So, I’m editing again.
Or rather, still editing, just limping along a little faster than I have over the past few months. I manage to hammer out a chapter or two a week and if I can get out of my own way I can probably (probably!) finish this fourth draft by fall.
About that getting out of my own way thing.
I could pretend it’s just lack of energy that’s been holding me up, but at least part of it is fear. If I finish the draft, then I’ll have no excuse but to start querying again and I fear wasting the one pitch I get to every agent on my list with a manuscript that is less than perfect.
In short, it’s not being told “no” that I fear. It’s running out of opportunities to ask for a “yes”. As long as I don’t query I can luxuriate in possibility. And yes, typing it out makes it sound just as nail-bitey and tail-chasey as it is.
So I’m going to keep propping up the novel’s saggy middle so I get it back out in the world.
Still looking forward to reading your book whenever its ready, so good luck with the editing. Knowing when to declare ‘I’ve finished’ is always my own problem. My ‘almost finished’ writing projects are legion.
Apropos to your subject, today being John Dee’s birthday, I learned a filmmaker is looking for a Babalon:
https://www.backstage.com/casting/scrying-of-angels-361688/
I remain hopeful there might be a full-length dramatised treatment of the angelic conversations at some point, but I’m glad the musical proposed many years ago (and yes, I have heard a recording of the songs) didn’t materialise.
Hi! Thanks for your comment and your continued interest 🙂 What are some of your unfinished projects?
Also thanks for the link to the casting call – I took the liberty of posting it to my author Facebook. I too would love to see a dramatized version of the conversations, but they are so convoluted, far ranging, and require so much specific knowledge about early modern occultism that I doubt it could be done – even an attempt would require a miniseries at least! I cut huge amounts of the historical reallity out of my book just to hammer it into a single novel!
Five items relating to Dee and Kelley, two book-length and three substantial essays, all but one of which cover areas that haven’t been addressed before (or at least not in any depth); and a great deal of material concerning the influence of ‘A True and Faithful Relation’ on seventeenth century magical practice. Unfortunately none of these are really commercial propositions (the likely readership for any of it will be small), so I lack impetus to finish things. This on top of my own inclination to keep tinkering with work that probably doesn’t require any more attention.
As a reader I’m quite demanding and can be highly critical when it comes to factual writing about Dee and Kelley. I’m invested in the subject and if anything over-familiar with the detail. Some books (often those with ‘enochian’ in the title, or by an author I won’t name) end up being flung aside accompanied by a string of foul oaths. With fiction, I don’t have the same expectations. Anyone so inclined can research facts, but not everyone can tell a good story. It’s the author’s creative imagination that’s at play and I can suspend rational objections to simply enjoy the story in its own right without worrying too much about the detail. The world in which it is set and the population may be familiar, but a writer of fiction applies their own interpretation of events and approaches it from a unique perspective. I don’t have that sort of creativity – I wish I did – so I’m always intrigued to see how those who do will conjure this fascinating cast of characters into existence.
I was shown a script for a proposed film many years ago, but nothing came of it. Interesting in that it was told from Kelley’s point of view, but it descended into some well-worn tropes. Only a few years now until the quincentenary of Dee’s birth, so there might be a spike in interest.
I’m one of that small group who would read your books! Maybe not understand all of it, but I’d certainly have an interest! I’d be interested to read what you have if you’re willing to share.
In my research I discovered a lot of material out there on both Dee and Kelley that leans heavily on information passed down from incorrect sources. Like you I’m frustrated by them but it’s also an interesting exercise to chase these myths back to their origins. I’ve found they often trace back to something written 100 or so years ago that was based on incomplete or biased information that is taken for truth simply because it’s been around so long that no one bothers to go back to the primary sources.
I’m intrigued to hear that the film treatment you read was from Kelley’s point of view. As fiction goes, I find his story to be the more interesting and obscured, and hence, the easiest to fictionalize.