The Second Novel

Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. Life seems to have gotten in the way. I was just walking along, minding my own business and, out of no where, I discovered I am about to become a grandfather. Didn't see that one coming. Ouch. But thankfully we had some great conversations with some published writers. Thank you ladies. I wish you every success in your careers. I've just received Marva Dasef's The Tales of Abu Nuwas and will be reading it shortly.

But, this has all got me thinking about second novels. In the early 90s I remember hearing about a fantastic first novel called The Slynx by Tatiana Tolstaya. A few years ago I heard this writer mentioned on the radio in a conversation about writers and why following novels are not quite as good and it was conjectured that so much focus and effort is placed on the first novel that following novels are something of an after thought. Somewhat like the team whose goal is to get to the Superbowl rather than win the Superbowl.

And, then of course, life tends to get in the way. It certainly has for me. But, I want to tell all of you struggling novelists who are trying to convert a pocket full of post it notes into the Great American Novel that you will eventually get there. Life is a battle of minutes and inches, keep going and don't let life get in the way. The three authors who have been recently intervied on this blog did it and, as I prepare to publish my first novel The Vagabond King, I am actually a bit amazed that I did it as well. It took me about 20 years and 25 drafts but it is finally about to see the light of day.

And now on to the second novel. Are you ready for this one folks? The working title is The Mythological History of the City of Chicago. Not a title that trips lightly off the tongue, is it? Well, that's OK because the premise is a lot easier to swallow. The story is narrated by the Potawattami trickster god Nanabozho and simultaneously follows a reporter at the turn of the 19th to 20th century as he tries to discover the real cause for the Chicago Fire, while the voyageur Robert Rene Cavalier de La Salle slowly goes insane a few hundred years earlier as he tries to establish the empire of France in the New World and as the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox compete in the7th game of the world series at a time sometime in the future. Spoiler alert!.....The Cubs will win the World Series a feat that even the most faithfull somtimes doubt. And, with the Cubs victory in the World Series, the book must end with the inevitable destruction of the world.

Yes, I've got my work cut out for me. Thank God for the magic of quantum physics.