Burn the Page

Sometimes the best thing is to just burn it down.

“It’s a TRAP!”

I get an image in my head. A person who doesn’t age like the rest of us. The thought of what that looks like. How would he survive his childhood? I start writing. I throw out the first idea.

I flash to Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day,” and start thinking about all the amazing things someone could do if they had enough time to learn them. That’s cool. I write some on that.

Then I hit on something. What happens when a person who doesn’t age (or seem to) runs into modern society. Surveillance cameras, DNA, photos, fingerprints, etc. I realize, the emergence of modern-world tech can’t end well for this person.

After a while, I have 150,000 words. I think “this is great, I’m done,” and then you realize, your goal was 110,000. Now, I know, I know, some of you are like…”GIVE US ALL THOSE PAGES! WE WANT THOSE PAGES!” Because you can’t get enough from me. (I can also see some of you sticking your fingers down your throat. Don’t think I can’t.)

That’s when you read and WHAM! It hits you. Some of this is great. And some of it is good, and some of it is just in the way. I mean, even the parts that are good are bad when there is just too much of it.

So…we edit.

But it’s not that easy. There are a whole world of reasons to cut pages. Paper costs money. A narrator costs money. But the most important reason is that the story and the “world” have to have balance. In these first books I wanted to show the hard work that a real adventure takes. We all know books and movies that gloss over the “how” of the action. To me, there is beauty in this deeper dive.

But balance.

There has to be balance. And to achieve that balance, it can mean cutting, cutting, cutting to make the overall work better.

It’s not always if you write more, the reader gets more.

Oh, you TECHNICALLY get more, but it doesn’t mean you get more story. (As I work on Volume III, I have of 100+ pages of NOTES for a single sequence that will probably take up 30 pages in the book. Maybe 30.)

But I have a plan. A long term (ever-evolving) plan for this story. And some bits, no matter how much I love them, my sons love them, and my possible future dog loves them, don’t fit into that plan.

I’m sure I will hear from some of you how I should have cut MORE. And others who (if you choose to check out the exclusive bonus content) will look at the lost chapters and snippets that are in there and think, “You should have left that in!”

Both sides are right.

So I decided to try and shed a little light on the process. And give anyone who’s interested a deeper look into this evolving world.

You…are a big part of this.

When I say BURN THE PAGE, I mean it. Give me feedback. Ask questions about the world.

Do you have any theories? Leave comments below.

I Write

Writing is hard. It's not learning to be an astronaut hard. Or even parents raising a kid hard, but it's hard.

I Edit

For me, editing is the best part of writing. At least, the first couple of times through.

I Edit Again

Okay, I've edited. I'm DONE! Yay! No, no, no, I'm not done. Now, I have to start all over and go through it again. And again. And AGAIN.

Sometimes I just need to burn it

Truth is, sometimes going over a section three or four times isn't enough. That's when I have to get medieval. This redlined page is just a tiny portion of what I did FOUR DAYS before Wil Wheaton was going into the studio to record the audiobook. Four days. I mean, I hate that I lost "...tourists bounded along the sidewalks (of Paris), blissfully ignorant of the disdain the natives held for them." but sometimes you just have kill your babies.

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