Tag: Bridgetown Trilogy

Catching up on reading

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My bedside reading pile looks a little less ominous these days as I’ve thinned it out a little bit, finally finishing up some titles and getting rid of others that didn’t quite work for me. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been rereading a few books by favorite authors in preparation to read a newer title in the same universe that I haven’t gotten to yet.

Recently I’ve finished Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game in preparation to start reading the third in the Cygnus Beta series, The Blue, Beautiful World. I’d read them way back in the summer of 2015, and though I clearly remember loving the books, it seems I’d forgotten why, until reading them again. The style is very much in my wheelhouse, and must have inspired or influenced me in some way, as the books’ style is very similar to mine. I read these right about the same time I’d been working on self-publishing the Bridgetown Trilogy, so I must have been looking for something to inspire my future projects.

There’s also the fact that with age and maturity (even within the last decade), I hadn’t noticed just how brilliant the setting is: it’s a story regarding a dying planet that could have been grimdark and dystopian…but wasn’t. It’s about what happens to the survivors, learning to live and adjust to new planets and new cultures, and focuses on a group of people dedicated to ensuring this emigration is successful. It’s actually kind of hopeful without quite being hopepunk.

This, by the way, is similar to the setting of my current WIP Theadia: a story regarding a possible incoming war between galactic sectors…but isn’t merely about the war itself. It’s about what happens to those about to be affected by it, and focuses on a group of people dedicated to ensuring the damage is minimal. Purely coincidental, by the way, considering I hadn’t reread the two books in nearly a decade, but on the other hand, I’m kind of secretly thrilled that I feel like I’m pulling it off. Rereading this series basically said to me, yeah, you can write this kind of thing and get away with it.

My next reread will be Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station which I remember really liking as well, followed up by his recent book Neom, which takes place in the same universe. I was especially drawn to the first book with its origins as separate shorter stories that ended up telling one larger story, and that in itself inspired me to want to someday write a novel with a similar setup. My sometimes-trunked, sometimes-not project Can’t Find My Way Home briefly had a new life back in 2017, partly inspired by that.

So in short, what I’m thinking is this: perhaps it’s time for me to do some more serious catching up on reading, because obviously I’m finally being reminded where my inspirations and influences come from, and maybe find something new in the process!

I am back! And with books on sale!

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Hey there! I’m glad to be back with a (hopefully) regular schedule here at Welcome to Bridgetown! It’s been a busy month of getting caught up, readjusting my writing process, and even making future plans that I think will be fun!

In the meantime, all of my books — including the newest one, Queen Ophelia’s War! — will be on sale FOR FREE over at Smashwords for the entirety of July! Come on, you know you want them! And you can find them…

HERE AT THIS LINK!

More to come soon!

It’s Read an EBook Week!

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Time to drop a shameless plug again — I’ve got all six of my ebooks available for FREE over at Smashwords (and Draft2Digital, of course) this entire week, so if you want some fun reading, have at it!

There’s a little bit of everything in there for you:

Feel like an epic trilogy full of supernatural action, magic and intrigue? Then try The Bridgetown Trilogy: A Division of Souls, The Persistence of Memories, and The Balance of Light!

Feel like a fun riff on music biographies that focuses on the ups and downs of a musical family? Then Meet the Lidwells! is for you!

Want an otherworldly tale of parallel Earths, magical girls and true love? Then In My Blue World is right in your wheelhouse!

And if you’re just looking for a bit of light hopepunk enjoyment about two best friends following their dreams? Then Diwa & Kaffi will make you smile!

Have at it and enjoy! (And please leave a review there and/or on GoodReads if you can!)

Dialing it back

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I’ve said before that writing Diwa & Kaffi did a number on me mentally and emotionally, but not because it was a hard book to write. On the contrary, it was an immensely pleasurable book to write, even despite the occasional pitfalls and issues I had with it over the couple of years I worked on it. So what happened?

What happened was that I wrote a book where I dialed it back.

