why the chew toy is no longer dead

(a repeat post to show facebook & A.J. who's boss)

I've been telling people here & there, but this is the first mention in full-on, press-release style.

Since early this year, I've been working on a novel-length project. What originated as a 25-page story for a summer workshop later evolved into an 80-page screenplay-story hybrid that played a role in my master's thesis. The tale now continues advancing the full distance by becoming a book-length work of fiction devoted to various themes (mostly U.S. Liberty & wildness [including my main man, Thoreau]).

The tentative (but quite certain) title for this project is The Eventual Case of the Nacirema v. Joe Q. Patriot (& the Walden Fella)... similar to its earlier title as part of my thesis. But while the title remains similar, the word count will change drastically. I published my thesis with a German company called VDM Verlag. The contract with them allows me to re-publish those materials elsewhere as long as I alter at least 20% of the word count. I'd say I'm safely altering far more than that. More like global overhaul... being performed very gradually. (No more rushed deadlines. No more half-assed submissions. When I submit this latest version for publication, it'll be done right, dammit.)

My hope is that I can recover the chew toy as an outlet for updates, realizations, etc. If that happens, I also hope to post some other stories to zimdog pnaws... stories that influenced the sudden onset of The Eventual Case.... (But I'm not gonna post those until I "finish" touching them up, which means taking time away from the bigger picture... and right now, my brain prefers focusing on The Eventual Case....)

In revising from thesis version to book-length version, I'm revamping not only the narrative structure of the tale, but also much of the content. Eventually, I'll be posting sample sections... but only once I have a complete first draft. So for now, I'll just restate what I recently told a friend. One primary goal of the project is to fracture the narrative psyche (... whatever that means).