I am stuck.
That's no way to be. For me, stuck is slightly claustrophobic. You feel me?
And it's where I'm supposedly at my best. This should be the proverbial slam dunk.
It's not. Got no idea why. If it's a matter of words, I should be kickin' righteous ass.
I'm just. Not. Finding them.
The effort at hand is a synopsis. A freakin' insurmountable object. I need it for my submissions to agents. Which makes it a pretty critical requirement. I just can't seem to get it done.
Isn't that ridiculous. I mean, we're talkin' about my first book here. The book that's on the five-year plan. The one that I've been workin' on (it's up to 9 revisions), findin' the things that needed fixin', accommodating the odd pandemic that happens along, that kind of shit. Ever thought of that? What the impact of the pandemic is on writers everywhere, and especially writers like me, who's science fiction story occurs in the very near future—it was Halloween 2020, but I've pushed it back to Halloween 2021. I had no choice. If I had not decided to make the adjustment, the book would have seemed unreadably out of date.
So, the odd novel coronavirus aside, why can't I get a grip on the synopsis?
After all, I've been describing my story to people for years, and I don't just mean this extended time to get it written. This is one of the earliest imaginings for a novel, so I've been pitchin' the thing to myself, if nobody else, for close to a decade. Why can't I summarize in a single page?
Could it be that "The Seven Faces of Ambiguity" has too much in it? 'Cause it's got some shit in it, excluding the kitchen sink. I mean, the main character discovers that his alternate identities—tech-speak for multiple personalities—have become living, breathing beings. So instead of one main character, we have five. Plus, a hippocampus. And not to forget the shadow. That's seven main characters. (In fact, the inspiration for this story had a lot to do with Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai", as well as John Sturges original "The Magnificent Seven".)
I know, I know—how do you get a hippocampus as a main character. Simple. Meth-head, I mean, method acting.
And the shadow…if you're not familiar with Karl Jung's conception of the Shadow Self, look at the penumbral character in "Seven Faces" as an extension of that concept. The shadow is a bad whammajamma. It's just plain dangerous to give your shadow a corporeal existence.
So, the story's startin' to resemble and old sixties Sci Fi cartoon with a collection of oddball superheroes.
There's more.
There's a troupe of exotic dancers, and when we say exotic, we mean strip joint. There's some bending and stretching of physical space, which some people declare a rip off of Doctor Who (I've never seen an episode, not one). There's a proclivity for the use of alcohol and drugs. And, of course, there is the imminent threat that our heroes will be turned into xombies, which, unlike zombies, do not want your brains—they want your sex. To the death!
No kitchen sink.
If you are familiar with the aforementioned classics, you'll relate to the plot where one guy has to recruit warriors in order to protect a village/town from the forces of evil. The plot that has the main cat traveling around the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix, Arizona), searching for his alters, one by one enlisting them to go fight the band of mad scientists bent on the destruction of the human race. Serious.
It's also a mashup of Kurosawa meets" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". Our heroes are dedicated to saving mankind…but they're gonna have a healthy buzz on while they're doin' it.
I put a bunch of stuff in the story I regard as humorous. Plus, there's literally hundreds of side references, if you're lookin' closely, little Easter eggs to propel the reader to new heights of appreciation.
To circle back to my original point—that's a lot of stuff to put in the synopsis. And I haven't even talked about the plot! Aye, aye, aye…
One thing's for sure—the longer I'm here, writing unblogs…the less time I have to be working on that damn synopsis. Sheesh.
If you'll excuse me, then, I'll get back to the process. Of bangin' my head against the wall.