In my old college notebook from 1994, I found an outline for a story called “Divine Tragedy” which was about a woman named Diana who suddenly has people worshiping her. She doesn’t know why. She gets investigated by the IRS because people are sending her money asking for intervention and miracles.
Then she actually gets powers, because, yeah, worshipers=power. And she uses that power to get the investigators off her ass.
From what I can tell, I never wrote more than a few (very bad) pages of this, but it is the earliest record I have of toying with the idea of writing a novel about gods.
Fast forward to 2000. I had just been promoted to a job working third shift, doing network monitoring and maintenance, which came with a surprising amount of down time. I eagerly wanted to take advantage of this and write a new novel. But about what?
I thought it would be fun to play with the old sf trope of aliens being taken for gods. I also had been thinking a lot about religion, having taken Comparative Religion and solidified from Agnostic to Atheist.
What if the aliens themselves didn’t know they weren’t gods? Could a goddess become an atheist? I titled the novel “The Gods Awoke” and the main character was a Woman Not Unlike Me, named Genelle, who was a non-telepath in a telepathic society. A goddess Genelle doesn’t believe in is stalking a boy she meets, and our heroine must outwit an all-powerful being to save him, and ends up challenging the goddess herself on, well, if she is a goddess at all.
All I have left of this novel are vague references in my diaries of the time. “I keep thinking about Hitra’s maid and the annoying donatrix.” “Genelle is forced to bring her brother along as a chaperone. He has a great couple scenes for a guy who could care less how his sister’s schemes pan out.”
It was a crappy novel, naive and full of tropes. But at the time, I felt like it was My First Great Work. Words poured out of me like they hadn’t since high school. I got about three-quarters of the way through the story in a few months, hundreds of pages, and I had an outline to the end. I was almost done with it.
Then my laptop was stolen.
No, I didn’t back anything up.
I was devastated. I could never re-capture the beauty, the depth, the complex plot I’d poured into that laptop!
Four years later, I took a class on The Novel. A full semester of working on one novel, for college credit! Was it my birthday??
At the time, I’d been working on another novel, Mot the Stupid, which was sort of “Lord of the Rings from the Half-Orcs Perspective, but Sci-Fi.” (Not coincidence. I am always working on a novel. My diaries also mention I had just completed a fantasy called “Not About the King” which was my take on debunking Great Man theory in a fantasy setting with elves.)
But when it came time to pitch ideas for the class, I panicked on explaining what “Mot” was about. I left out references to slavery, to colonialism and conscription, to struggles for identity. It all felt so … sadomasochistic when I looked at the over-arching themes. I didn’t want the class to judge me for being interested in this stuff. So I described it as, “A story from the point of view of an orc, and he, um, slowly learns his world isn’t fair.” The class was not impressed with the idea. They said, essentially, “How is this not exactly Shrek?”
I was too embarrassed to say why it wasn’t anything like Shrek, so I threw out, “Okay, well, I have this other idea about like, gods? Like a world where gods are real, and people can read minds, but the main character is an atheist?”
Sparks of interest around the conference table. “Yeah, that sounds cool.”
“Would you talk about how, like, gods get their power from worshipers?”
“Is the atheist immune because she doesn’t believe?”
“What kind of pantheon? Like Greek?”
By the end of the class period, I was stuck with this project: re-write The Gods Awoke.
I kept a journal for the class, so here are my thoughts after that class:
1-20-2004: I’m surprised [they] liked The Gods Awoke concept. I wasn’t even sure I’d say it out loud. It’s so pretentious to talk about religion when you don’t even belong to one. But maybe it’s time to go back to Hitra and Illoe. I think part of my problem the first time through was my need to explain and resolve. You don’t resolve a major shock to the world. It should be Hitra’s personal story.Which brings me to my second in-class realization today — plot. I’ve been near crazed on my inability to write intricate plots. I started thinking of all the twists and turns in Mot and [they] suddenly seemed pointless. The story is big enough. A novel can’t be about a whole war — it can be about a battle. I think my approach to novel-writing — at least lately — has been too big.
… All right. I don’t have time to dicker between ideas. They may all be written, eventually. I shall devote the semester to an all-new, more, um, more unresolved Gods Awoke. …. A brave new foray into an old, abandoned idea. I want to keep Hitra and Iloe, definitely. Thinking of cutting Genelle altogether, though I do want the Sanadaru mythology represented. Is scene one still the tower of fire, or is it Hitra meeting her goddess?
Need/Must come up with better names for the gods. Hinna is too close to Hitra.This is exciting. I’m remembering more things from the draft. Arel and his wife. The pottery. I’m kind of glad the draft itself is lost – …starting fresh will feel good. I know the silly little details of their life and society, but I won’t fall back on my old scenes.
And so, my friends, began the journey to my latest novel, The Gods Awoke releases from Journey Press September 1, 2022!
