In case you didn't clue in from the title of this page, this space is being worked on. Once in a while, anyway. The picture to your left (my right, the signpost's up) was taken about 19 years ago. Activity levels haven't increased with the greying of hair. But ...
Enjoyable as the process of writing can be, it's always a relief when a book reaches the final stages. And so it is with Country & Cottage Water Systems, with only the final edits, a few roughs for the artwork, and the proofreading left to do. Of course, most of that will be done at the last possible moment because that seems to be the only way publishers know how function. After all, why would anyone want a relaxed lifestyle when, with a little bit of extra work and inconvenience, it's so easy to make life really frantic? Beats me. Country & Cottage Water Systems is scheduled to be available in June, 2010.
The novel I have been working on as time and desire permit has also reached a crucial stage in its development, the words having morphed from monitor to hardcopy. Reviewing a work in any format that differs from the previous inevitably points out a few shortcomings, with bits that need to be deleted or added to, the process then repeated when those changes are input back into the digital version, followed by yet another print to hardcopy, and on and on. So the story may be finished, but it's not done yet, if you know what I mean.
Okay, enough excuses, time for some insight into to the book. Initially, the story was written in third person—that “he said,” “she said,” outside voice approach. Third person allows the author (me) to present the characters—their appearance, their inner thoughts, their true motives and moods—and the story's various locations largely untainted by a single character's biases. You can get into everybody's head equally well. What gets sacrificed is the personal immediacy a first person voice affords, the voice and opinions as seen only through the eyes of one character. The story becomes their tale. To see examples of both voices, check out the excerpts from Unresolved Connections, Life Doesn’t Have to Rhyme written in third person, Paradise, it’s cool written in first person.
As with most of writing, the story was then left to simmer away quietly in some vat hidden in my mind’s cellar. And eventually, I realized I still wasn’t happy with the approach. Jake, the other lead character, was now left out, or at least his view of what went on. That first person voice can’t see into another character’s heads, it can only hint at what might be going on there. I felt Jake needed to be heard. So just to make to the whole process considerably more difficult, I decided to rewrite the story using two first person voices, Asuka’s and Jake’s, each seeing it from a different time, and a different space. Connecting all that together into a mystery/romance has been fun. Tons of work, too, but mostly fun. The basic story itself (more on that below) remains close to the second draft, though both the beginning and ending have changed, but mostly, it’s the presentation that changes, events interweaving through the impressions of its two lead characters, gaining strength and intrigue.
What’s it about, in a few words more or less:
With my works of fiction, I’m often asked “What’s it about?”, a question I always have difficulty answering. But when I finished this most recent rewrite, finished looking at the story from two very different perspectives, the question answered itself. This book is an examination of love, of the countless ways love expresses itself. For example, there’s love of our mates, our children, our parents, our brothers and sisters, and our friends. There’s love of our country, of the land, of a god, and even of our possessions (cars, houses, boats, favourite golf club, sweater, you name it). The list is as endless as love itself. And of course, there’s love’s obvious (or not so obvious) strengths and flaws, its cruelty, and our frequent inability to deal with its honesty. It was the realization of all this, of what the book is really about (as revealed primarily through the eyes of its lead character, Asuka) that gave birth to the latest working title, Expressions of Love. In unintentionally examining those expressions, the book asks many question about love, including what restrictions should we burden mutual love with beyond what we place upon it ourselves? Expressions of Love looks for answers, not directly, but through the eyes of its characters. Whether it finds the correct ones, or any at all, is up to you the eventual reader, to decide.
The story synopsis:
Asuka, a highly motivated, successful business person celebrates her recent entry into the 40ish club by taking an uncharacteristic break from her career and her relentless pursuit of money. But that break doesn’t follow the typical path of a cliché hedonistic vacation to exotic places. Instead, it takes her on a search to find family roots, which begins in a small town that holds no clear connection to her. Asuka is most definitely not from there, physically and ideologically. Yet, thanks to two vague clues, she is drawn into to unfamiliar territory in the hopes of finding even a hint a missing past that might help to explain an increasingly confused present.
Driven by the same energy that produced success in business, she pries open old wounds while pursuing traces of a father and brother she never knew (the two declared missing and presumed dead just prior to her own birth). She starts with those two clues: an old picture showing her pregnant mother (now also deceased) standing in front of an MGA sportscar while holding a young boy; and a 40-year old notice from a towing company stating that an MGA registered in her father's name would be sold if not claimed and all monies owed for towing and storage paid by December 31, 1967. It’s that notice that lead her to small-town southwestern rural Ontario in a longshot bid to learn if anything of the MGA and its story remains.
Impatient to find answers, to get back to Toronto and her first passion—the pursuit of money—her dynamo-drive and assertive nature clash with the relaxed pace of the town’s residents, the apparent lethargy and passive disinterest in commerce and development leaving Asuka decidedly uncomfortable. Despite this, she finds a new friend, Jake, the owner of a local automotive repair shop and primary lead to the MGA, and her quest becomes a twosome. Progress is both rewarding and disturbing at times as disconcerting slices of her family's history unfold, some mere whispers of truth, some connecting Asuka and Jake in unexpected ways. It’s a search that continually reveals more questions than answers, questions that increasingly point to Ottawa for resolution. But she’ll need help. Jake becomes that needed help, at least in her mind, leaving her with the difficult task of persuading him to leave the security of his work, his town, his life, and travel to Ottawa with her.
After a bit of angst and anger on both their parts, Jake agrees to temporarily abandon his known world and accompany her to Ottawa, a place he has never visited, nor ever wanted to. Once there, he experiences both wonder and disgust with the workings of the city. She, on the other hand, experiences relief to be back in civilization, mixed with an unexpected longing for the relaxed pace they recently left behind. But it’s the quest for her roots that dominates, frustrates, and continues to surprise as new characters provide answers to questions never asked, new-found evidence and contacts prove bewildering and ephemeral, and the underground world of Asian gang-life lurks eerily in the shadows. With gathering speed, the lives of Asuka and Jake merge into an enigmatic entanglement of romance and shared past as together they discover much more about themselves, past and present, and the surprisng ways love might choose to express itself, than either had thought possible. Or perhaps wanted to know about. But then, often that's the way it is when dealing with Expressions of Love.
Please note that in keeping with the patented Max Burns style of writing, this tale doesn’t escape without owning a touch of humour.
The variable stats
Approximately 106,000 words at last count. And there’s fifteen original drawings to accompany the text, though they might not. As to when the book will be published, or if it even will, I haven’t got a clue; I only know that I’m writing it, and thoroughly enjoying the process.
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As always, the usual caveats apply, wherein everything is subject to change, so stayed tuned for the occasional update.
