The conversation started with something I posted here:
viewtopic.php?p=12871#12871
...and continues with a reply from Mikado and another from Victoria.
First, I posted:
Then Mikado replied:Paul S wrote: I'm just not entirely certain what "Phase Two" is going to be yet. I know that part of it is reckoning with what has been done and finding the way forward.
To that end, I've had all the chapters compiled into a single document.
Would you believe 550 pages??
I'll be there's a really solid 250-300 pages in there. The challenge is (still?) identifying the unifying themes, and making sure that whatever editing takes place from here serves the purpose of amplifying those themes. I'm trying to find somebody to help me with modifying the code for the forums so that I can start (and moderate) a new 'Golden Threads' topic.
The dialog that has continued since that "last chapter" was posted continues to be very valuable. You guys keep picking up on "markers" that have been left along the trail and are worthy of further examination. I'm following a lot of your leads, even if I don't comment on all of them.
To which Victoria responded:Mikado14 wrote:Well, the first thing to be edited out are the chapters were you stepped out as the writer and addressed the reader directly as to your position. I would assume, from reading your other book, that that would be deleted.
To which I'd have to say: I'm with Victoria on this one.Victoria Steele wrote:I LIKED it when you turned to your readers and spoke what you were thinking. Thats some of the best part of it all, how this story is striking you and changing you as you continue on the journey! Cause you are sort of speaking for us too. We become more involved through your eyes.
I came to the conclusion a while back that there are actually THREE story lines which need to be woven together somehow to make this work. There is the Primary "Townsend and Josephine" story line; there is the secondary "Morgan and Linda" story line; and there is the "Paul and the Story" story line, which in its own way reveals as much about this story as either of the other two story lines.
The nature of this story is contained not only in the primary narrative, but in the WAY that narrative was revealed: the fits and starts, the dead ends and cul-de-sacs, the the leads that spun off into thin air, etc. More importantly, the relationships that I formed along the way: with Linda, with Morgan and "Boston," and even to some extent with you all here, I think are an important component of what makes the whole thing breathe.
I also think that there is some roughness, some unevenness, in how that angle is expressed. It starts with those "Notes from the Rabbit Hole" chapters -- where, as Mikado points out, I was deliberately stepping out of the other story lines and describing my own experience.
But after Lt. Brown resigned from the Navy in 1942, I declared that was the end of "Part 1: White" and the beginning of "Part 2: Black" -- because that is the beginning of the time when Townsend Brown's activities really went behind the curtain. "It's all 'Rabbit Hole' from here on out," I think I wrote, and then I just started slipping into the first person when ever it suited the situation.
That's a kind of inconsistent approach, and I have to find a more consistent way of handling those voices the next time around. But I think that perspective is indispensable, that describing the difficulty in getting ANY of this story is as much very much a part of the story, and says as much about the story as any of the actual anecdotes or accounts.
I'm curious to hear what other who have been along for the ride think along these lines.
--PS