- Carv's Thinky Blog - http://christiancarvajal.com -

There Has Been an Awakening

Have you felt it?

I haven't updated this site in over a year. That changes now.

I've completed the first draft of a new novel. Expect to hear more about it soon.

COVID struck America hardcore in March 2020. With nothing to do but stay home for the summer -- my day job is teaching public middle school -- I decided to try living the way I always dreamed of living. In other words, I resolved to live like a rich author. I was still banking paychecks from the school year, so why not? I woke every morning, made a hot cup of coffee, spelunked research rabbit holes on YouTube and cranked out a thousand words a day. I was over half finished with the new book by the time school started again in September. I finished its first draft by Thanksgiving break.

This was easily the most fun I've ever had writing a novel. I hope that joy will translate to readers' experiences. I plan to revise and polish the novel over Christmas break, then attempt to have it accepted by a mainstream agent and publisher. Here's hoping the Force will be with me.

In the meantime, here, only very slightly edited, is the novel I began to write before I started this one. Over the course of several years, I made it through ten thousand words before giving up. I didn't quit because I thought what I wrote was bad; I quit because a tangerine clown sleazed his way into the White House, and then America was so obviously, cartoonishly insane I no longer saw the value of a Veep-style political satire.

Instead, a new idea grabbed hold of my creative consciousness. Someday, Muses willing, it'll be a trilogy of teen-friendly space operas in the vein of The Hitchhiker's Guide to, Spanner's or The Guardians of the Galaxy.

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This image is exactly what my new novel is about. Also, not at all.

But first, the book I didn't finish writing. You'll find it here [1]. The actual, completed book's still an alien contact story, but the arrival of the superbeings in question looks different from how I first imagined it.

Watch this space! For more outer space!

[2]