The Master of Verona

Project List

Gabrielle just left a comment remarking on the unliklihood of me getting bored any time soon. How true.

Though I still have to treat the one project with a degree of secrecy, at least for another couple weeks (got good news just a few hours ago, leaving only two more hurdles - but still can't talk about it), I can talk about everything else on my plate.

First off, there's the third Verona novel, FORTUNE'S FOOL, and the fourth, THE PRINCE'S DOOM. Both are half-complete. Don't ask how that happened, it's a long story.

Outside of Verona, there are two novels I'm deep into, and two more in outline phase. One of the fleshed-out novels is the Roman one, currently entitled IN THE SHADOW OF COLOSSUS. It begins with the sack of Jerusalem, and runs the length of the Flavian dynasty.

The other is my William Shakespeare/Kit Marlowe as spies novel, the first chapter of which I posted here some months ago. I'm in discussions with Shanghai Low Theatricals (of which I am a member) to serialize that starting in August or September.

Speaking of ShangHai Low, I'm working on several literary adaptations for the stage with my partners there. Then there's a personal play entitled THE EVE OF IDES, dealing with what are, to me, the holes in Shakespeare's play JULIUS CAESAR.

There are a couple of essays I'm writing/have written for Amazon Shorts, plus a couple of new Verona-related shorts that I'm shopping around.  

Finally, there are two kernel novels, both of which I've written the prologue and first chapters to. But my agent has suggested I back-burner them until the other stuff is done. Perfectly reasonable. One of these is my novel on the Fourth Crusade. The other is about Othello. 

That's the list, with one title significantly omitted for a little while longer, because the title says it all. But I can say this - it's historical fiction, and set in the 1930s. Which is why I'm listening to so much Benny Goodman these days.

Switching hats is rough, but I really like these projects, and can't wait to share them.

More soon.

DB

Working Holiday

This July Fourth has been busy, what with Dash really experiencing fireworks for the first time ("POW-BOOMS" he calls them) and lots of beach time. It's one of the great benefits of living where we do that the beach is half a block away. The night of the Fourth we kept him up past his bedtime to take him down to the beach (my mother watched Evie) to watch the Pow-Booms and listen to the live music. When they started going off overhead he was a little startled, but he was quite a trooper - what a brave kid. He forced himself to laugh through his fear.

Aside: this reminds me of his little adventure last month, when he fell off a ramp at the playground. He cried and my mother took him home. But later that afternoon he literally took me by the hand and walked the four blocks to the park to show me where he fell. Then he started playing again. I love this kid.

Anyway, this has definitely been a working weekend for Jan and me. I STILL can't talk about the project, but at the moment things are looking good. At the request of ** ******/*******, we're taking the third whack at the outline and diving even further into the research. Suffice to say, this will be historical fiction, but entirely, completely, totally unlike THE MASTER OF VERONA.

And, no, this is not the Roman novel. That is still proceeding apace.

We turn the outline in tomorrow. Wish us luck. The moment the deal is made, I'll be back with news.

Tantalizing

I have been quite silent of late. Life is busy, and there are two new writing projects (or three, depending on how you count them) and one theatre project that I am being a trifle circumspect in mentioning. Why? Because until I have a contract in hand, I don't want to tempt the gods.

HOWEVER - there has been movement on ALL of them in the last week. One is the Roman novel, and the movement is internal - I've discovered a format that has been eluding me. Whether it stays or not, it's assisting me in creating the story, so it's lovely.

But the others - ah, the others! The movement is all external, with requests for more material coming from three separate sources. It's pretty cool, I gotta say. Now, there's a good possibility that none of it will come to pass, but at the moment two of the three are looking very promising. Hopefully by this time next week I'll have news to share, and then the posts will grow more frequent.

At least, until my daughter is born. Which could also be next week, or else the week after.

So stay tuned, ladies and gents. The fun is only starting!

ps - the hints are in the Categories

The Beginning of the End

The other day I was here writing about endings. Then, the very next day, I was off-project thanks to a beginning. The irony is amusing, if not epic.

I was supposed to be working on the new (Roman) novel. But while in the shower I had realized how the final book of the Mercutio series begins. I thought I knew before, but I was dead wrong. So I towelled off and sat down, in the space of two hours churning out 3,000 words. The prologue of the final novel is writ.

Now I just have to finish the intervening nine books and we'll be all set.

Sigh. Back to Roma.

Known Endings

While I'm not big on outlines, when I'm writing I find it's good to know what my ending is. Gives me a goal to shoot for. This goes both for each individual novel, and the series as a whole.

I was thinking about this early this morning, as I mentally ran through the final dialogue to my back-burnered TV series. I've read that John Wells knew early on how he was going to end THE WEST WING. (Frankly, I think he got it wrong. When asked what he was thinking about as they flew away from Washington, President Bartlett's closing line should have been, "What's next." I thought that "Tomorrow" was a little uncharacteristic.) I've also read that Amy Sherman-Paladino knew the exact four words that were to end GILMORE GIRLS - but then she left the show in its final year after a contract dispute with WB, so we'll never know what those words were going to be.

I have to admit, there's a part of me that rebels at the notion of a fixed end-point. Having experienced the awe that comes from letting a story flow where it wants to, there's something too constraining in the idea. But I can't deny that it's helped me. Knowing how each novel in the Mercutio series ends (at least through book five) does two things. It gives me a definite goal, and it allows me to lay the groundwork not just for each novel, but several novels to come.

I'm just thinking aloud here, but since I'm often asked these kinds of questions, I thought I'd try to put down some more concrete thoughts. I guess I'm saying it good to know where you're heading, as long as the journey has the freedom to detour now and again.