A few weeks or months ago (time in the T__p era is already a blur, events and hours run together as if in a dream), I lamented one of the many problems of writing in the beginning of the end times for America. The particular problem concerning me was the need--I felt--to give all stories and novels an explicit totalitarian context. Anything written before November 8, 2016--especially written *right* before--seemed newly non-credible. How could anyone write about, say, a family coming apart at the seams or vampires falling in love without acknowledging that it all takes place under a completely fascist regime? But then again, how to stay out in front of all that this regime can and will do, so that even your worst predictions don't end up seeming quaint by publication time?
This, as you might imagine, has proven a mostly paralyzing mindset. Trying to plan a new novel and a new story, I found myself adding layer upon layer of complexity, trying to inject government perfidy into every aspect of my character's lives. Too many threads competed with each other and the gears of narrative ground to a halt.
So now I'm thinking of starting very small. As Jonathan Franzen said in a Powells.com interview years ago, "The real pleasure in writing [The Corrections], for me, was discovering how little you need." I'll begin with one character, one story line and work outward, rather than first attempting to create a whole world system that will never be as strange or sinister as the one we now inhabit.
I have a feeling the larger totalitarian context will arise of its own accord.
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