{"id":11,"date":"2008-03-27T17:11:13","date_gmt":"2008-03-28T01:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/?p=11"},"modified":"2008-04-06T08:38:50","modified_gmt":"2008-04-06T16:38:50","slug":"commentary-chapter-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-chapter-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary 1: One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/?p=10\">prologue<\/a> seemed to write itself in a single sitting, I was at a loss for how to kick off the first real chapter.  Two paragraphs in and I was already at my first roadblock.   How would I ever write an entire novel?<\/p>\n<p>It was then that I got some help from my younger self.<\/p>\n<p>A few years earlier I had started work on a time travel short story called <em><a href=\"http:\/\/timelypersuasion.com\/Paradox.html\">Paradox Lost<\/a><\/em>.   It was done out of boredom and completely written off the top of my head with no planning, and pretty much abandoned not long after it began.  Not so coincidentally, it also started off at a bowling alley.<\/p>\n<p>I dug it out of my hard drive, pasted it in, stripped out character names, wrote a quick bridge to connect the dots, and suddenly my word count had doubled.<\/p>\n<p>Other tidbits:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Not all of the musical allusions are quotes or band names.  Some are slightly more abstract situations.  A good example is here, where in summary you could say there was &#8220;an old man sitting next to me&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The cute French bartender is a nod to Corinne at the Arizona Bar in Luxembourg, who was promised a mention even though the characters don&#8217;t have names.  (More on nameless characters in a later post&#8230;)<\/li>\n<li>You may notice that the lottery numbers changed from the short story to the novel.  In both cases they have meaning that can be decoded.  The story version is probably easier to figure out and more of a joke, whereas the secret to the novel version is slightly more complicated and definitely has intentional meaning related to the plot.  I&#8217;ll leave you to figure this out on your own though \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<li>While we&#8217;re talking about the numbers:  Keep in mind this book was started in 2003, which predates the TV show <em>Lost<\/em> and its famous numbers.<\/li>\n<li>Both sets of odds referenced are the real California Lottery Hot Spot odds.<\/li>\n<li>My friend Nate used to always randomly say &#8220;I&#8217;m from the future&#8221; in reference to any time travel story when we were in college.  The line is here partially for his benefit, and partially to show that the old man has been through this enough times to know that cutting to the chase on his abilities is usually the best approach to gain trust.<\/li>\n<li>After reading the first draft, my cousin Adam commented that it annoyed him when the narrator always referred to &#8220;his bowling partner&#8221; and didn&#8217;t address him by name.  When I pointed out that Nelson was the only named character he didn&#8217;t believe me, as he hadn&#8217;t even noticed.  But he raised a good point, thus the anonymous bowling partner got a nickname.<\/li>\n<li>I had always called my fantasy baseball teams &#8220;Bowlingo&#8221; after this <a title=\"Bowlingo!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.carobinson.com\/games\/MENDES%20-%20BOWLINGO%201998.jpg\">odd bowling arcade game<\/a>.  This morphed into the more godlike &#8220;Bowlingus&#8221; for the book.  My fantasy team names have also changed ever since.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;&#8230;following Bowlingus into his Olympus&#8221; is one of Jon Mack&#8217;s favorite lines.<\/li>\n<li>There are 19 known musical references in this chapter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a title=\"Timely Persuasion: Chapter 1\" href=\"http:\/\/reader.timelypersuasion.com\/1.html\">Read Chapter One Online<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the prologue seemed to write itself in a single sitting, I was at a loss for how to kick off the first real chapter. Two paragraphs in and I was already at my first roadblock. How would I ever write an entire novel? It was then that I got some help from my younger&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behind-the-scenes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3pfx3-b","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-8-eight-days-a-week\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":0},"title":"Commentary 8: Eight Days A Week","author":"LBDG","date":"May 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-15-prophet-15\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":1},"title":"Commentary 15: Prophet 15","author":"LBDG","date":"June 2, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Local Boy\" sections seem to really resonate with readers. It also has been called out by two different reviewers as something that they wish I had explored more, specifically the repercussions of \"stealing\" music from the future. In hindsight I see their point, though at the same time I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-9-drivin-on-9\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":2},"title":"Commentary 9: Drivin&#8217; On 9","author":"LBDG","date":"May 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything before this was setup and foreshadowing. In this chapter we finally kick off the mission that will be the focus of the main story. Other tidbits: I really liked the idea of placing the sister's death on 9\/11 by pure coincidence, as I'm sure there were other real life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-chapter-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":3},"title":"Commentary 2: Two Of Us","author":"LBDG","date":"April 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A bowling league felt like a neat place to kick off the journey and was a setting I hadn't seen explored in literature before. It also allowed me to include a few nods to bowlers and teams I had encountered over the course of my short semi-recreational league bowling career.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/commentary-19-19-2000\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":4},"title":"Commentary 19: 19-2000","author":"LBDG","date":"June 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"In real life, I finished up the previous chapter just before what was supposed to be my first date with the woman who is now my wife. \u00a0Ended my Luxembourg writing day on a high note, saved everything, and gave her a call. \u00a0The conversation: Me: Hey, how's it going.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3033,"url":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/lbdg-commentary-1-october-1969\/","url_meta":{"origin":11,"position":5},"title":"LBDG Commentary 1: October 1969","author":"LBDG","date":"May 2, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Kicking off my traditional series of author's commentary posts for Local Boy Done Gone with\u2014wait for it\u2014Chapter 1! Before we go there, a quick origin story: There was always an idea for a sequel to Timely Persuasion, but I never thought I'd actually write it. Years later came a completely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Behind the Scenes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Behind the Scenes","link":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/category\/behind-the-scenes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Local-Boy-Done-Gone-eBook-Cover-1.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.timelypersuasion.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}