Susan
The Amazing Adventures
of Sara Corel
A novel by Toomey
News
This update:
July 17, 2000
Still
no new chapters, I'm afraid. I've done a major site revamp,
fixing a few things that have bugging me for a while. I added
some new material to the Proper Waffles
page, including two new short stories (Mark MCLXXVI
Protector and Close Encounter)
and a review of Kiki's Delivery Service.
Also, my poetic tribute to the Aurora Universe, The Last Scribe,
is linked. And there's some new Q&A's in the FAQ
you might want to check out. Eventually, I'll try to reproduce some of the hundreds of letters
I've received from readers over the past year or so.
It's not writers'
block or anything. I really do spend a lot of time 'writing' in
my head, trying to work out all the angles and continuity. Also,
I spent a great deal more time than I expected in editing and
rewriting the first two books. I don't know if I actually have a
realistic chance of getting any of this published in some form,
but I don't want to be nagged by a little voice telling me I
need to take care of all the niggling details 'just in case'.
Summer is the slowest
time of the year for my band, so I should be able to get into a
sorta total immersion zone once I get past the grunt work. The
two Interludes only took about a month each to complete from
start to finish, so I can really crank this crap out when I get
a chance.
July 4, 2000
Still no new chapters, I'm
afraid. What I've been doing is some rather exhaustive editing and
rewriting of books one and two of the Susan trilogy. Probably nothing
you'd notice all that much if you reread everything, but important
nevertheless. Essentially, I've prepared my manuscripts, in Word97 DOC
form, for eventual submission to a publisher or agent. I don't really know
how I'm going to do that yet, but I want to be prepared. I must admit to
being somewhat intimidated by the prospect and understand that as an
amateur author with no credentials, my chances of actually getting anybody
in the business to read Susan are not good. Still, with nothing
hanging over my head from the first two books, I can proceed with Book
Three without any distractions.
One of the side effects of
having done this is that I also made RocketBook editions. If you don't
know what a RocketBook is, you really should check out this link: www.rocketbook.com
— I've had one for a few months now and use it all the time. As time
goes on, electronic publishing in general will become more and more
important, and this is a giant step in that direction. There is already a
substantial market for RocketBooks, so I'm going to test that water very
shortly. Stay tuned for further developments.
I've added permanent links to
these files on the Home page. If you want to experiment with a RocketBook
without having to actually buy one (you cheapskate), you can get an
emulation of one that runs on your computer. It looks and functions just
like the real thing and is not a bad way to read electronic publications.
It's called an eRocket and you can get it here: http://www.rocketbook.com/eRocket/index.html
There are thousands of free
books available for this reader, including — so far — Susan, Books One
and Two (click on the links). Any of you
who try this out, drop me an email
and let me know what you think.
June 23, 2000
I've been getting a lot of
email from readers wondering when I'm going to get back to work on Susan.
I appreciate the interest and apologize for taking such a long break, but
I really needed one after finishing the Second Interlude. I gotta make a
living, you know — this writing stuff is just for grins. At least, for
now…
There are a lot of things I have
to catch up on before I start on Part Three, mainly a thorough rewrite and
careful editing of Part Two and the Second Interlude. Then, I have to do
the same thing to Part One and the First Interlude (again) and repeat the
process yet again for P-3 and I-2. When I'm done, I'll have the first two
books of the Susan trilogy completed and ready for some kind of
publication.
Trilogy? What's this
about a trilogy? Yes, it seems that I've gone completely overboard
on this silly story and wound up with a lot more material than could
possibly fit in one volume. Therefore, I'm splitting everything up into
three arbitrary 'books' (for which I haven't yet come up with titles).
They're about 85-90K words each, so they are normal book length (doesn't
seem like it, does it?). Each 'book' will comprise twelve 'Part' chapters
and eight 'Interlude' chapters, except that the last book will have a
Postlude (instead of an Interlude) that will be only two chapters, along
with some supplemental material and maybe an index or a related short
story or essays.
So 'The First Book of Susan'
(working title) is comprised of the Prologue, Part One and the First
Interlude (plus the Epilogue) — chapters 1 - 20 (already completed,
barring minor edits and revisions). 'The Second Book of Susan' is
comprised of Part Two and the Second Interlude — chapters 21 - 40 (also
done, with the same caveats). 'The Third Book of Susan' is comprised of
Part Three and the Postlude, chapters 41 - 54, along with some other crap.
The organization of the whole
thing is very symphonic in nature, which is deliberate on my part.