My writing, even my juvenilia, has always had that element of emotions at full volume, much like my life for years. It wasn’t real or important unless I was feeling it fully, intensely and completely. It’s just the way my brain had been wired all this time. You can definitely see it in the Bridgetown Trilogy, and even in Meet the Lidwells! and In My Blue World, though in a more muted way.

It was while I was working on Diwa & Kaffi that I realized that not only do I not have to write in that style, I most definitely do not have to live my life that way, either. And that’s what I did during the pandemic while I was unemployed: I dialed it back. It took a long time and I had to do it in increments, but the more I did it, the more I knew this was the right thing to do. The healthier thing to do, physically and emotionally.

In doing this, I allowed myself to make life choices without the overwhelming feeling of yes, but is this what you really want to do? doubt hanging over my head at every moment. I learned that was the main culprit: self-doubt. Not exactly crippling, but definitely strong enough to make me constantly second-guess myself when it came to life decisions. I’d always trusted myself once I took the plunge in whatever decision I made, but it was that initial yes, but what if that was so fucking hard to get past. And to compensate for that, I’d prove I was right by resonating with the decision: fully, intensely and completely.

I started seeing that this was not only unhealthy, but this most definitely was not how most people dealt with this sort of thing. I was constantly jealous of others who could make life-altering decisions with just a ‘yeah, this is what I want’ without dwelling on the decision for years on end and hyper-focusing on the possible outcomes. Why couldn’t I be that way?

Turns out I can. All I had to do was dial it back.

That was part of the reason I wrote Diwa & Kaffi in the first place: I wanted to see if I could write something calm and low-stakes yet still about life-changing decisions. A story that I felt just as strongly about as my other works, but without that unhealthy intensity. That novel was me proving to myself that I didn’t have to live my life dialed up to eleven every waking moment. It was about trusting myself, even if I didn’t know the outcome. And once I finished it, I knew I’d made the right decision.

It scared the shit out of me, finally knowing that I could change, that I could be this person I needed to be with a much calmer demeanor. But the best part? That self-doubt was nowhere to be seen. Sure, sometimes the are you sure? voice is still there, but it’s not crippling. It’s merely reminding me to be smart about my choices, that’s all. I trust myself a hell of a lot more now. Sometimes life just…is. It doesn’t always have to be a Fully and Completely moment every time. And that’s just fine.

I’m sure MU4 will still be intense, as that’s what that universe is all about. And I think my stories going forward will have a somewhat more realistic take on high-stakes issues and intensity, rather than writing another dialed-to-eleven manuscript. Will it change my style any? Who knows. If it does, it does. And that’s just fine too.

Once more in B-Town

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So I’m caught up with the rereads of my current WIPs and I’m ready to get started on the rewrites and revisions of those, which leaves me with one last major task: to reread the Bridgetown Trilogy once more to prepare myself for writing MU4.

Thoughts so far:
–That first chapter with Nehalé Usarai holds up really well after all these years. I love that it hints at the ‘slow build’ of the entire trilogy: quiet and static at first, and slowly growing in intensity and ‘volume’ until the end where you’re left breathless and with a feeling of ‘oh shit this is not going to go well for a lot of people in this city, is it’. I wrote it that way on purpose.
–Sure, the introduction of Caren and Denni uses the classic ‘waking up from a bad dream’ trope, but my writing has been all about using those kinds of tropes and twisting them in different directions. They were not dreaming but visiting their separate lumisha dea — their place of spiritual inner peace — and the visits were not so peaceful this time out. I was lucky in that by 2015 I was intimately aware of the ins and outs of this trilogy so I knew how to make tropes work to my advantage.
–Would I change anything, years later? Maybe? I think I could have beefed up a few character descriptions here and there, maybe make a few of them more dynamic, and fix a few grammar and word choice mistakes, but storywise? Nope. I’m definitely proud of this work. I did exactly what I wanted to do with it and I’m thrilled with the results.

