The Quotation Marks Don't Come Off Until The Book's Released

As I write this, my novel "Victory" is halfway through its final edit, and there is much rejoicing on my part! It's taken me ten years to get here and it is going to be so worth it -- most of it's just cleaning up dialogue, making passive voices active (instead of "The pit was there and I fell in", "I fell into the pit"), explaining why some people are where they are when they are, and from what I remember of my last visit, writing a chapter or two. By the time school starts here two weeks from today, the release date I'm shooting for, I can't help but think part of me will feel like Charles Schultz on his last Peanuts strip from February 13, 2000.

Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy ... how can I ever forget them ....


Oh, I won't stop writing once I've resolved the current storyline -- in fact, there are some events eight years earlier than "Victory" is set (2023-2024) that I'll be using my National Novel Writing Month story this year to delve into. I just need to start taking notes and re-reading Litany, Progeny, and Legacy as well as finishing "Rivalry" (set in 2008, 2021, 2022-2023, and 2012 respectively) so I know or at least have a good idea who was where when and what's already happened and what's going to happen. I want to avoid the crowd scenes masquerading as ensemble casts that -- forgive me for saying this -- Once Upon A Time is becoming.


Zenia, Cindy, Daniel, Michel ... how can I ever forget them ....


My version of Schultz's farewell soliloquy in the strip, though I don't yet have a half-century track record behind me or quite the popular recognition factor. As opposed to Batman whose Elseworlds anthology (ISBN 9781401260743) I finished reading two days ago but didn't think I would because I wanted to finish "Victory". Certainly looking at stories where Bruce Wayne -- whose parents always end up dead since that's the key turning point -- in different worlds he becomes a priest ("Holy Terror", think a male perspective on The Handmaid's Tale) or Green Lantern ("In Darkest Knight") or a partner of Harry Houdini ("The Devil's Workshop") can make you wonder how

differently we'd, or at least I'd, do.

Alas, poor Bill, I knew him well ... as far as I know, Bill Rotella who graduated with me from Stetson University in 1994 who served in the U.S. Army during what's now the First Gulf War is still very much alive -- as of the 2013 alumni directory I'm reading he's the city controller for Daytona Beach Shores, Florida -- and so is my brother Bob, also now in Florida, also a Gulf War veteran with specialty in chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare. Reviewing 1991's The Story of The Persian Gulf War by Leila Merrell Foster (ISBN 0516047620) reminded me of a time when some belief or at least I believed that the "new world order" would necessarily be a better thing.

Also of the last time the Soviet Union was the lid on the kettle boiling over, but I digress.

David