For the new year, a new direction

Here in 2007, it is time to test the waters of mainstream publishing. Real agent query #1 for my nonfiction manuscript The Power of Greek Heroes goes out tomorrow.

Here's the hook:

THE POWER OF GREEK HEROES offers today's teachers, parents, and myth enthusiasts a multi-purpose method of teaching and appreciating ancient tales. I argue that outstanding characters such as Achilles, Odysseus, and Pandora benefited their audiences most not by encouraging young people to "be like them," but by boosting the desirability of ordinary family and community life. In today's isolated and celebrity-mad world, this is a timely message.

Since Power is a partial manuscript so far, I will continue to work on it in case an agent is interested in seeing more than an introductory chapter. But I anticipate a fairly long and rejection-filled process lasting into the spring.

So I have decided to work on another project-- mostly for enjoyment-- inspired by L. Lee Lowe's Mortal Ghost, and by the overall strength of the online writing community. I am going to try my hand at writing the first draft of a novel and posting it, chapter by chapter, online.

The working title of the novel is HEALING KNOWLEDGE, and here is the hook:

A thousand years before Greek Mythology, an apprentice shaman met an apprentice trader on the shores of a sea that would in time be called Aegean. Though they spoke neither the same language nor understood life in the same way, as time went by they became united in loss-- and in the fourteenth spring of their lives, when they set out on a short sea journey to a nearby island in order to become men, they embarked instead on a quest for the knowledge that restores all hurt and heals all wounds.

Just about everything in this manuscript is up for grabs (including the title!), except that I do have my preferences and prejudices. Commenters are welcome to suggest directions for the story to go, or improvements in the draft itself, or engage in conversation about the details of the story or the ideas and questions it may raise.

I envision the audience to be teenagers and anyone who has ever been a teenager. It is not a YA novel per se, but a novel about future adults' intents and adults' intense pasts.

You should see Chapter 1 of HEALING KNOWLEDGE up at my eponymous second Typepad blog by February 1. Thereafter I'd like to write a chapter a week, but we'll see, won't we?

In the meantime, I will continue to blog here at BwP, and anyone is welcome at all times to ask questions about classical and comparative mythology by emailing me at teenage underscore heroes at sign yahoo dot com, all run together.

Comments

[Lee]

Looking forward to this...

[bob mustin]

Good luck, David. It's dog eat dog out there, so watch where you step.