I've been working hard on my limp along novel. I'm been piddling with this damn thing for six years. So long in fact, that I'm being forced to rewrite some portions because technology has changed enough that some things don't make a ton of sense. I guess that is alway the risk when writing in the present day instead of a specific period. Hell, cell phones are so radically different now than they were six years ago that some parts of my novel are woefully obsolete.
A bigger issues is that a good third of the story revolves around NASA's space program and specifically, the space shuttle program. with it being decommissioned I'm writing something that is going to be dated before it gets in front of anyone who can decide if its publishable.
So I've been thinking of framing it in a specific period of time, say 2008 or so. It seems too recent to make it a period piece, and it is supposed to be science fiction, not usually the genre that sets events in the recent past.
We'll see though. I'm not too worried. I enjoy the process of writing and this feels like it's close to being readable. It takes all my free time from being here though. No cute anecdotes from me today.
6 comments:
That is a different type of science fiction novel but that certainly doesn't mean it won't be a fantastic one. Keep working forward. I can't wait to see it in print.
I've often wondered the same things about my own novels, set in present day and time. When they get published, in a year, 2 years, 3 years, will any of the references need changing? The way I think of it, if the writing's good, it'll get sold. Let an editor worry about the inaccuracies.
-Bryan
You see some authors try to get around that by not really mentioning technology all that much, but it's getting harder to do that when technology is such a large part of our lives now.
Nancy - as always, I appreciate your encouragement. Boy are you setting yourself up for disappointment if your looking forward to reading it though.
Bryan - I agree. If it's publishable then I'll let someone else tell me that I need to do something about the book being dated before it comes out. It's just something that I've been noticing as I revise some of the oldest parts of the book.
Les - Thanks for commenting. If I know I want to leave out anything that will specifically date what I'm writing but it is so hard to tell. I had finished a draft of something a few years ago that was sat in the near future (about 10 years or so) and I had them hop into a late model Chevy... when the American auto industry looked like it was going to go under I went back and changed it to a Toyota in hopes that they would still be around in the time frame the novel takes place in.
Of course it doesn't matter, but again it shows your point. Too much stuff is changing to keep things accurate.
nice post
Thank Mister Sharaf
And Les - after re-reading my comment to you it's hard to believe English is my native tongue. Could you even make sense of what I wrote?
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