© Copyright 2004 by silli_artie@hotmail.com
This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior express written permission of the author.
Recently a reader wrote to me after reading "Growing Up With Beth" for the first time. Even though it was done in 2000, was I going to do any more? Here’s my reply, expanded and reformatted somewhat.
Note: this assumes you’ve already read "Tales of the Golden Mule" and "Growing Up With Beth," as well as the "Behind the Scenes" sections on both stories, here, and here.
John--
Thanks for writing, and glad you liked the saga. And thanks for asking your question; you’ve brought a bunch of things to a head.
Why did I stop? Why isn’t there more? For some insight, you can read the "behind the scenes" stuff on the story -- go to the GWB home page, and click on the title. At the time I had a bunch of reasons -- one was that sagas tend to become all-consuming, taking over my life. For some readers, I know I could spend the rest of my life working on “Growing Up With Beth” and they'd be happy. Others would want me to concentrate on another, earlier, saga, “Tales of the Golden Mule” (you might give that one a look if you haven’t read it). By the time I’d completed what you’ve seen in GWB, I’d already made some decisions about short-circuiting some content. As one reader wrote to me, “Andy’s summer in France could fill volumes!” -- that’s the good news, and the bad news!
I have outlines on some things that happen, key events and images. Andy and Rachel get married. Problems appear in their paths to be resolved or not resolved. Life goes on, tomorrow comes anyway.
Remember Andy and Karen? As Andy said, “Just one of those things that was meant to not be...” It took me a long time to write that sequence, the physical storm presaging the emotional one. And when it was first posted, I got a lot of complaints -- how could you do that to Karen? to Andy? Yet, it was key to much of what happened later. People still complain!
In one sense, that’s good -- as an author, I created an imaginary world, yet one so real and involving to some readers that they are upset at what happens to these characters! One of the things I said in 2001 about the two big sagas, “Tales of the Golden Mule” and “Growing Up WIth Beth,” was that my writing has evolved (to a certain extent, because of these sagas -- you don’t write things of this length and complexity and not be affected.) As Andy said, trying to go back to one of these would be trying to fit into an old shell I’ve outgrown -- no matter how comfortable it felt at the time, it’s too small now.
This was brought home to me in the last few months. I had a pile of follow-on material for TGM; I cleaned up chunks of it and posted them as "The Golden Mule Returns." There were gaps, there were parts that were incomplete, but major questions were resolved. And I got repeated HATE mail from a few anonymous readers about what I did to some of the characters, destroying them, ruining the story, yada, yada, yada... Wait a fucking minute! Isn’t this MY story? MY characters?
Even though I should know better, this bugged the shit out of me. Why? Why am I letting this shit bug me so? I finally pulled TGM Returns. Oh, I put it back later, much later.
Andy was right; I can’t fit in those old shells again. The direction is forward. (In the immortal words of the Sage: Don’t look back, they may be a’gainin’ on ya!) I have so much I want to write, and so little time. And dammit, this is supposed to be for FUN!
I wish I could say writing this has been fun. It hasn’t. But it has served a good purpose, letting me gather my thoughts, and look at the problem one more time. I expect I’ll turn this into its own web page attached to the Sagas, to let people know what to expect on the continuation of their favorite sagas.
Which is: don’t hold your breath.
But I’ll keep writing, and I hope you keep reading.
And please, continue to let me know what you like, and what you don’t.
Namaste-
artie
December 2004