We all have dreams.
For me, one of the longest standing dreams I’ve had is to
write a novel about American submarine sailors in the Pacific Theatre of
WWII. It stems from the first short
story I ever submitted for the Young Authors Contest. (That story placed First at Parish and Second
at State.) The two main characters of
that story have stayed with me since I was 14 and I’ve been trying for over 20
years to craft something that they would be set into.
Last Fall I started heavily reading and researching the lifestyles, patrol routines, and the various duties of submariners during WWII. My collection of research materials have included books by skippers, officers, and enlisted men as well as patrol reports, schematics, and Admiral Charles “Uncle Charlie” Lockwood’s autobiographical account of his time as Commander Submarines, Southwest Pacific and, later, Commander Submarines, Pacific. The collection is extensive.
Previous ideas I’d had for writing about this time with those characters started gelling into something bigger and more expansive. By the time my thought processes were over the result was a plan to write a series of novels, one for each year of America’s involvement in WWII, following characters through the “Silent Service” as they lived and fought.
What I had desired to be a one novel concept had grown into something epic in nature. Characters I had carried with me for 20 years were now joined by new characters in a wider world to be explored.
And not all of them will survive. It’s war and war means losses.
And none of them will be unchanged by war’s end.
So, the project was born and in November I started writing; ripped out 50 pages of the first volume of the work and then had to put it down because, well, “Life is what gets in the way of what you want to do.”
But nothing is forgotten. New projects may arise and more stories may be born, but something this close to my heart is never, never forgotten.
And so the wheel has come back around. I’m looking back at this extensive project, the first volume of which won’t be ready for at least a year, maybe two, because while I’ve written 50 pages, the characters are still early in the war (December 1941 to be precise).
I don’t want it unwieldy, so I’m trying to figure out how shape it so that it’s “reader friendly.”
But the dream lives and it will eventually come to fruition.
Last Fall I started heavily reading and researching the lifestyles, patrol routines, and the various duties of submariners during WWII. My collection of research materials have included books by skippers, officers, and enlisted men as well as patrol reports, schematics, and Admiral Charles “Uncle Charlie” Lockwood’s autobiographical account of his time as Commander Submarines, Southwest Pacific and, later, Commander Submarines, Pacific. The collection is extensive.
Previous ideas I’d had for writing about this time with those characters started gelling into something bigger and more expansive. By the time my thought processes were over the result was a plan to write a series of novels, one for each year of America’s involvement in WWII, following characters through the “Silent Service” as they lived and fought.
What I had desired to be a one novel concept had grown into something epic in nature. Characters I had carried with me for 20 years were now joined by new characters in a wider world to be explored.
And not all of them will survive. It’s war and war means losses.
And none of them will be unchanged by war’s end.
So, the project was born and in November I started writing; ripped out 50 pages of the first volume of the work and then had to put it down because, well, “Life is what gets in the way of what you want to do.”
But nothing is forgotten. New projects may arise and more stories may be born, but something this close to my heart is never, never forgotten.
And so the wheel has come back around. I’m looking back at this extensive project, the first volume of which won’t be ready for at least a year, maybe two, because while I’ve written 50 pages, the characters are still early in the war (December 1941 to be precise).
I don’t want it unwieldy, so I’m trying to figure out how shape it so that it’s “reader friendly.”
But the dream lives and it will eventually come to fruition.
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