The Paradox Project: Converting The Past

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One of the great things about being your own publisher is that you have the final say in what gets published in your name. Unfortunately, that is about the only great thing about it because you have to do everything else…hehe.

That being said, today’s discussion is about converting my 1990 Science Fiction story, Paradox, to a digital format suitable for electronic archiving, editing, and publishing. Yes, it’s really going to happen. As much as I love the idea of that manila envelope from the US Copyright Office sitting in my desk files, I think I would love seeing the story in print and ebook format much more.

Paradox Conversion Project…

The title sounds like I’m planning on something on the scale of The Apollo Space Program, doesn’t it?

Actually, the project will take the following form:

1) Retype the manuscript (in its original form with all its original flaws) into Scrivener. That will allow me to start with a clean draft to work with. I suppose I could just scan the pages but there’s no fun in that and I need to immerse myself back into the story world after being away for 25+ years.

2) Deep Analyze the story and reconstruct the story world using the techniques that I use now. I expect it to be a major pain in the backside, but ultimately useful for the next step.

3) Create a Story Bible using the elements that I have reconstructed in Step 2. I remember Paradox’s story world being very complicated and every documented piece of information would go a long way toward creating sequels.

4) Do a major rewrite of the story and expand it from a 62-page novella to a 400-page novel while maintaining a high story quality.

5) Publish the damn thing.

Obviously, I have a lot of work ahead with this one along with the other three projects I have slated for 2016. The Tobacco, Coffee, and Alcohol Industries are no doubt champing at the bit over this prospect…lol

I’ll keep you all updated as things progress. Thanks for your time. 🙂

12 thoughts on “The Paradox Project: Converting The Past”

  1. I guess I was lucky to have my first novel captured in electronic form. Remember floppy disks? It started out in Windows 98, whatever their free word processing program was called, and then got converted to Word Perfect. Next came Word and there it stayed, idle and abandoned for several years. The cops were driving Caprices and finding phone booths to answer pages on their beepers. Computer crashes, both electronic and one ripped from the table by an ankle catching a power cord, didn’t kill the story. Finally, a good friend goaded me into finding a computer that still took floppy’s and dusting the e-cobwebs off. New cars, laptops and cell phones written in, SINK RATE finally came back to life and found a publisher. Now every word of the sequels gets saved in three separate places. Re-writing is hard enough with DELETE and FIND/REPLACE, I don’t envy your task of going from paper to electrons.

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    • I already have four published books on Amazon and Createspace. This particular manuscript was from the days when I wrote using a Smith-Corona PWP 3 Word Processor. If I hadn’t copyrighted it with the US Copyright Office back in 1990, it probably would have been lost forever. Remember floppy disks? I have two packs of them here right now and I still have old copies of Windows 95/98/2000…hehe. I was quite proficient with Word Perfect when I was in the Navy (85-92). I guess you could say that I grew up with computers. I started with an old typewriter, then moved to word processors, then personal computers. Publishing didn’t become a reality until 2015 when I got tired of going hat in hand to traditional publishers and agents. The biggest headache that I see with updating Paradox to 2016 Standards is that I have no surviving notes to work from, so I have to treat the project as if it was coming from someone else, which in essence it is…hehe.

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  3. It’ll be an undertaking but I bet it will be fun! I’m excited for you! Please don’t smoke! Unless it’s a pipe and you’re all professory about it… Then at least be moderate! 😜

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