Essentially, the various Parts and Interludes correspond to 'movements',
so it's a sort of literary symphony in five movements, along with an
'overture' (the Prologue) and a 'finale' (the Postlude).
Weird, huh…
As for what to expect in Part
Three, Alex is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances.
Wayans and Robbins are making sure that he is kept safe and healthy,
though he is deliberately cut off from any kind of contact with the rest
of the world. As we all know, the government is incapable of maintaining
any kind of long-term secrecy from determined investigators, and there is
an extensive underground dedicated to freeing Alex and returning Susan to
operational stautus.
Mrs. J has mobilized her old KGB
contacts and is working at Wayans Manor as a cleaning woman, along with
some of the Cubans posing as gardeners. Dinah is using her legal
networking to try to organize resistance to some of the more egregious
excesses of the Wayans regime. Louise Layne is part of the team, bringing
the resources of her investigative press contacts to bear to develop
leads. And Lanna — yes Lanna — is the glue that binds the whole effort
into a unified whole. Her organizational skills are essential, and she's
able to provide funding.
It seems that Jimmie is a
complete tool of Wayan's gang. He knows nothing about the underground
rescue attempt and in fact exposes some of the conspirators. He has become
fabulously wealthy marketing computer and software technology that he has
gleaned from his association with Sara — but Lanna controls his money. The
first third or so of Part Three will be mostly an action/adventure tale
revolving around the rescue of Alex and the reactivation of Susan,
starring the four women.
When Sara/Susan finally returns
to the story, she won't be quite so naive…
May 24, 2000
The Second
Interlude comes to an end with Chapter 40, The
Flesh and the Spirit. I am exhausted. There will be no new chapters
for a couple of weeks while I try to recover.
May 20, 2000
It's Armageddon,
Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods, all Hell breaking loose, death,
destruction, mayhem and a generally bad time as Chapter 39, The
Angel of This Place, gets underway.
May 14, 2000
Sara returns to
the humans in preparation for The Final Battle,
which finally starts in Chapter 38. She retraces her route, coming full
circle as she realizes just what it is that makes this whole thing
inevitable.
May 8, 2000
At The
Congress of Gods, Chapter 37 of Susan, Sara joins the party on
Olympus. She finds out a lot of what's going on, but — as usual —
doesn't necessarily understand much of it.
The part of Karl
Marx was played by Karl Marx — a dozen of his more famous quotations
culled from the 'Net. The part of Crom was played by Ed Howdershelt.
April 27, 2000
Sara's new
friend gives her the guided tour of All the
Heavens of Earth in Chapter 36. She has a chat with some of the
natives on the way to Asgard, where Odin enlists her help as a serving
wench and Brunhilde enlists her as a pawn in the gods' eternal sibling
rivalry, giving Sara a chance to exercise her greatest super power.
April 23, 2000
Sara meets some
of the mysterious entities Down In the Valley,
Chapter 35 of our little saga. Mark Twain wrote an excellent story titled
'An Extract from the Diary of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven'. So
what's it like? Perfect, of course. At least there's plenty of ice
cream…
Sara makes a new
friend, who looks an awful lot like a Velorian. Maybe they're related.
April 14, 2000
The next stage
of Sara's journey begins in Chapter 34, The Final
Muster. Remember the Alamo?
Tomorrow is tax
day. I sure hope I get the damned thing finished — and get to keep some
of my hard-earned savings (what savings?).
April 4, 2000
The Second Interlude now begins,
following the death of Sara at the hands of President Wayans. In Chapter
33, Welcome to Hell, Sara gets to go to the bad place for
a little visit. She meets the guy in charge and they have a nice chat.
I'm on a real writing Jones
these days, so I don't know what's going to happen when I finally have to
do something about those pesky income taxes. I don't understand why
desperately poor musicians have to pay taxes, anyway…
March 31, 2000
The end of Part Two, Chapter 32,
Death, is now online. Everything that I have
been leading up to so far gets tied together. In fact, I thought it would
be a good idea to put a few hyperlinks here and there to be able to go
back to a few of the foreshadowing bits to refresh your memory (just use
your browser's 'back' button to return).
I will have to do some work for
the Infernal Revenue Service before I can embark on the next stage of our
journey. It should be a lot of fun, since Sara goes to Hell. Oh, and
Heaven, too.
March 27, 2000
Politics
rears its ugly head in Chapter 31. An alien visitation like Susan is bound
to have an effect on the world at large. This kind of thing really would
change everything, and there are people who would take advantage of it. A
lot of threads are starting to come together as Part Two nears completion.
