Stereotypical Failure

Well, if all full-time writers sit around in their extravagant pyjamas, eat bonbons, and fight through their hungover stupor to squeeze out a few words, then I'm in trouble. It didn't work for me. I finished one scene and started into another one, only to stall out, despite the silky nightgown and fistfuls of chocolate. I don't think the alcoholic haze would've helped. To be fair, the real problem was an uncertainty as to how the next couple scenes would play out after the one I was writing. I kept thinking about what I had to do after I finished what I was writing at the moment. Couldn't concentrate. I took a break and read some of Kushiel's Dart. Which led to me reading for the rest of the night. Here are the excuses I used for not delving back into the problem scene: Addy had stolen my chair again and slept in it for the rest of the day (and into the night); I didn't feel like changing out of my black silkish pyjamas; the book was really, really good and thus could be construed as research.

The plus side of yesterday's splurge was my inspiration for query letters. I keep thinking about my novel in terms of explaining how something like Brave New World can happen. Yet I've never used that thought in how I describe my book to editors, agents, even friends. So I grabbed Mark's copy of Huxley's book to flip through today, trying to remember if Huxley had put forth some sort of history of how Things Transpired to create his world. In Huxley's foreword, he says that the folks in charge of his world aim to create social stability: "It is in order to achieve stability that they carry out, by scientific means, the ultimate, personal, really revolutionary revolution."

And there it is. Exactly what I was looking for. The connection between HD and Brave New World. I had suspected it was there, and even known it, but had never been able to articulate it. Because that statement sums up Eugene Weber damn near perfectly. The road to hell.... And now I have something concrete to use in my query letters. Said in humble terms that could in no way be interpreted as comparing my book to Huxley's. My book, if anything, aims to be a prequel to Huxley's. A potential prequel. To explain in no uncertain terms how exactly such things can come to be. Oddly enough, that was always my biggest question when I had to read BNW in school. And it was never explained adequately to me. And my reading of BNW was poorer for it because I had a big question mark preventing me from accepting Huxley's future. Which would explain why the original idea of HD stuck with me in the first place, three and a half years ago.

I owe Aldous Huxley and Brave New World more than I realized. Damn. Guess that means I need to reread the book.