"Abandoning Paradise" - It Will Take a While But It's a Good Ride

It's a trip and a trip and a trip that I can rewrite my own history about the journey.  Nothing substantive will change but I have already chucked some negativity that arose from various things in Scotland.  The vibe of the book is in clear focus and I like what develops out of that.  Some of you may remember a segment entitled, " What About the Châteaux," but you won't see it in this version, even what it was after I updated that segment.

" What About the Châteaux" had some thoughts on conspicuous consumption which are germane to Abandoning Paradise in the ancient thinking of limited manna (i.e. there is only so much magic to go around).  Such thinking was common in tribal times and you can see from the world today they were right ... but ... that line of reasoning turns the book into a treatise on economics.  That's a fine thing to write, I just don't want to write it and I particularly don't want to write it as part of this story.  That alone will probably tell you about the editorial tone I'm taking with it.

There are secondary themes that need to be developed better. It's good any time to do something king hell crazy just because it needs to be done but still there's more than that and the story that doesn't make that clear enough.  It will this time.

Something that's glaringly absent is that the only way Cat and I could have stayed any tighter on this would have been if she were riding on the back of the scooter, presumably balanced on top of the guitar and the tent.  I was deliberately not including personal stuff of that nature but there's a problem with that:  it makes the story (cough) impersonal.  The detail of the relationship is not your business but the fact of it is a good story and that should be made more clear.

The most difficult is answering the question of why would anyone Abandon Paradise.  The problem with that kind of discussion is ending in a whirlpool of introspection that sucks you and the reader down to where you will all be shredded by giant squid.  It's not relevant to the root to answer whether I knew whether I was screwed when I did it.  That's a personal harmonic rather than something more cosmic.  Besides, if you want to be eaten by squid, it's a lot faster and easier just to login to Facebook.

Without making such things clear, it looks like Abandoning Paradise is just taking a break and going to Le Tour.  That's as good a reason as any but that isn't why I did it.  Inasmuch as I've already written two books on the subject, the question should have been answered by now but it's not so that's a big part of the focus.  It's clear to me but it's not clear from the book and that's what needs to be changed.

A writer friend said ...  (break)

These are real people now ... so:

Cadillac Man knows The Murph, a long-time writer, who said way back he was trying to write on Why Do People Fuck Themselves Up and he wasn't joking as I did, you did, we all do this.  Some are better than others about not fucking ourselves up but still we do it to whatever degree.  I smoked myself into a hole.  Some people will have Taco Bell gravestones.  Others take sedentary jobs, go to church each week, and work in a cubicle for thirty years ... then have a heart attack.  They ask why did God do this to me.  Um, God didn't do that, pal.

Why people do this means a whole lot more than some tawdry reflection of my own.  How one writes this without being eaten by squid is a deft feat.  I am not admiring myself as I didn't do it.  I'm just wondering if it can be done.

The converse of the above is using that as an excuse to write about myself and that's fucked-up too.  So, why do people fuck themselves up.  If The Murph were here, I'd ask him what progress he made in discovering the answer.

Even if it can't be done, it stops me writing about politics here or, well, much of anything on Facebook so that's got to be good.  I've finally accepted no-one will ever understand how the armadillos under the porch are going to come out and eat America.  I can warn but people won't listen so I'll hold my focus just as it is ... the book .... the book.

My first thought on waking just now was, ok, let's blast for le Tour as that is a very damn cool segment.  Right after that is Le Mans and then on to the Le Havre on the coast.

This looks like a good point for a review as the story has taken you through to the Tony Bram's Orchestra show in Saint Pourcain.  It is much better to review now rather than get any deeper and start thinking, man, I wish I had said this or that in Chapter Two.

So, don't worry about the pacing speeding or slowing in rolling out more material.  There is a great deal of thinking about what tells the story best, what makes it easiest to find stuff, etc, etc.  I am not stalled, not by any means.