The Glow That Grows Along the Horizon

Today, eight pages of basically rewriting took place. It was only after the seventh completed page that I bothered to look at the original write-up. And while I am sure that I need some seriously editing, I enjoyed the voice that settled itself into my fingertips as they skipped and stumbled over the keyboard. Once I came to end of the flowing prose and re-phrased rules-speak, I was changing the matrix from a d10 system to a variant of the d6 system that I know and love so, I decided to check out what was written before. Luckily it wasn't same.

The cadence and imagery had changed, making my hard wrought material from days of yore, at least half a year, read choppy and nervous. The rules themselves were better put, placed into sentences that were succinct and clear. That is, at least to my mind's eye, though I doubt my tortured editor will agree. Not that this experience is new to me. I grew up in the age of legal pads, typewriters, and photocopying machines. At the age of eight I was crafting works in a mixture of German and English from scores of pencils, each one named after new characters that I saw on American TV, to folded into pamphlets and read by the illuminated adults around me-- no kids allowed! Except the ones with cash in hand.  By My Hund And Other Pets That Bite was my first big hit, it sold about six dollars in one weekend. I think I bought my first issue of Kamandi with the profits. So my writing made sense sometime between Mark Twain and Julian Assange.

Minutia aside, what came next was even more heartening. When I looked at the stuff which I had already written, which had been already edited earlier, I had about 30 pages more of material that I need to add to the work that was in front of me. It occurred to me that before now, I've never had so much back material waiting to added to projects awaiting publication. And this one while being being re-fabricated has not been its own centerpiece. That means it was conceived as background for a scenario, and now is being worked on as a whole setting.

The setting is Glow, and I am finally getting my take on the post-apocalyptic world in order. How many years ago did I start this process? At least two before I started talking about it publically.