Ron322

I’ve taken the plunge in watching Dune Prophecy since both House of the Dragon and X-Men ‘97 season finales are coming up next week. While it takes place 10,000 years before the Dune films, having the actor for Ragnar in Vikings was all you needed to sell me on it. I enjoy the premise and how it reflects the dangers of building machines that operate like humans, which seems like a very pointed jab towards Generative AI. Knowing that the source material it’s based on was written decades before what we’re seeing today in society is mind-boggling. The whole setting is post-human vs. machines in a level that dwarfs The Matrix itself and to me, that’s brilliant.

Now to address the elephant in the room. In midst of editing more of FireFrei and more writing of Drafts, the sudden surge of ability to write and edit has felt as though I had been sleeping for 6 years. Don’t get me wrong — the writing itself never truly stopped but it felt like I had been in writer’s block hell. Before, it often felt like, “oh maybe I’ll write something” or, “let’s write something and figure it out later”.

Now, when having the notebook or Notes app open in front of me, my memory feels sharp enough to where I can just work and build with little difficulty. I’ve arrived to where, whenever I run into one of those entries that clearly had a writer’s block moment, I’m able to edit it with precision. I’d say I have run into at least 7-8 pages where I had to rearrange sequences because time distance of where characters had to travel versus where a character was expected to meet them were inconsistent. Details like that are crucial because all it takes is one bad piece of narrative writing and the flow will feel whacky.

Then I ran into one important detail that exists in chapter 5 that I completely ignored when writing chapter 7 and now I arrived at a predicament for chapter 8 while also found a reason for a 3rd book for this specific series. Let’s just say that a guide that put a rough deal with Emmanuel Lucifer ended up in a predicament of his own within his own world and thus what happens in chapter 7 will make you ask who our protagonist was actually fighting.

Chapter 8 has been on pause because of the heavy editing I’ve been doing to the novel itself, as well as needing to eventually draw out the art for chapter 7 digitally. I already have the chapter 8 cover art crafted but it’s when I flesh it out on my MacBook that the magic begins. I also contemplated writing some prose to space out the chapters to give them a sense of breathing room but given how the new format of the pages are, it will no longer be necessary.

Drafts has arrived to its 10th month of chapter writing. As I’ve said before, short or long, whatever I wrote in every month’s chapter will be what will be. I will likely adopt a similar spacing format that I’ve chosen for FireFrei. I’m also opting to release those 12 chapters as an e-book first. I don’t think it’ll be long enough to justify a physical print. One thing is certain — Drafts is truly a different setting and story. My brain is simply wired differently for it.

These characters are the kind you’re walking with and observing the world they’re walking in. Is it slice of life? Yes and no. One thing I can say is that the premise is exploratory whereas the journey of Emmanuel Lucifer is one of brotherhood, overcoming adversity that has high stakes of its own. I see Drafts as a sort of palette cleanser.

There’s also one last thing I’ve wanted to bring up and it’s more of an observation on storytelling — there’s a reason that my brain goes back to pro wrestling. Pro Wrestling, particularly when seeing it at its absolute best, isn’t a complicated story to tell on its stage. Sometimes us wrestling fans can’t tell if we want to see massive entrances, big moments with some grandeur, technical clinic or a flipping gymnastic spot monkey fest. When put in balance, you can have all those things when crafted together by two very talented athletes that also know what story they want to tell.

Same goes with music. At one point in my life, especially in my early 20s, everyone around me was obsessed with being so elite, so obnoxiously technically proficient that the soul of it all was lost. Music became mentally exhausting to me and at one point, I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. Sometimes, the best music doesn’t have 500 time signature changes, 60 drum fills, 3 1/2 guitar shred sessions or self-indulgent wailing. Sometimes the best stuff is simply 3-4 chords and well-arranged instruments. Sometimes you don’t even need all that crispy and perfect production. You just need something that the artist feels totally themselves with when they sit in creating. Not every singer needs to have 5 3/4 octaves in their vocal range. Not every guitarist needs 200 pedals and not every bass player requires 6 1/2 strings with a hip shot on their lowest string. The keyboardist doesn’t always need 3 synths and a keyboard and the drummer certainly doesn’t need a 30 piece drum kit.

Jesus Christ, that all sounds exhausting. Sometimes, you truly do say more with less. I think in media, especially with film, shows or even books, a lot of people got so used to a bajillion threads and the excessive layering of characters and plots that they forgot what makes a story that touches the soul. When everything is complicated, it’s hard to truly enjoy. If everything character is complicated, you get stuck. Sometimes, it’s best to just save the layers for characters that truly need it.

In that regard, I think that is why George R.R. Martin has been stuck in terms of giving us Winds of Winter and Dream of Spring. When you let your creative ambition get too far ahead of you, decision and creative paralysis can happen. In part, I think that’s why Renoir Dessandre’s dialogue about learning to fly without getting too close to the sun in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was so impactful; too much clutter can drown you. It will consume and then kill you.