Project PALINDROME
An update on the creative endeavours by which I will make my name and my fortune.

Project TRITON, currently suspended, failed to ride Project TROIKA's coattails to success for two reasons: a) I was working alone, without having mastered the necessary self-discipline, whereas on TROIKA I had K. Steeze as both sounding board and collaborator to keep me on the straight and narrow. b) There was no next step ready to follow the completion of the first stage of TRITON. Project TROIKA is ongoing, currently in Tier 3. From November '07 to January '09 Steeze and I completed Tier 1, devising the novel's characters, plot, and background. We then turned the fruits of our labor over to The Professor, who spent the remainder of '09 producing the first draft of our novel, Tier 2 of Project TROIKA. Even now, The Professor labors on Tier 3, the all-important revisions of the manuscript. While Tier 2 got underway, Steeze set about finishing CODENAME: Koala, the long-awaited sophomore album from Real Can of Yams, and I sought to bring Project TRITON to a stage equivalent to Tier 1 of TROIKA. There was a deadline for TRITON's "Tier 1," but it was a line with no threat of death. On TROIKA, Steeze and I kept an eye on each other, and we knew that The Professor was waiting to commence Tier 2. What would be the consequences if TRITON's deadline slipped? Slip it did, first from a whimsically chosen date in September to a significant-within-the-story date in November to New Year's Eve, and now here we sit in May of the following year with the bypassed deadlines retaining all the usefulness of AutoWorld: after the fact warnings on the perils of hubris. There was no "Tier 2" resting on the fulcrum of my efforts; so, I allowed myself to be sidetracked by the runaway success of Project MERCATOR and let my creative energies be scattered among half a dozen nascent projects, producing concrete results in none of them. I fell back into the same old patterns of falling into diversion and distraction to which TROIKA had been such a potent remedy. The only consequence of my Project TRITON failure has been self-reproach, which as usual has proven insufficient to overcome inertia.

Meanwhile, CODENAME: Koala completed, Steeze turned his nearly boundless enthusiasm back to his white whale, a project on which he's been slowly, haltingly working for lo these many years, a project that just today was christened Project PALINDROME. As he said today, though I paraphrase, the difficulty he's been having with PALINDROME may well be that he's just spent too much time with the premise and lost all objectivity, and thus all orientation and sense of direction. A few weeks back, I, dissatisfied with myself over TRITON and wishing to recreate the circumstances that had borne such fruit during TROIKA, proposed that Steeze and I set a date to begin work on Tier 1 of Project TRIANGLE, a novel, the sequel to the Project TROIKA novel. His organizational genius on full display, Steeze made a far superior counterproposal, one that would given me the direction I wanted and give him the shot in the arm needed to rejuvenate PALINDROME. In short, we are now partners on Project PALINDROME, with a clear plan of how to proceed along a tiered structure very similar to the TROIKA model. Once PALINDROME is securely on Tier 3, we shall begin Tier 1 of Project TRIANGLE, always pushing TROIKA toward Tiers 4 and 5 (Tier 5 is publication!) and keeping a weather eye on new stories and new opportunities.

Due to curiously spotty mobile phone reception at B.T.WesTwo, Steeze and I have set up a regular Saturday iChat appointment to discuss PALINDROME via webcam. We've had two such appointments so far and our progress has been substantial. To pair lightning metaphors, the old TROIKA lightning has struck twice and we've managed to capture it in a bottle. PALINDROME was always Steeze's baby. I've enthusiastically watched its progress and I was always eager to give any feedback for which he asked, but stepping into the universe he's creating has been something else entirely; I'm simultaneously playing catch-up and driving the story in new directions. 2009's potential went largely unfulfilled, but we are well on the way to reversing that trend in 2010, with a blueprint for how not to repeat our missteps.

(Of course, the busier I am the more I get done; so, with a whole world to create for PALINDROME, several other ideas have resumed cooking on the back burners of my brain: the leading candidate for the Project TRIANGLE story and an additional installment in the TROIKA series, with just a dash of Project TRITON. We're back, "…with a vengeance!")

Grow or die.

Also, Caroline Dhavernas guest starred on last Tuesday's episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Woot! Not coincidentally, I am considering watching again the entire, all-too-brief run of Wonderfalls.



The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
They Might Be Giants, "I Palindrome I" from Apollo 18 (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "Mom leans down and says, 'My sentiments exactly, you son of a bitch.'"

Freitag, 14 Mai
Link 80, "Verbal Kint" from Mailorder is Still Fun!! (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Chosen the moment Comrade Coquettish, an immigrant from Russia, told me she was about to watch The Usual Suspects, a film she's seen before, for the first time since she learned to speak English. "Verbal Kint" is replete with a sample of Kevin Spacey giving utterance to the film's most famous line, "The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," but, alas, the lyrics do not make any mention of the name Keyser Söze.