Things are suddenly getting ugly.
I have done a significant
rewrite of the book, fixing a lot of things that have been nagging at me
for some time. I also reorganized it,
numbering the chapters consecutively all the way through the various Parts
and Interludes. I plan to add an eight-chapter Postlude set in the distant
future. The resulting Parts and 'Ludes will eventually be divided into
three Books, making a trilogy of the Susan story. I will publish Book One
(Part One and the First Interlude) and Book Two (Part Two and the Second
Interlude) — names to be decided later — in e-book format as soon as I
finish the Second Interlude.
If you haven't been paying
attention to happenings in the world of publishing lately, you should really check out the Rocket e-Book. I have
one and it's The Next Big Thing.
February 21, 2000
Chapter
Ten of Part Two is titled Money. I know it's
probably neve been done in the comics, but why can't Sara use her talents
and abilities to make a few bucks? The gang gets together at Mrs. J's to
hear Sara's latest announcement and one thing leads to another — you
know how it is…
Only two more chapters before I
close out Part Two. I will probably wait to release all of the second
Interlude at one time, since it's going to be another weird trip that
would be frustrating to read serialized. Don't worry, though. It won't
take all that long to finish, since most of it is already 'written' in my
mind. The first Interlude took only four weeks to write, which is about
how long it took me to write this chapter…
Also, one other note. I've
decided to embrace em dashes and ellipses — knowing full well that some
browsers and operating systems will display question marks instead. I'm
retrofitting all my previous chapters to use them instead of three hyphens
or three periods (which sometimes get broken at the ends of lines and look
silly).
For those people who insist upon
using cranky geek browsers, you oughtta know by now what it means to get
the Dread Question Mark Disease. Either get used to it, switch to a
mainstream browser, or drop dead.
I'm a writer. I need all the
legitimate tools I can get. I'll be damned if I'm going to give up all the
punctuation to which I'm entitled just so a few people can feel like
they're defying Bill Gates (or whatever).
Ooh, that felt good…
January 24, 2000
Jeez…
Finally a new chapter. I really apologize, but it has been very busy
in my real life. Of course, December is normally full of gigs, but I didn't
expect to have so many jobs in January. Not that I'm complaining — I
really need the money. Maybe I can get that operation I've been saving up
for…
On with the show. In Chapter Nine
of Part Two, Interview, Sara finally commits to
being interviewed on national television. She even shows up on time and
stays for the whole thing. And everyone (including you) finds out why Sara
chose the name Susan. This has got to be the longest setup for a bad joke in
history.
One other brief thing. For those
of you who are fans of the Aurora Universe websites of Sharon Best, Macbeth,
AK and Ed Howdershelt, you might enjoy something I wrote as a sort of homage
to the Velorian concept of our favorite flying blonde. If you aren't
familiar with the AU, do yourself a favor and check them out (the links are
on the Proper Waffles page). If you know all about
the Arions and Tetrites, Protectors and the power of super libidos in
action, then you might take a look at The Last
Scribe. It's something completely different…
November 29, 1999
In Chapter Eight of
Part Two, Singapore, Sara meets the
President of the United States. Nobody knows what he whispered
in her ear, but she left in a hurry.
November 19, 1999
Sara makes her
official Debut in this week's chapter
at the NASA press conference — from Hell. Lots of surprises in
this one, along with some stuff I hope you find to be amusing.
November 13, 1999
In Chapter 6 of Part
Two, Scrutiny, the boys and girls at NASA happily
get to work on the incredible puzzle that Sara represents, without much hope
of actually learning anything useful. Inevitably, word leaks out to the news
media that something is going on, and pressure builds to let the world know
what's happening at the mysterious Area 52 at Johnson Space Center in
Houston.
October 14, 1999
In an unexpected change in my storyline, Sara entertains some important
guests at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Alex and I both spent
some time there as kids, so it's kinda nice to virtually revisit my old
stomping grounds. Part Two, Chapter 5: White Sands
was a lot of fun to write. I hope you like it.
October 9, 1999
Some of you may have noticed a projected chapter named 'Taipei' on the Table
of Contents page for Part Two. It was going to be Sara's first major
public outing as Susan, coming to the spectacular rescue of victims of an
earthquake in Taiwan. Well, those bastards had to go and spoil everything by
having a real eathquake. Back to the drawing board…
Anyway, the this update's brand
new Chapter 4: Setup, got completely carried away.
I sometimes don't really know what's going to happen with this story, so I
can't wait to see what happens in the next chapter. Should be noisy and fun.
