Wrapped the first draft of Khatima today. It stands at 79,000 words, making it a rather short novel, but still long enough to be called a novel by most publishers’ standards. I read somewhere that publishers were wanting shorter books these days, what with the systemic failure of Earth’s economy. Price of paper is going up and all that.

And, of course, a story should always be exactly as long as it is. When you run out of story, stop writing. This story had about 79k in it, and that’s where I stopped. So I’m not worried about the shorter length. (Papillon ended at 112k.)

Wow. My brain is fried.

Certain books went into the writing of this Khatima, and I’d like to note them.

Books that directly or indirectly inspired Khatima were:

• Rice, by Su Tong. Some guy, Five Dragons, rises to the top of an occupation-era Chinese city by virtue of his utter ruthlessness and unscrupulousness. This gave me the idea of an unsympathetic protagonist, someone unconstrained by morals - a sort of Nietzchean superman. (After having this idea, I referred, mentally, I suppose, to Crime and Punishment, the original text that critiques the superman concept.)
• Barry Lyndon, by William Makepeace Thackeray - ditto. A totally repellent protagonist, an unreliable narrator who twists his account to make himself look good, though his horribleness usually shows through. Thanks to Joel, who gave me this as a Christmas present!
• The Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe. Also features an unreliable narrator, but mostly valuable for teaching me to be fearless with vocabulary.
• Years of Rice and Salt, by Kim Stanley Robinson. The mammoth, magnificent alternate history saga that did so much to familiarize me with the cultures concerned and the nature of wisdom and history. I also took the protagonist’s name from this book. His Khatima is a much better person than mine; the name struck me as simply beautiful.
• Lord of Samarkand, by Robert Howard. His own superman theory offers good fodder for adventuring, and his use of setting is rich. I also found his treatment of Tamerlane in the title story was remarkably nuanced, and gave me some great ideas for developing my own sociopath warlord.

Those were the books that inspired or informed mine. As for research, though, I found the following texts invaluable, or at least helpful.

• The Mystics of Islam, by Reynold A. Nicholson, which I actually had to read several times throughout, and referred to as late as - today. Clear, concise, with a good selection of samples of the surpassingly beautiful Sufi poetry.
• A History of Western Philosophy, by Bertrand Russell. I’ve always loathed and dreaded reading philosophy, which created a regrettable gap in my education. I made up for it by plowing through this book. Russell makes philosophy interesting and digestible. Two of his other essays, Why I Am Not a Christian and Free Man’s Worship, informed later passages of Khatima; Khatima borrows and perverts his humanism (which I quite admire) as a tool for justifying her actions.
• Misogyny, by Jack Holland, a history of “humanity’s oldest prejudice.” Revelatory. A lot of it went into my book.
• I think I read four different histories of the Crusades. Regrettably unhelpful were Piers Paul Read’s The Templars and Stephen O’Shea’s Sea of Faith.
• The Arabian Nights, as translated by Sir Richard Burton. This volume gave me a lot of flavor and revealed much of the cultural paradigms of the time, as well as material for monsters, magic, and other fantastic elements that I was able to use. And, really, any fantasy story set in the “Orient” owes a debt to this seminal work.
• The Bible and the Koran, by God or whoever, are books to which one occasionally refers when writing a novel of religious warfare.
• The Internet, by Everyone, was invaluable, particularly gutenberg.org, the Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org, sacredtexts.org, and, of course, Wikipedia, whose loving compass encloses all mortal affairs.

And now, a break.

Posted in Khatima | No Comments »

That is, “God is love.” I feel a bit nasty after writing today’s (horrifying) instalment of Khatima, and am expiating it by reminding everyone that God - whether you mean the Neo-Platonic Source of Being, Ahura Mazda, the Pantheist Everything, the Buddhist Nothing, or the classic Abrahamic Yahweh - is love. How nice. Hugs, kisses. Feeling better.

