The Hydra Story

Well, the truth of the matter is that I'm meant to be writing. I am, I'm writing this blog, I know. What I mean is that I should be writing a chapter. I wish I were but sometimes the hydra rears its many heads and prevents me from doing so. In a previous chapter I mentioned a number of street gangs and they are the hydra of my day. I want to refer to them again in a little more detail but I can't, I can't remember their names. I don't want to have a lot of blank spaces in my text is the first thing. The second thing is that I have a visual memory. If I can't see a thing, it's difficult to write about it. In order to see such a thing in my mind's eye, it needs to have a name do that it can be recalled. They do have a name and thus, when I discover what I named them, will be able to write about them.

They are a hydra because the problems of internal consistency are such that whenever you think you've solved a problem you actually find that you've created two more. The only way to resolve them is to take the problem and burn it all the way back to the mechanics of your universe. Sometimes this creates enormous problems that involve scrubbing out large portions of prose, plot points or indeed entire characters. It must be done.

I first tried to write this book at the age of fourteen. I still, somewhere, retain the first few pages that I wrote. I weep with disdain at my feeble efforts. Nevertheless, it contains a few seeds of the book now. I discovered fairly quickly that my universe was entirely inadequate and that everything I had written was suitable only for lighting fires. The second attempt went the same way. As did all other attempts three through forty-seven.

Yet each one has led me, inexorably, to the hydra that I have today. A many headed beast that needs constant fighting, each of the heads burning all the way down to the body of the underlying universe.

Ultimately, this is a battle I'm now winning. Many, many words have been written and it all stays strong. I will find those gangs, burn them down and keep going.

I'm rambling.

DR