One of the reasons why I return to this universe is that I simply love being within it. It’s the one where I spent this much time, energy and thought: unique characters, detailed maps, an alien language, a spiritual belief system, even a way to travel long distances. It was my own take on the science fiction genre, and I saw it as a way to have fun with the creative process. I could take as deep a dive into it as I wanted, and I certainly did, many times over. And I knew that once The Balance of Light was done, I’d be done with the trilogy…but not necessarily the universe itself. I always knew I’d come back to it, one way or another.

Once I’m done with the trilogy, I’ll of course read what I have so far of MU4 and go from there. I’ll most likely have a much better grasp of what I want to do with it, and what I should do with it.

Rereading My Work

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Sure, I’ll reread my own work, whether it’s completed and self-published, incomplete and on the backburner, or trunked and best forgotten. I do it rather often, actually, and for various reasons. Since releasing Diwa & Kaffi out into the world, I gave that one yet another once-over, just to see how it looks in epub format. [Quite nice, actually.] After that I reread In My Blue World with the idea of toying with the possibility of writing its sequel. And now I’m rereading what I have of Queen Ophelia (which, now that I think about it, should really be titled Queen Ophelia’s War if I’m going to keep the title at all). I plan to reread Theadia after that.

I’m rereading these three to decide which project I should work on next while also working on MU4. I’m still undecided as to which one to tackle so I’m refamiliarizing myself with the stories to see which one resonates with me the most. Sure, I could come up with a completely new idea if I wanted, but I’m holding back on that because I feel these still have merit, even if they do need a hell of a lot of work.

And that’s the other reason for the rereads: how much work do they need, and is it worth spending the time? I don’t think any of them need a major overhaul, thankfully, and the newer ideas just need their outlines fleshed out and the stories written. I don’t count MU4 here, because that’s in an altogether different beast; when I have the time I’ll reread the original trilogy and what I have of 4 because that particular project needs a different kind of immersion.

It’s a lot of work and it surely eats into my GoodReads numbers, but I’ve found that this is part of a larger process that works really well for my projects — it’s just enough immersion into the created world so that I can easily slide back into it and move forward.

Real life inspiration

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There’s a little bit of real life inspiration in pretty much everything I write, and I’m sure that’s true for nearly every writer. Every story I’ve written does have at least one moment, scene or setting based on reality.

I wrote the Bridgetown Trilogy when I was working at the Yankee Candle warehouse, and while there aren’t specifically any scenes that take place in such a location, it did inspire a few ideas. For instance, the brief mention of Hallera, a planet where people live within instead of on its surface, comes from when I worked second shift and would look out from the dock bays into the deserted semi-darkness of the rear lot at 11:30 at night. There’s also a newer character in MU4 whose day job is working behind the scenes at the Bridgetown Nullport. Several names in the trilogy are Tuckerized from former coworkers in one way or another.

It also explains why the trilogy also had a lot of characters whose day jobs weren’t high-status and they specifically enjoyed Life Outside of Work. Those who were high-status were there for a reason, and their jobs tied in with the story in one way or another. Call me blue collar if you will, but those office job characters never really sounded like much fun to write to me. Even Diana Meeks in In My Blue World, who crunched numbers for a living, didn’t necessarily like her job and it’s barely mentioned.

Being that I live on the much quieter northwest side of San Francisco and currently work at a supermarket, I’m sure that the world of retail might make its eventual appearance somewhere in one of my projects, whether it’s MU4 or something else. One might see retail as drone-like as office work — you’re just another easily replaceable number, apparently — but there’s also a much closer connection to the Outside World that office work doesn’t always provide. Interesting and unique customers and locals become inspirations for characters and background crowds the more you interact with them. Vendors and delivery drivers become secondary characters with unsung but important roles that could help you out of a tricky plot twist. Coworkers once again get Tuckerized as street names and, if they’re interested enough (like many of my YC coworkers were), they’ll ask how the story is coming along.

