Liberate Me!

Liberate me from Liberation!

I swear, writing this book has been like pulling teeth. From a lion. An angry lion.

I’ve never had this much trouble writing a book. Four fuckin’ years and counting. It usually takes me 18 months to publish something. Granted, I’ve had plenty, and I mean plenty of bullshit I’ve had to deal with during these past years, and some of which I’m still dealing with.

But this…either the right words won’t come, or the idea won’t work. Sometimes I’ve had to go waaay back to earlier chapters and make revisions.

Part of it, I think, is another layer of the meaning of “liberation” that came to me while writing later chapters. My original idea was that liberation has two meanings: The obvious one, where the gang liberates an enslaved people from their cruel masters, and two, they have to liberate themselves from their pasts. But there’s a third liberation — they have to liberate themselves from their collective past.

Lions don’t like having their teeth pulled. Get right testy, they do.

In The Underground, the four were at each other’s throats. Parker and Melera against Kurt and Garrett. Invasion saw a softening of their antagonistic stances after shared harrowing experiences. Liberation is set 600 years in the future, when the four are reunited and take off to explore our galaxy. The time gap is explained in Forever Bound, a short story included with Invasion. When Liberation begins, the four are fast friends. But their friendship starts showing fractures, stemming from what happened to them in The Underground.

I went all over the place trying to incorporate this last meaning into the story. I think I did it, but won’t know until I put the chapters together and read them.

I’m now at the climax, where the two warring sides have nearly reached the end of a hard road. It’s where all hell breaks loose. By now, the four have made great strides to liberate themselves from their pasts. Well, three of them, anyway. Melera has a long way to go.

Her resolution comes in Homeward, the fourth and final book in the series.

At times, I wonder if I should take another stab at outlining. Be a plotter, instead of a pantser. I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried. My brain just doesn’t want to work that way.

Oh. A plotter is a writer who outlines a plot. There’s a solid progression from the beginning, middle, and end. And whatever comes between.

Should I, or shouldn’t I?

A pantser — like me — simply writes and the story takes shape as it rolls along. Still, I think there’s a difference between me and other pantsers. Call me an uber pantser, I guess. My stories don’t have a plot.

In what I call traditional genre fiction, there’s always a plot, and the plot is the story. My work is more literary, where the characters are the real story. We see the characters’ actions and reactions to each other, and events. This is what drives the story along. Think GRRM’s Game of Thrones. Nary a plot in sight.

You could say I’ve liberated myself from the norm in genre fiction. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve liberated myself from the norm of whatever society says I should do. 

After I finish Liberation, maybe I’ll liberate myself from this series for a little while. Write something else. I’ve promised my fans the origin stories of the four main characters. I could start that, but I’ll have to think about it. I don’t want to tire of this universe I’ve created, especially since I’m going beyond these four. Secondary characters in each book have their own stories, some of which have taken shape in my head, however nebulous.

Well, if I’m going to finish Liberation anytime soon, I’d better get crackin’. It’s time for my own liberation.

Ciao.

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