Spanner R5 Update: The #amediting Resumes; Plus, the New Chapter 4 Plan

It's been a while since I've done any actual edits on Spanner. Since FAWM began, to be exact. I was so busy writing 28 songs and agonizing over my inadequate singing and playing skills that I dropped the Revision 5 edit altogether. I'm returning to the script with only the first section of Chapter 3 scripted. The R5 version will be roughly like previous versions, especially once I get it novelized.

However, Chapter 4 R5 will be very different from previous versions. Most of it, starting with section 2 or 3, will be a single sequence with several intercut threads, dominated by a completely new thread called "Capital Day" focusing on the Party's corporatist replacement for the American version of Labor Day, the very idea of which the Corporates revile as "commonist". I intend to introduce several major series themes in this chapter. The most important, though, is "the second half of the end of the Cold War", better known as "the fall of the American Empire", an America that declined into the corporatist version of Stalinist Russia and is about to suffer its fate despite the Herculean efforts of America's future (as of Chapter 15) superhero dictator. Introduced along with it: the "foregone conclusion" motif involving the story brazenly spoiling its own endings, whether they're inevitable (the aforementioned imperial collapse, already far advanced when the Conservative Revolution attempted to prevent it starting in 2012) or self-fulfilling prophecies (Henry Becket, the superhero dictator, bringing the end about by trying to prevent it).

To get the new Chapter 4 organized, I'm going to have to break open a pack of index cards for the first time in years, write the scenes on them, and fling them around. Some older scenes likely won't make it into the final version. Whatever scenes survive will surely be the most interesting.

Meanwhile, I've started the tedious process of editing all the Revision 4 chapter and section posts to read "Revision 4" instead of "Final Revision", because R4 is not the Final Revision. The actual Final Revision (i.e. Revision 5) is turning out much different from previous versions. Since Revision 5 is already turning out to be far superior to the posted Revision 4, I'm editing the posts accordingly. This will probably take a few days.

Spanner R5 #amediting update: Goals for April, Despite the Death of Script Frenzy

Now that I've shifted my focus from a particularly gruelling FAWM to the much easier (i.e. no singing and guitar playing required) NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month), I've decided I can return to the Spanner Chapter 3 script again with intent to finish. I'm not doing Camp NaNo and Script Frenzy's dead, but I'll do more than just finish one chapter: I'm going to script at least to the end of Chapter 5, and maybe even as far beyond as I can get depending on whether my muse is willing to cooperate. All I have to do, you see, is write one poem a day, and scripting is just as easy for me. In fact, I'm going to complete at least one section of Chapter 3 tonight, and maybe even two or more depending on how pleased to return to Spanner I find myself.

Not that I'm going to abandon my FAWM songs or my singing and guitar practice. I do, after all, have to prepare for July 4, when 50 Songs in 90 Days begins. But I have a series to script and a novelization to publish. Spanner will introduce me to the world. I can't give up on it.

NaPoWriMo Update: Poem #1 is "Dead Rocker Song". I still haven't gotten over this year's FAWM agonies, you see, and there was this book on the "27 Club" of dead rockers, so I wrote it in a style inspired by my reading of the Beat poets...