There’s something about being a little closer to a community at this level that helps me feel more connected to the characters I create. There’s a shine to them that pulls me closer, wanting to know more about their personal lives and how they interact and interconnect with others. It might not be as glamorous or as high-paying as some of my previous positions, but I’ve become rich in other ways whenever I embrace that kind of connection, and that makes all the difference to me.

Read my EBooks! :)

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Yeah, I know. I am absolutely terrible at self-promotion…but then again, there really isn’t any one way to go about it, is there? Maybe I should stop trying to dive into the overcrowded pool of self-published writers trying to get your attention and lean heavy on what comes natural to me: the outsider this is kind of weird but fascinating mystique…? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANYWAY. All five of my novels — The Bridgetown Trilogy (A Division of Souls, The Persistence of Memories and The Balance of Light), Meet the Lidwells! and In My Blue World — are available for FREE at Smashwords this week, so if you haven’t downloaded them already, have at it! You can find them here at my profile page:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jonchaisson

Besides, those trilogy books are doorstoppers (but a lot of fun!) so by the time you finish reading those, maybe I’ll have finished the fourth book! Heh.

Characters old and new

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Recently I wrote up an entry on 750Words laying out a sort of Where Are They Now? for the original cast of the Bridgetown Trilogy in the current MU4 setting. It was all sorts of fun to do and it even gave me a few ideas for plot points to hit later on in the story! The reason I did this was because I wanted a firm grasp on their roles in this new story (if they indeed have one) as a sort of anchor for the new characters I’m about to bring in.

I suppose this confirms that I do want to return to the original cast to explore the Mendaihu Universe a bit further, but it also gives me a bit of distance and breathing room from the trilogy so I don’t feel like I’m trying to revive a story that’s already been told. The new generation of characters provide me with a way to expand the universe yet keep it connected to its origins. After all, this whole story universe is about connections, right?

Anyway, now that I know where the original cast stands, I suppose I should probably do the same for the next-gen cast, given that I know who they are already (due to previous versions dating back to 2015) and what their goals are. Some of them are already fully fleshed out while others are only a brief idea, but that’s okay as well. Perhaps even newer characters will arise when I least expect it!

Bridgetown, only a few years later…

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If there’s one thing I don’t mind sharing this early in game, is that sometimes breaking my own rules is what’s needed.

Originally, MU4 was to be set seventy years after the events in The Balance of Light. The reason for this gap, or so I thought, was to show how the perception of historical events changes over the course of a generation or two. Since then, however, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t have to wait that long. Our current history shows that perception, especially when put in the hands of certain social engineers, can change within hours, sometimes minutes. Why wait that long?

So, one rule broken: let’s think about MU4 taking place, say, a few months or a year or so hence instead. This means a few things suddenly come into play: the original cast of the Bridgetown Trilogy can return to some degree while I introduce a new cast as its central focus; I can explore a few worldbuilding points that I’d introduced in the books but did not have time or space to expand further; and most importantly, I can answer a few important questions (such as what happens to Denni/The One of All Sacred after the end of Book 3?) that I’d purposely left unanswered.

Any other rules to break while we’re at it? Sure. The other issue I’d had was that I was finding myself basing the New Cast on the Old whether I wanted to or not. I had maybe two original new characters I was fond of, but the rest felt like Poe Jr or Caren’s granddaughter or something similar. After a while it occurred to me: maybe the problem isn’t that I’m having a hard time coming up with a new cast, it’s that I really want to continue writing more with the old one. So another rule broken: fine, let’s bring back the Old Gang, since obviously my brain has things to say about them!

This brings up a new potential subplot: how does the Original Cast deal with the change of perception of the events they’d worked so hard to survive through and put in place for future generations? How do you react when an event that’s changed you mentally, emotionally and spiritually, is then seen as subversive, or dangerous, or outlawed? Or perverted for reasons of a power grab?

All these new questions are exciting and fascinating, and I can’t wait to figure out how to answer them.

And to me, that is a sign that I’m doing the right thing. Even if I am breaking a few rules. Some of which I’d laid down myself.