Hey all,
Well as I was a little rushed with my last post I think I ought to give you a little bit more info on my progress.
The working title of my book is "Sympathy for the Devil", but that is subject to change.
I have prepared a little blurb which (hopefully) would get people excited about picking it up, here goes...
"Now that Sidney Hollinger has died it is time for him to really start living...
Killed in a hit and run accident Sidney Hollinger awakes to find himself with a second chance at life and strange psychic powers.
Aided by a mysterious stranger and pursued by an unstoppable force, Hollinger must fight for his survival and to avert a disaster of Biblical proportions."
The gist of the story is a play on Friedrich Nietzsche's statement that "God is dead", that we have killed him and that by committing the gravest of crimes we must become as God's ourselves.
My twist on this is that God is alive and well, but kept in the dark about events on Earth by the angels and demons that work for him. If the big G were to find out about the mess that we have made then these celestial beings would lose their immortality.
Now I think it is necessary to explain a little more about myself. I am a lapsed Catholic, but no longer a believer. I have a spiritual side but I don't subscribe to any religion. This is not some kind of Bible thumping story or morality piece. I just want it to be a good story; I think I am on to something pretty good.
That doesn't mean to say I won't have any problems doing this. As I was brought up Catholic, I am fairly unwise in the ways of the other major religions. I don't want this to be just about the Christian version of God. I am going to have to incorporate the major religions into this to illustrate that they all worship the same being, but none of them have really nailed it as a religion. It will involve a hell of a lot more research, but if I am going to do it I may as well do it right.
I had this idea a few years ago, picturing heaven as being run like an office with God as the MD. He would get all his information from reports given to him by middle management (the angels), but the figures being fudged by them to make them look better at their jobs than they really are. My problem was that I couldn't ground that idea with a suitable protagonist, someone relatable who people would actually want to read about.
I got the idea for a separate story a month or two ago about a guy who came back from the dead. It was just something I was playing around with, not really going anywhere with it. The guy would have an existential crisis about the absence of God... Obviously a light bulb flashed above my head, and I had my protagonist.
He awakes with psychic powers, by coming back to life he has become something new, upsetting the natural order of things. This might get noticed, so the angels are going to take him down.
He has an ally, someone just like him who will aid him, teach him to use his powers, and fill in the back-story of why he is being chased. The thing with this is doing the back-story without too much exposition, I want to show not tell.
So here is a taster, the opening paragraph. This is only a first draft so please be kind.
“Sidney Hollinger awoke to a baptism of pain, his lungs taking huge agonising gasps of air for the first time in seven days. His heart began to beat again, feeding his blood starved muscles, still stiff from the rigours of mortis. He opened his eyes but was greeted with nothing but darkness. His senses slowly returned like a small child’s hands warming against the fire after playing in the snow for too long. The blood in his body had not yet warmed his flesh; his skin broke out in goose bumps. He began to notice the soft feel of satin caressing the bare flesh of his hands, the nape of his neck and on the bald spot on the back of his head, where the gash from his accident was neatly stitched up. In any other circumstance he may have found his coffin quite comfortable.”
Like I said, it is only a first draft, but it isn’t that bad. A little tweak here and there is all that is needed.
And so I leave you to start work on chapter two. Until next time…
Well as I was a little rushed with my last post I think I ought to give you a little bit more info on my progress.
The working title of my book is "Sympathy for the Devil", but that is subject to change.
I have prepared a little blurb which (hopefully) would get people excited about picking it up, here goes...
"Now that Sidney Hollinger has died it is time for him to really start living...
Killed in a hit and run accident Sidney Hollinger awakes to find himself with a second chance at life and strange psychic powers.
Aided by a mysterious stranger and pursued by an unstoppable force, Hollinger must fight for his survival and to avert a disaster of Biblical proportions."
The gist of the story is a play on Friedrich Nietzsche's statement that "God is dead", that we have killed him and that by committing the gravest of crimes we must become as God's ourselves.
My twist on this is that God is alive and well, but kept in the dark about events on Earth by the angels and demons that work for him. If the big G were to find out about the mess that we have made then these celestial beings would lose their immortality.
Now I think it is necessary to explain a little more about myself. I am a lapsed Catholic, but no longer a believer. I have a spiritual side but I don't subscribe to any religion. This is not some kind of Bible thumping story or morality piece. I just want it to be a good story; I think I am on to something pretty good.
That doesn't mean to say I won't have any problems doing this. As I was brought up Catholic, I am fairly unwise in the ways of the other major religions. I don't want this to be just about the Christian version of God. I am going to have to incorporate the major religions into this to illustrate that they all worship the same being, but none of them have really nailed it as a religion. It will involve a hell of a lot more research, but if I am going to do it I may as well do it right.
I had this idea a few years ago, picturing heaven as being run like an office with God as the MD. He would get all his information from reports given to him by middle management (the angels), but the figures being fudged by them to make them look better at their jobs than they really are. My problem was that I couldn't ground that idea with a suitable protagonist, someone relatable who people would actually want to read about.
I got the idea for a separate story a month or two ago about a guy who came back from the dead. It was just something I was playing around with, not really going anywhere with it. The guy would have an existential crisis about the absence of God... Obviously a light bulb flashed above my head, and I had my protagonist.
He awakes with psychic powers, by coming back to life he has become something new, upsetting the natural order of things. This might get noticed, so the angels are going to take him down.
He has an ally, someone just like him who will aid him, teach him to use his powers, and fill in the back-story of why he is being chased. The thing with this is doing the back-story without too much exposition, I want to show not tell.
So here is a taster, the opening paragraph. This is only a first draft so please be kind.
“Sidney Hollinger awoke to a baptism of pain, his lungs taking huge agonising gasps of air for the first time in seven days. His heart began to beat again, feeding his blood starved muscles, still stiff from the rigours of mortis. He opened his eyes but was greeted with nothing but darkness. His senses slowly returned like a small child’s hands warming against the fire after playing in the snow for too long. The blood in his body had not yet warmed his flesh; his skin broke out in goose bumps. He began to notice the soft feel of satin caressing the bare flesh of his hands, the nape of his neck and on the bald spot on the back of his head, where the gash from his accident was neatly stitched up. In any other circumstance he may have found his coffin quite comfortable.”
Like I said, it is only a first draft, but it isn’t that bad. A little tweak here and there is all that is needed.
And so I leave you to start work on chapter two. Until next time…
2 comments:
Philip K Dick had some exciting ideas about God being dead. (I don't think it was ever alive)
In one novel the corpse of God had been found orbiting a dead planet, he wrote that about 50 years ago - daring stuff!
Cool beans man, good work on getting something down, keep the updates coming
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