important social issue, and here is how you should feel about it and if you don’t you’re a bad person!” angle. That stuff sucks, nobody likes it. I’m talking about theme – a thesis, an underlying statement – which is present in all but the most cynically commercially-produced books. All art is an extension of the artist. I am not Daniel Faust (a bad review called him an “obvious author insert” once, and you cannot imagine how much my friends laughed about that), but when you read my books, you’re getting a piece of me, woven into the narrative.
I owe you honesty, I owe you care, and I owe you my best work. That’s part of the contract between an author and a reader. (And you owe me $4.99. That sound fair?)
So my challenge right now, with everything going to hell, is to figure out what my best work looks like. Do I deliver pure escapism? Sure, I can, but is that ideal? Do I try to deliver a narrative that challenges expectations? Again – is that the best use of my abilities? I’m figuring it all out.
Right now I’m leaning toward hope.
Writing is hard at the moment (just getting anything done seems to take forever), but the new Daniel Faust novel, Down Among the Dead Men, is coming along, and I’ve been thinking a lot about hope. Five years ago, when I plotted out the bare bones of this story arc (yes, five years ago – c’mon, you know me), this book was going to be the darkest, nastiest chapter in the entire series. But I was edgier then (in a bad way), I like to think I’m more mature now, and I put a lot more time into thinking “how is this story going to make my readers feel?”
Oh, it’s still dark, I mean, given the situation Faust is in, but I’m leaning a lot heavier into satire and black comedy. Is it going to be funny? Eh, I hope so. Comedy is one of the hardest things to self-assess (we’ve all seen enough terrible stand-up comics to know that), but some parts should, if I do it right, put a smile on your face. More than that, I’m using the setting to take a look at people, and how people come together and support each other even in the worst of times and places.
Hope.
Also, the action scenes are over the top, an enemy from Faust’s past makes a comeback, and we get to meet Caitlin’s sister, who manages a television station in hell. So, there’s that to look forward to.
We’re still on track for a July 7 release of The Insider, the second Charlie McCabe novel, from Thomas & Mercer Publishing. It’s a very twisty little thriller filled with deception, double-crosses and danger, and if you liked The Loot, I think you’ll like this one even more.
A Time for Witches, the follow-up to Ghosts of Gotham, is currently in my editor’s hands and we’re looking at an October release. It’s pretty timely in its own way and is also, at its core, a story about hope. It picks up one month after Ghosts ended, with another dive into a world of Greek myth and mystery. Catching up with Lionel and Maddie was good for my heart, and I hope you’ll feel the same way when it comes out.
Anyway, that’s it for today, I’m going to get back to work. Be safe. Please.