My Blog

The Lost Prologue

Sometimes you just pick something floating in the air.

I have been involved in a six year quest to finish a book-length novel as a sequel to my novella, Harry’s War. I have vacillated back and forth with this story in my head for six years and stopped writing it for several reasons … telling myself I was busy with my technical writing career, allowing the local writing community to convince me my writing did not measure up, feeling sorry for myself because I am such a terrible writer, etc.

I finally ended up with a 250 plus page draft and hired an expensive substantive editor to critique it. After seeing over half of my 250 pages dismissed as chaff to the story and sulking over it for the last three or four months, I am now engaged in repairing my story and even accepting most of her suggestions.

I’ve found writing, even my technical writing, is as Thomas Edison put it, “98 percent perspiration and 2 percent inspiration.”

Sometimes, however, as I am pretending to write with my two fingers valiantly banging away at my keyboard, something just seems to float out of the air and find its way into my story.

One such thing is the prologue I drafted to start my book. It may not make it in the book because of another suggestion by my editor to add a chapter she deleted as the prologue instead of this one. If I kept both, I thought it may be awkward.

If I deleted it, the prologue would to end up in the graveyard of broken dreams somewhere within my computer files never seen by the eyes of humankind.

Whether or not it makes it into the final version of the book, here is the prologue I saw floating in the air one day, and I reached out and pulled it into my story.

By publishing it here on my blog, I at least know it will not become lost.

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Our Story Begins

One of those moments existing in a different world…a netherworld. Some would say the space, the silence existing between life and death. Others would disagree and state it was just one millisecond of time where the soul considers its own existence—a silence seeming to stretch out and last an eternity. In the grand scheme of things, the nothingness existing only a fraction of a second… This dot of time, an infinitesimal portrait of life – where decisions are made, mind precedes matter, time seems to stand still, and decisions inalterably change the destiny of a soul.

Within the bowels of one of those tiniest, microscopic moments, our story begins.

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Thank you for reading it.

Sincerely,

Ed

Normally I. would not place z post on my website reviewing a book, but MacBeth by Jo Nesbo is extraordinary. After I read the book and went to post a review on
Amazon, I noticed a great many people had panned the book giving it 2 or 3 star reviews.

While I appreciate everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I believe many missed the point of the book. The publisher has indicated they are focused on asking current best-selling authors to retell Shakespeare’s plays in modern terms. Jo Nesbo has performed a credible job in retelling “MacBeth” and setting it in a Norwegian village in the 1970s.

Before I read Jo Nesbo’s version, I went and reviewed a detailed summery of the Shakespeare play several times so I could get the sequencing of events down. Mr. Nesbo did a great job of adapting the tale to late1970s Norway.

In large part, the events in the book parallel the events in the play. So, any criticism of Mr. Nesbo’s plotting must apply equally to William Shakespeare.

This is my two cents worth

I just finished reading “The Wanted” by Robert Crais.

As I reflected on the book, I realized the one thing that kept me coming back to his books was his ability to express himself and to convey emotions with sparse, condensed text. His plotting is good but most books by traditionally published authors have good plots.

When I think about what I call ‘tight writing,’ another author comes to mind.

I have read just about every word John Sanford has written and I believe he is another author who believes in ‘tight’ writing. I do know Mr. Sanford was a Pulitzer prize winning reporter in another life, so undoubtedly, that’s the source of his ability.

Think about it! Which authors grab you as purveyors of tight prose? Does their writing drag you into the story?

I’ve just reviewed some pages I have written for my forthcoming book to check my ‘tight’ writing. Rewrites coming up.

I hope this post was ‘tight’ enough.

Until next time,

Ed

Hello, welcome to my little place on the World Wide Web, EdBenjaminBooks.com.

I am a 78 year old retired member of the United States Air Force and operate a one person business to help companies get business with federal, state and local governments.

I am also a fiction and nonfiction writer and I love the idea of  writing and self-publishing books for my readers to enjoy. I am now branching out into the morass of the Internet to let m ore people know about my writing and hopefully attract new readers.

I wish my grandchildren didn’t live so far away, then maybe they could teach me more about how to manage and publish this website.

I do have to admit after spending a week or so how to figure out to publish a page, I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment when something works.

I hope to be publishing posts of interest to you. I have a Contact Me page and if you have a comment on my posts, I am looking forward to seeing it.

I am trying to figure out how to link a mailing list to my site. It is now UNDER CONSTRUCTION.