I'm back in the groove now, so I
should get new chapters out pretty fast. Try to keep up, if you can.
October 7, 1999
This has been an incredibly event-filled last two weeks, beginning with my
appearance in court on September 20. For those of you who have been keeping
track of my ongoing personal crisis, that date was to have been in important
step on the way to my divorce, with all the stress and life-changing
consequences that go along with such a catastrophe. In somewhat of a
surprise, the two attorneys for my ex-wife and I got together and came up
with a plan to put an end to our misery right away. We accepted the
agreement and I moved out of my home that very night.
I am now divorced — though the
actual date of finality is not until the 22nd of October. My ex-wife keeps
the house, her business and her bills, and will pay me half the equity in
our home. So I will not have to live in a cardboard box under the freeway
after all. Until the end of the year, I am in an efficiency that my sister
is renting to me, after which I will move into a much larger place that will
accommodate my recording studio.
The move — plus some rather
hectic musical engagements (one of which involved my singing the National
Anthem in the Astrodome! I remembered all the words, didn't crack a note and
never grabbed my crotch…) — was just a mess. I got very little sleep for
several days and put in a lot of hard labor. Also, my sister's apartment
wasn't exactly ready to be moved into, so there were workmen around doing
things like plumbing, carpentry, painting and gluing formica onto the
kitchen countertops — which made me higher than a kite for a few days.
Fact is, I have been completely exhausted for the past two weeks and am only
just now starting to get a little routine normalcy back into my life.
So, gentle readers, that's why
you haven't seen a new chapter in the last fortnight. But never fear — I
will start back to work on Susan this very evening. I've actually been
carefully honing the next two chapters in my twisted mind, so it should go
quickly. With luck, I may have both chapters ready by next Sunday.
I thank you all for your patience
and your expressions of support and encouragement through all of this. I
expect to concentrate on my work and my writing for the next few months,
which should benefit from the attention and the availability of
distractionless time. I also promise to answer all email in a timely manner,
so keep those cards and letters rolling in.
September 19, 1999
Susan, Part Two, Chapter 3, Clear Lake, is on line.
Jimmie returns from his honeymoon, and Alex and Dinah finally hear from
NASA.
September 12, 1999
Susan, Part Two, Chapter 2, Enterprise is ready
for your reading enjoyment. It's my longest chapter yet.
Sara takes a short vacation and
has a lot of fun on board the Enterprise — but it's not what you think (is
it ever?). I hope you'll have fun, too.
One more thing — goddamn it ,
people, I know you're out there (I can hear you breathing. Ba-dump-bump
<crash>). So write me! Let me know what you think. C'mon, I can take
it. Here's the e-mail link: Toomey
And if you do happen
to like my work, then tell someone, alright? Hey, I'm not getting a
dime for this. All I get is whatever smidgen of satisfaction you people can
give me in return by dropping me a note — or buttonholing strangers in
airports and proselytizing converts to worship me as a god. Is that too much
to ask?
ADDENDUM:
After a few comments from my fellow Aurora Universe Writers' Group
authors, I have greatly extended and revised the 'Enterprise' chapter.
They said it ended too abruptly, and they're right. That's what I love
about writing on the Net. Can't get away with a damned thing. So I got up
off my lazy butt and made my longest chapter to date even longer. But I
think it's worth it. (I'm gonna have to stop uploading first drafts.)
There's a little note at the end of it that might get me in trouble, if
I'm lucky.
ANOTHER
ADDENDUM:
I just can't seem to get it right. Evidently, I fixed everything but the
part that needed fixing. The decision was unanimous, so I'm gonna try it
again. Sheesh, if this keeps up, this chapter will be as long as Clinton's
nose.
September 5,
1999
No more excuses — I have removed the Excuse
page link from the Home page. Susan, Part Two,
Chapter 1: Attention is now on line. Just
follow the links.
Well — what are you waiting
for?
August 31, 1999
I have temporarily added a hit counter to the distant bottom of the Home
page. It's a 'freebie' from Xoom, which means it comes with garish ads. I
hate to muck up my nice, clean website with junk like that, but I want to
do a little research on what kinds of browsers readers are using and where
they come from. This counter does all that, along with some other nifty
little things. It also comes with a Guestbook — which nobody ever signs.
Of course, anybody who does leave their e-mail address in the
Guestbook will be notified when I add more chapters to Susan.
