Letters to the Void, #6

Dear Void,

This one's a doozie. We start with memory and knowledge.

Memory: as in the ones in our head and which we speak and communicate and hold as in suspension among family members and even society as a whole, and Knowledge: as in what is spoken, written, collected, gathered, tabulated and learned through long years of experience and stored, amassed, treasured, disseminated, or otherwise passed on.

Letters to the Void, #5

Central region of the Carina nebula

Dear Void,

Where do our memories go?

Something tells me, dear Void, that you have an answer...

I can remember so many, many things. From trivial math to the sensation of jumping into a river. From the sound of my baby crying to the sight of corpses lined up in rows. From the smell of burning plastic to the typical rum sound my car makes such that when it makes any other sound except its typical sound I am immediately alert and questioning just what the hell could be wrong with my car now.

Knowledge + Time = ?

I try to determine what the wall is, where it’s leading Essa, and what walking the wall costs her.

This is the central conflict, dilemma, struggle, call it whatever you want, of my newest novel, THE VALLEN. From conception (during the 2016 Presidential campaign in the United States) to brainstorming to outline to writing the rough draft then many other drafts after, I’ve come to the point where I have now completed a submittable manuscript.

And all the while…

I’ve been asking…

Just what is the wall?

Memory spreading its branches through THE VALLEN

Memory interconnected and disconnecting bits falling away

In the beginning of novel development, I tend to research every teensy-weensy little thing. For THE VALLEN, I went over memory and walls and how to build walls, and where and why walls were built, and how memory is stored, the latest neurological science, how technology enhances or impairs our memory, whether all of this translates to knowledge—and if it does—then what kind of knowledge?