Pondering my Novel

 As I am now 6,000-8,000 words away from finishing my novel, "2012/2021" I have begun noticing the themes that I wasn't necessarily consciously aware of until I'd been working on it for several months. My intent was always twofold: To write my own Vonnegut-type of novel and to write the novel I wish I'd written when I published "Dreamers at Infinity's Core." And all it took was a global pandemic, idiots who thought it was fake despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and unbelievable amounts of selfishness and self-entitlement.

Funnily enough, the COVID pandemic is only mentioned sparingly in the novel and never by name. I felt keeping it more abstract and ominous worked better as a plot device. Besides, the main protagonist is from the year 2012, so he really has no idea what's coming in 2020. This is a novel packed with ideas and images and connections that bridge time, space and reality itself. Making it about COVID would defeat the purpose and run the risk of becoming preachy. This is not a preachy book. It doesn't slow down long enough to preach.

It does, however, deal with themes that are sure to make some people uncomfortable. It also offers answers that many would resoundingly reject for fear of feeling as if their entire lives were pointless. Others will feel emboldened by the purposefulness they find in the narrative.

Without going too deeply into the story itself, here is a list of themes I have noticed as I close in on the novel's intentionally 

• Selfishness
• Greed
• Lack of Empathy
• Self-righteousness
• Corporate dominance
• The nature of creation
• Cult-like mentalities
• Doppelgangers
• Regret
• Redemption
• Helplessness
• Courage
• Dream logic
• The soul-crushing experience of retail work
• The inherent shallowness of thoughts and prayers
• Revolution
• The death of objective thought

And that's just off the top of my head! "2012/2021" isn't so much a story as an unraveling that feeds on itself like my own mind.

I can't wait to see it get rejected over and over!