chapter one FINALLY!

Chapter One is online. And I want to tell a tale of 'the story so far...' here.

Seven years ago I conceived of a lush fantasia in a weirdly altered modern world. I dreamt of a ship that flew on the electricity of a dreaming man's mind, of a Persian empire that fought a neverending war against a non-sentient fast-evolving plant life, the Green Goo. I dreamt of a man's quest of Eurasia to a mystery in the heart of a ruined Australia so astounding that it would test my and my reader's credulity to the utmost limits.

Then I forgot about it.

Four years later I conceived of a modern United States founded along tribal and nomadic lines, combining organised Christian views with American Indian realities in a seamless ritualistic unity.

Gradually I began to work backwards from the Vision to the necessary conditions.

Return To Gaia was conceived two years ago as a simple adventure novel. Unfortunately that did not explore to my satisfaction the characters and themes to the fullest. So I worked on it.

Now about a hundred thousand works exist on the subject already. I am quite familiar with my characters' lives and worlds. I am no longer a stranger to the science fiction and science behind the subjects, since my desire to understand how the novel works has drawn me to understand a number of difficult subjects.

So all this background I humbly give, more because I would like to release it and focus 101 percent on the present work and the work at hand, than because I am showing off about how lengthy the process of invention has been so far.

The recent process of writing has involved fixing the context correctly, about six months ago, and allowing the themes to gravitate into place around that context (in the last three months), and the characters and plot thereby (this month). My several dozen possible openings have been placed aside or deeper into the layers of the plot, and I have driven the opening of the action back until I have found an insertion point which satisfies the multiple demands of an exceptional opening to a excellent novel.

Writing these few words has been beset with the very best kind of difficulties. This first small section is nothing much; a few hundred words. But I am pleased with it so far, so I take this little option to do a bit of well earned gloating. Yay me! :-)0