Which brings me to point number
two. My divorce has settled into a protracted Cold War with lawyers
battling off screen somewhere. I have barricaded myself in a sound-proofed
room I built in my office (it was supposed to be my recording studio, but
now I'll never get to use it before I lose it). Here I sit, pecking on my
computer keyboard, peering through the thick, double-paned glass 'control
room' window into the rest of the house through my office door. Sometimes
my soon-to-be ex-wife passes by, sometimes my stepson or his friends,
occasionally I can see in-laws or visitors. When everybody goes to bed, I
sneak into the kitchen and steal food from the refrigerator. Hmm… I'll
be right back. [time passes]
Most of the depression and
anger has faded. I'm looking forward to starting my life up again — soon, I hope. But I have decided not to wait any longer to begin writing
again.
Yes, my long-suffering readers —
Sara lives! This very morn, I shall begin Part Two. I have a whole lot
of material eager to leap from my brain into yours.
Actually, I have been carrying
on with some extensive e-mail-bound musings amongst my august fellow
authors in the Aurora Universe Writers' Group and certain readers who are
as entusiastic about the backstory as I am. We have discovered many things
about my principle character and her friends and enemies. Things which you
shall discover over the coming months as I try to keep up with a schedule
of at least one new chapter a week, culminating in the release of the
complete Interlude Two as a Christmas present for each and every one of
you, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, religious
affiliation, sexual orientation, cultural identity, fraternal
organization, political persuasion, disability, class distinction, rank,
ethnicity, bent, obligation, union membership, degree, marital status,
social standing or preference (void where prohibited by law).
So echo these glad tidings from
every rooftop! The drought is ended, the fount of imagination has been
released, there is joy in Muddville! Go unto all the web and say
unto those you meet, "Sara returns!" Look closely, for ere long
you shall see the long awaited hyperlink to Part Two activated, heralding
the start of a new voyage of wonder and delight. For verily I say unto
you, that before this very month hath ended, then shall your patient
vigilance end.
August 28, 1999
Added a link to the
newly named Images page, since I now have a grand
total of two pictures of Sara. Whoo-hoo! The new one is a drawing
by an unknown artist with the color scheme done right (by me), according
to Part One, Chapter Two: Arrival. I'll probably
add more pix from time to time, but what I'd really like to find is
a good illustrator (hint, hint).
August 25,
1999
Added
first half of Millennium Summer travelog to Proper
Waffles Page.
Extensive
Interlude One rewrite:
-
Changed
a lot of character and place names (for obvious reasons)
-
Broke
up Chapter 1 into two chapters
-
Made
numerous revisions to nearly every chapter
-
Made
the Epilogue into a separate page
I recently learned that certain HTML characters or character codes do not
necessarily work on — for instance — Mac and Unix browsers. So I'm doing
a lot of experimenting. The chief problem seems to be the 'em' dash — which I use a lot. I hate to have to use three 'minus' dashes (hyphens), but
the people who designed HTML evidently don't read much, since there are
other obvious text layout issues that require some very annoying and
time-consuming workarounds.
You may have noticed, for
instance, that this site uses narrower columns than you've become used to
seeing on other sites, as well as paragraphs that are not separated by a
blank line and have the first line indented. I believe that this makes my
narrative a whole lot easier to read. There are well-known readability
issues involving such things as 'scanning' that are old hat in the
publishing biz but have not been addressed by website assemblers and
software writers who evidently have never noticed that this is the way
just about every f***ing book ever printed is laid out. Why is the Web
as a potential publishing medium designed by illiterates?
It absolutely astonishes me
that the 'Tab' key will not indent a line in any WYSIWYG website
builder currently used by members of the AUWG. I cannot understand why I
can't reliably use an 'em' dash. I don't know why I can't write something
in Microsoft Word that doesn't come out formatted differently when I
export it to Microsoft FrontPage 2000. It is unbelievable that you cannot
design a website that does not get trashed by AOL. It staggers the
imagination to try to figure out why Microsoft ever invented something as
stupid as 'Smart Quotes' for a program that purports to create
Internet-ready documents. It is unbelievably frustrating to learn that
every apostrophe in your website is sometimes rendered as a question mark —
if at all. Oh, and on and on and on.
Anyway, if you see anything
that looks 'wrong' in any way, I'd sure appreciate it if you would drop me
a line.
August 10, 1999
Redesigned
Home Page (to facilitate search spiders)
-
Added
tease boxes for future expansion: Interlude Two and Part Three
-
Added
link to new 'Excuse' page
-
Included
Meta tags, registered with major search engines
-
Added
link to new 'News' page
Added
question to FAQ page
© Patrick Hill, 2000 |