For some reason I’m drawing a complete blank in trying to write an introduction to the commentary for this chapter, so I guess I’ll just jump right in with the tidbits. I’ve always been partial to the brilliant simplicity of “and/or” when I write. Surprisingly it only shows up three times in the final draft,…
Commentary 7.5: Seven and a Half Cents
Changing things up today, I thought it would be interesting to dissect the longest deleted chapter since we’re at the point in the book where it would have appeared. I’m also hoping that a baseball post will help snap the Red Sox losing streak 🙂 As I’ve said before, this was intended to set up…
Commentary 7: Tram #7 To Heaven
If memory serves, I think this was the first chapter written in Luxembourg using Jon Mack’s laptop. I spent 8 weeks in Lux; taking the first week off to get acclimated, writing every weekday for 6 weeks, then taking the last week off to celebrate the first draft. So it’s somewhat fitting that chapter 7…
Antagonized to Protagonize
I had an interesting day yesterday to say the least. Rather than recap it again, you can read the gory details over at Towform. Here I just wanted to quickly add something a little more on topic. I discovered an interesting collaborative writing site called Protagonize a few weeks ago. It allows authors to post…
Reviewed by Mrs. Giggles
Another review, this time courtesy of Mrs. Giggles. My two favorite excerpts: “Some of the first person narration is beautifully written, I find, which makes Timely Persuasion a book to read for the sake of reading as well for the story, if I am making any sense here. There are times when I wonder why…
Commentary 6: 6ix
Back at the bowling alley in search of answers, our hero confronts the old man. This chapter is exposition heavy on early time travel nuts and bolts, and one I struggled with most in rewrites. The idea was to set a foundation that would have some parts hold true and other parts be called out…
Commentary 5: Five Seconds to Hold You
Although Timely Persuasion has a science fiction premise, I really wanted to ground the story in reality as much as possible outside of the time travel. Thus I knew I wanted to send the narrator back to save Kurt Cobain, but I also knew that his mission would ultimately have to fail. The physics of…
First Review!
Thanks to Devon Kappa from the blog None May Say for the first ever review of Timely Persuasion. I found it to be honest, balanced, and fair. Also opened my eyes a bit to the synopsis, which I’ll probably take a stab at rewriting shortly… Review: Timely Persuasion by Jacob LaCivita
Commentary 4: Four Hours In Washington
Going back in time to save Kurt Cobain was one of the first inspirations I had while brainstorming. This chapter sends the narrator to Seattle with this goal in mind, while the underlying narrative purpose is really to flesh out his musical background and further along his time travel discovery process. It’s a sort of…
Pretending I’m Like Kurt Cobain
I can’t believe Kurt Cobain has been dead for 14 years. Both he specifically and Nirvana in general were big influences on me growing up, and that influence clearly bled into the narrator and the book. And how about this for an illustration of time travel cause and effect in action: One could make an…