File it under “you couldn’t leave it well alone, could ya?” As mentioned yesterday, I had this character, a sort of Nega Stu version of myself, and by the end of the last novel in a semi connected trilogy (phew!), he had a “nice” ending.
As soon as I entered the workforce, I found myself with a lot of downtime. I was working for Ericsson, doing this and that in telephone central, and some tests took a lot of time. You’d connect your equipment and it would test all connections, one by one, taking its sweet time. The machine would give readings on the state of copper lines, latency, and any capacitance situations (or so said the makeshift manual I had).
While waiting for the machinery to do it stuff, I’d usually belt out a draft of the report. It became almost muscle memory and I could have the “ready to fill” document in less than 15 minutes. So I’d write, do some ideas and others just let fade from memory.
A particular idea that I never felt worth typing out beyond of an outline was the final adventure of this character. Years had passed since his time in Tampico, and he was stuck in a dead end telecomm job, writing on the side. Writing what you know, yeah?
So a particular frenemy of his from the second book in the trilogy ends up working in the same company. Not by coincidence. The objective was stealing the hard drive where our Nega Stu protagonist had all his drafts and novels, and taunt him to follow him. Strange stuff happens and they both end up trapped in a small village on what seems to be Ireland, but it’s something else. Nega Stu (yeah, let’s call him now that) wanders around, at first feeling relieved of many things, but eventually becoming overwhelmed by the out of logic happenings. His “friend” regrets stealing the hard drives and tries to find a way to get them both out of the island, which definitely isn’t Ireland. It’s not reality either. There are a group of forces keeping them in. It ends ambiguous for both of them.
The main idea of the book was that both of them were yearning for the immediate past. The last years of Uni, with seem glorious with rose-tinted glasses to both of them. The actions both did on book number 2 are catching up with them, and these consequences are supernatural.
I guess I wanted to write about how I was feeling back then in that job. I chose Ireland because the times I’ve visited, I’ve felt an otherworldly atmosphere. Think Waterford, Cork, and Kerry, mostly the emerald green pastures and rock formations in their vicinity.
While writing, I was listening on repeat to both Clannad’s Harry’s Game and Enya’s Exile. The former due to being in Patriot Games, the latter because it’s crucial in LA Story. I love both films and wanted to convey the emotions the songs gave me. Longing, isolation, a smatter of hope.
Like I said, it was an outline, and never went beyond a paragraph or two. I never found and idea to fully develop and the fact that you needed to read 3 previous books made it inaccessible to the casual reader. I don’t believe I have it in me to make a full high fantasy novel, I prefer mixing genres, but I think in some cases, I end up mixing chalk and cheese. I did revisit this novel, but will write about it tomorrow.
Enya’s Watermark was a fantastic release that I grew up with. One of my brothers was into New Age music. He started with Yanni and the Narada Collection, then went into Enya and Clannad. Robin of Sherwood was a particular show we loved, and Clannad’s music was an eye opener for both of us. I think I ended up embracing Café del Mar’s chillout collections due to this part of my childhood.
Enya’s Orinoco Flow was unstoppable and Only time became a meme. There’s much more to Enya’s music, and although you might think of wine aunts and hippie uncles smoking patchouli while grooving, Enya’s music lives beyond its stereotypical boxing.
-Sam J. Valdés López
