Up until now I have been putting chapters of When the Captain Came Calling on this blog, in order, as I have been finishing the manuscript, and revising and editing at the same time. I used this method to show you all the work in progress, step-by-step, as I did the revision and editing.
30 chapters (that I mysteriously call cantos for illicit poetical reasons) posted on 30 Tuesdays for the last 30 weeks. That is less than half of the novel.
I took the 22,000-word first draft and turned it into a 57,000-word completed novel in that time. The illustration above is the final copy of the cover art for When the Captain Came Calling. It is a slightly altered version of the concept cover art I have been posting for 30 weeks. Val is wearing a skate-boarder’s t-shirt that up til now had a fairly accurate portrayal of what is probably a copyrighted cartoon character. So, I turned Rude Dog into a parody called Ride, Dog! and gave him two black eyes… or possibly sunglasses. I should know better than to draw other people’s cartoons too accurately, even though it was a real detail about 80’s skate-boarders that they often wore that same cropped t-shirt.
I have also shown you character art for some of the most important characters in the story. Pictured to the right are Mary Philips, the leader of the re-formed Norwall Pirates, a small-town adventure club and 4-H softball team. She’s a practical girl-next-door sort of leader, mentor, and friend who believes all the kids who have reached their middle teenage years need to stick together and help each other through the common problems of growing up, and dealing with moving from the fantasy worlds of who they want to become, into the practical worlds of who you really can become, if only somebody gives you a boost. And the Invisible Captain Noah Dettbarn, the victim of a South Seas Voodoo curse which he is trying to overcome by finding a virgin to throw into a volcano is pictured also. He’s not exactly the villain of the story, but he turns out to be a relative of the witch-doctor. And also, Valerie-squirrel is in that picture, clinging to Mary’s arm. At one point Valerie has to run through the trees to escape an ugly, evil, killer cat who wants to eat her while she is still the squirrel the witch-doctor turned her into.
And, for some reason, people in Norwall (not just kids) think that Mazie Haire is a witch. True, she is the current resident of the Gingerbread House that has always been associated with magic and witches. Also true, she has a telescope in that upstairs room and always seems to know things about other people in the community that she shouldn’t. by rights, actually know. But that doesn’t make her the villain of the story. It also doesn’t make her the hero.
These character sketches and short explanations were a kind of crafting of the puzzle pieces that helped me to put the entire big picture together piece by piece.
I am now moving into the final proof-reading and formatting that will lead to being able to publish this book on KDP with Amazon. You should look for that book to appear there in a couple of weeks. And I intend to make some noise about it here when it is done.
Writing with Fire
The old saying goes, “If you play with fire, sooner or later you will get burned.”
But I am not playing. I am writing. With fire.
The criminal we elected president knows what I am talking about. He speaks at rallies with fire. Currently he is trying to demonize Representative Ilhan Omar and the Squad, the four freshman Congresswomen of color whom he said were unpatriotic, enemies of our democracy, and should go home to their countries filled with crime, poverty, and communism. Of course, the Congresswomen are all American Citizens. Three of them were born here. This is actually the country they are from. So, this is an example of the kind of verbal fire that needs to be put out with cold water. Preferably before some enraged Trumpist actually assassinates a member of the Squad. The fire he spews is destructive and evil.
But, truly, the way to fight fire is with fire. Firemen use a fire-break to interrupt the path of the fire. You can bulldoze or chop the wood in the way of the fire. Or you can burn it in the opposite direction. Many forest fires are ended in this way.
And I have been writing my fiction with fire. Controversial issues taken head on and given a clarity that burns brightly enough to leave burn marks on the psyche and write messages in ash on the heart of the reader. This is why beloved characters die in fictional stories and bad things happen to good people… to make a lasting scar or burn on the idea-collections in the readers’ brains.
I have in the past few novels written about sexual assault, attempted rape, murder, greed, brutality, excessive anger, and the current work-in-progress tackles suicide. And I battle these raging fires with positive fires set from empathy, community and familial love, preserverance, determination, and simple faith. I am trying to fight fire with a better fire, destructive fire replaced by zeal.
Okay. So, I’m an idiot, expressing foolish ideas with loopy metaphors. But I can make you think. And thinking is electrical fire in the brain. And I have been steadily pouring gas on that word-fire.
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