Khatima stands at 58142 words, a mere 3358 behind quota. Good work today. Good writing, in the service of horrifying themes. As the book (indulge my pretention for a moment) is a study of the nature of evil generally and the fallacy of nihilism specifically, but disguised as a critique of organized religion and misogyny, I am ever-vigilant to make sure that it does not tip from darkness for a thematic purpose to darkness for its own sake. Today, I came close to that line, and the passage may need a heavy revision to pull it back. But, for the first time in a week, I’m not frustrated with the novel, and I’ve worked my way to the second Interlude, which means I get to shift narrators and tone and style for a few days.

I feel that the “philosophy” in Khatima is more mature than in Papillon; could be because I read some books on the subject matter this time. It feels like I’m saying interesting things. I may discover in a few months, upon revision, that I have simply rephrased banalities. It’s a danger. It comes with the territory. Ecclesiastes: “There is nothing new under the sun.” I don’t know why I could hope to escape that. But I do!

Posted in Khatima | 1 Comment »

Yesterday I wrote the sentence, “Then I decapitated the body, because that is something people like to see.” That felt like a good place to stop.
Khatima’s at about 34000 words, a little over a third of the way through. I hope to end the book around 85-90,000, shorter, more concise than Papillon, which sometimes feels like the sum of trying to make quotas everyday - viz., “I must make 500 more before I can quit! Let’s have an interview with… the Archpoet!” In Khatima, the story is doing more of the work.

Just finished reading Michel Houellebecq’s The Possibility of an Island, and it was good. The author writes with intense elegance and profundity on points with which I wholly disagree. Now I’m reading Misogyny, a history of the candy corn industry in North America - actually, I just remembered, it’s about the history of misogyny. I’m fortunate to be free of all prejudices, even against those filthy Australians, and so misogyny is something I don’t wholly understand. This is something of a handicap when writing a novel about a woman in the Middle Ages.

I’ve also been reading the Sandman comics, essential titles that I missed the first time around, probably because I was six years old when they were printed. Neil Gaiman wrote stories about stories, very interesting in the smart post-modern way that academics love - self-aware, smart, succeeding as stories and as commentary on the art of fiction and “textuality”. Interestingly, his longer arcs are less successful than the one-shot stories, some of which stand among the best comics I’ve ever read. This reinforces my theory that he is a skilled and savvy storyteller when working within strict word counts, and sloppy and dull in longer works (Sandman and Fragile Things versus American Gods). I’ve started following his blog, which is fortunately on the skilled, savvy, and brief side. My RSS aggregator doesn’t give me enough to read in the mornings, so I’ve added a few current writers: Gaiman, John Scalzi, Tobias Buckell (whom I haven’t read, but expect I’ll like when I get around to it). I can’t get enough of the information.

Maintaining a writing schedule has been difficult - first, my current school has overloaded me with work, but I’ll be out of here soon, thank Satv, and on to greener pastures, where I’m done by 12:30 every day. Further botheration includes last weekend’s hangover, “the wages of sin,” that is, followed by dog botheration. The new pup likes to wake up about an hour before I do, which makes for clinical sleepiness, which makes for difficulty in concentrating. All will be well once I change schools… the new school is the the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter–tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning—-

Posted in Khatima, Reading, Writing | No Comments »

I’ve mentioned several times that I’ve been working on “Khatima”, and you may have concluded that is the name of my next novel project. You would be correct. You would be insightful and clever. And that’s why you read my little posts.

“Khatima” is a story of revenge and the nature of evil, set in the “medieval” Middle East - mostly Syria, but also present-day Jerusalem and Egypt. The title character is Khatima, a young nun in a Christian convent in Syria; when the convent is sacked by Bedouins and she witnesses all sorts of horrible things, she declares that she will do whatever she must to keep herself and her loved ones safe. This sets her on a Nietzchean path to evil as she builds an empire and pursues her enemies with progressively brutal methods. My goal is to keep her a empathetic character by making her do the wrong things, but for the right reasons, or the right things for the wrong reasons. I want the readers to understand why she does the horrible things she does, and I want to make her actions seem justified.

