Those Swedenborg Posts

I have been posting chapters from my uncompleted novel, tentatively calls Swedenborg because it is based on a few of the ideas of Emmanuel Swedenborg about dead souls. I'm not a follower of Swedenborg, by the way, and the title in the end will be different.

I actually got the idea for the novel about 40 years ago, and some of the incidents are based on things that happened to me back in the 1970s! I have worked on the novel in fits and starts. As I'm posting the chapters I've written, I'm starting to revise them - but they clearly need more work. I'm pruning out some characters and incidents that were added over the years, but that now seem to clutter it. My moral and religious sensibilities have also changed over the years, so some portions of it are being modified or eliminated.

One thing I've noticed about me as a reader is that I find long descriptive passages boring. I prefer just a few details, and dialogue. That's the way I've written much of this. I sense a need for more description, though - maybe read Brideshead Revisited is spurring such thoughts. As it is, I'm more comfortable writing plays and short poems. But I want to finish this book.

There are a few more already-written chapters to post. Then it will be on to new ones. I've written some 40,000 words, and my estimate is that the final novel will be between 70,000 and 80,000 words.

Onward!

Pax et bonum