In 1999 I had a premonition about the election and global warming. At the time conservatives were still trying to argue it wasn’t happening. I looked at the charts of both Bush and Al Gore and it looked like they were both going to win. I finally came to the bizarre conclusion that Gore would win the popular vote and Bush the white house (as this has on rare occasions happened in our history). I won’t get into all the stuff that I ended up predicting at that time that came to pass, except to say, I got very scared.
I had a premonition of a post-apocalyptic world that wasn’t like Mad Max or some nuclear melt down or war. It was a slow, painful death of our world via global warming (In my vision we didn’t end in a bang, we eroded away without much notice). In 1999 before the election was settled, I decided to write a novel based on a series of premonitions (of course there’s also a story in the novel that’s fictional). I knew Bush would take the white house and the oil companies would run wild.
I read the first draft to my writer’s group who all told me what an imagination I had. How had I come up with this stuff? Well, easy, besides being precognitive, I saw the writing on the wall and used extrapolation, and to some degree humorous hyperbole to make my point.
To make a long story short. I finished that book, won a literary prize, only to be told that speculative fiction and science fiction were dead (other than Fantasy and Space Opera) and although the multitude of interested agents who read it, said it was well written and they liked it, ultimately they couldn’t sell it.
Of course, like all things. I’m usually out of step with time, so this didn’t really surprise me. But as my mother used to say, “keep something long enough and it will come into fashion.” So maybe now we’re approaching the time for speculative fiction. Perhaps people will want more than just entertainment, they will want substance, extrapolation, clarity about their world and evaluative thought in their literature. Hey, it’s worth a shot.
Because this novel is so prescient and it dovetails so well with the issues and insight on my blog I’ve decided to publish a chapter a week. The themes are global warming, the US becoming a corporate Theocracy, spirituality and so many other fun things. Actually there is (in my opinion) a lot of humor in the book especially the further in you go. But I’ll let you be the judge.
Other than polishing, I have changed nothing about the original concept or story. So when reading it, you’ll see many bizarre correlations to the present and recent past. But these were written nearly ten years prior.
Next week I’ll post chapter one. In the mean time I’ll figure out a way post the book in an unobtrusive way for those of you who are not interested in this side of my work.
I will post more stock info tomorrow. I’ve been swamped with reader’s questions about this. I’ll try to get to everyone ASAP!
Best wishes to you all and good luck.
Astrology and Psychic Predictions 