It’s going to be a tough row to hoe; in Papillon, I had a protagonist who was ugly and weak, cowardly and of no convictions, yet I loved him throughout, because he was just a poor schmuck making the best of some absurdly bad situations. But some of my test-readers didn’t like the character. If Papillon, a generally okay guy with abysmal luck, isn’t likeable, I wonder how long the reader will stick with Khatima, who in the first chapter alone mutilates and murders some twenty-one people.

I want to destroy the reader’s sense of right and wrong, creating a caste of sociopaths.
I want to make the reader question right and wrong, and what’s justified in our pursuit of safety.

There is the secondary consideration of whether a sympathetic character is even necessary in fiction. Certainly, the reader needs an “in”, but how broad an opening does that need to be? I’m thinking of Blood Meridian; no one would argue that that was successful fiction, and the protagonists were rapists and murderers. By the end, though, I was happy to see them all killed. The Flashman series, which I adore, and Barry Lyndon, which I quite enjoyed, both feature irredeemable protagonists that I liked throughout. No one would want to associate with Harry Flashman or Barry Lyndon, but their unique voices make their respective narratives interesting. Lyndon, in particular, with his great resourcefulness when justifying his own actions, provides a template for my heroine.

Khatima takes a few cues from Papillon; it’s a linear story with a single protagonist and POV, and it’s set in a conglomerate Middle Ages, with real events, locations, and personages thrown together with little actual regard for dates. There are fewer jokes, as fits the grimmer subject matter. When I write, I worry that if I don’t insert enough jokes, people will get bored when reading. Perhaps because I get bored when writing seriously, so I expect the reader to get bored. But Khatima has been a joy to write. I’m at 15,000 words, right on quota. I was behind for four or five days, but a test day yesterday left me with no classes; I wrote all morning and put away about three thousand words. An infernal cold has possessed me this past week as well, which makes it difficult to sleep, which makes it difficult to concentrate, which makes it difficult to write. But I do. For you, dear reader.

I am still reading Robert Heinlein’s I Will Fear No Evil, or Sex Can Be Boring After All. How did the guy spend the second half of his luminous career making sex so dull? Stranger in a Strange Land is all about sex; Friday has sex wall to wall; but none of it is remotely interesting. I like sex; as a storytelling device, for building and elaborating upon characters; it is one of those easy shortcuts to revealing something hidden within your characters. The only thing that comes close is the “get everyone drunk” device. Count how many episodes of “The Office” feature wild drinking parties.

(What’s that? You want to know more shortcuts of the storytelling trade? Prophecies. Visions or dreams. Hallucinogenic episodes. Easy. These are the things writers do when they’re tired of thinking. I despise them where I find them. They’re very easy to use and very difficult to use well. But sex, when used properly, is more than just a shortcut; it is the medium of revelation. How many people use it properly when writing, you ask? Well, how many use it properly in real life?)

Anyway, to digress. I Will Fear No Evil follows the story of Johann Sebastian Bach Smith, an aged billionaire who transplants his brain into the body of his recently murdered and stunningly beautiful secretary. Inexplicably, her personality lingers, and they fuse. Sex ensues. Lots of boring sex. It’s not erotic; Heinlein does not write erotica! It’s hardly described, just mentioned and talked about (but not in detail, because that might get interesting). There is almost no plot to speak of; there’s hardly an antagonist, and there’s no conflict; in short, not a narrative hook on which to hang your hat.

Heinlein has some interesting things to say regarding polyamory, all of which he said better in Stranger in a Strange Land or Friday. This novel reads as a long letter of congratulation - to the characters, for having the fortune to be beautiful and rich, and to Heinlein, for recognizing the virtues of acceptance and love (free and otherwise). Everyone sleeps with everyone; there’s no jealousy, and it’s great, and everyone talks about how lovely everyone else is.

In the background, civilization crumbles. Heinlein has some rather unsavory things to say about the future of mankind - a good chunk of America has been designated “Abandoned Areas”, where government gave up and walked away - these are lawless zones, like Louisiana in the 1840s (seriously!), where one does not venture without an armed complement or armored hovercar. The law that remains is little better; the rule of law is often subverted for “common sense” or nepotistic corruption, with Heinlein winking at us as if this is really the way that the courts should be run.

How do the ugly people fare in Heinlein’s polyamory scheme? We don’t know. There isn’t a single one in the book. There are some who have the misfortune of being poor, but this is balanced by their physical beauty and moral saintliness - they’re almost Dickensian in their happy acceptance of their plight. It’s a weird beast you have crafted, Mr. Heinlein.

Heinlein’s known for bringing sex into science fiction (along with Philip Jose Farmer), but I’ve yet to read a single interesting thought from him on that subject. We should abolish jealousy. We should all sleep with each other. Great. But it’s utopian thinking, one man’s ideal that is far from realistic or practical; it ignores too many thorny human realities.
I said before that I prefer Heinlein’s juvenile books to his adult works, and this book cements that. When let off the leash of plotting, Heinlein drifts away. He’s much better when he’s trying to sell a story to kids in under two hundred pages than when he’s selling a paradigm to adults in five hundred.

Next I’ll be reading The Possibility of an Island, one of these very smart modern novels that one must not call science fiction even though they contain fictional science (in this case cloning). (I mean you, Margaret Atwood!)

Posted in Khatima, Reading, Writing | No Comments »

By the movement of the celestial bodies we know that the Earth also moves in space. The Christian idea that it is fixed in the firmament is groundless. Arabian scholars twice as learned have disproven this time and again, to say nothing of the work of the Greeks that came before. But, if the Earth moves through space, what force prevents its water, its trees, its little boys and girls and flocks of sheep and seaborn leviathans from flying into the void? Simply, the Earth circles the central point, the Central Fire, as Philolaus called it, with its back to the Fire and its face to the sun that, in turn, orbits the disk of the Earth, creating night and day. All created matter, the phenomenal world, falls toward the center; so the water stays on the surface, and so we plummet to the paving stones when pushed from a tower rather than flying into the clouds. Plato confirmed this last factor when describing the elements as each having their place, and each wanting to be in their place to fulfill the natural order of creation.

(I doubt this last. The horror I have witnessed implies that there is no natural order, that our separate parts are not moving to any order. If there is any natural force, it is entropy. I can accept that all matter falls to the Central Fire, but not that this in any way resembles order.)

What anchors Earth in place as we whirl around the holocaust? The Antichthon. Of our Earth it is the exact mirror in quantity and the exact opposite in quality. I have since embroidered this embryonic idea with many of my own truths. In importance this fact stands as the greatest within the scope of human comprehension. I feel that I had learned nothing before I learned of the Antichthon.

Posted in Khatima | No Comments »

… progresses. 6084 words as of today. That represents the addition of 2200 words after falling behind yesterday. I had two and a half hours in which to write, but some serious staring at my desktop plant had to be accomplished. It’s an arsinia japonica, and it needs water twice a week and staring for twenty minutes day.

In today’s installment, eyes were gouged out, sex done, archaic contraceptives described, and poisons measured. The story moves. I’m happy.

Tough going the next two days, with enough school botheration that I might have trouble meeting quota. Alas. We’ll make it work somehow!

Posted in Khatima | 1 Comment »

“Broad-brushed history may portray me, like Christ or the Prophet, as having lived a perfect life. This is an exaggeration. Certainly there are those among my people who say this now, while I still walk the dust of Earth; after I pass, I will endure the same deification to which all great leaders are subjected: Caesar, Alexander, Arthur of the Britons, the aforementioned Christ and Mohammad. (Impostors all!) This chronicle exists to void that possibility. I write so that none will say, “She was an angel with a sword of lightning,” or, “She was Yahweh returned in female form.” I will reveal my imperfections, catalogued scrupulously over my long and happy life, and if the result is that modesty is added to my trifling list of virtues, then so be it.”

Posted in Khatima | No Comments »