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I don't usually talk about a series as I'm writing it.
Early on in my author career, I had a sort of mystical taboo against talking about a series while I wrote it—as if I might be unduly influenced by other people's ideas. I even turned down an offer for screenplay options on my first Mindjack works because I was still creating them. (This was hilariously baffling to the screenwriter/producer... but we ended up becoming the kind of friends you call up when you're stuck in traffic just to talk. An object lesson in the power of vulnerability.) This taboo wasn't about avoiding critiques or edits: with those, the boundaries were set. Was the story working? Were there holes? That sort of thing. And if someone offered up creative ideas, well, they were contained by the mystical bounds of a professional relationship, easy to accept or reject as I saw fit.
I've broken that taboo altogether with this series.
I'm exploring HopePunk openly in extensive discussions with family and friends, talking about the book with fellow writers, all before I've even finished the first of four planned novels. Why? What's different here?
Partly it's because I don't fear being influenced—I'm confident I can tell the story I wish, even if someone else thinks it should be more this or less that. But also because it's a little late—I've been having these conversations with writer-friends about HopePunk for years. But mostly, it's because of the nature of the thing.
This kind of story is about working together. About the greater good and being part of moving the world towards that. I'm writing it because I feel a desperate need to re-affirm that, right now, so urgent that breaking silly taboos doesn't even slow me down.
At the moment, I'm halfway through the first book, and I can tell you a few things that I'm sure won't change by the time it's published:
- There's so much clean energy tech in this, it's practically EnvironmentalPunk, and I can get pretty nerdy with that, what with having a PhD in Environmental Engineering and such
- It's a near-future Earth story, placed in 2050, but with the radical accelerating change that was already happening before the pandemic, now shoved simultaneously forward and backward by everything happening right now, it's easy to see how radically different 2050 could be than 2020. Remember back to 1990 (if you're old enough) and tell me the world of 2020 isn't both radically different and in many ways completely the same. The world of Nothing is Promised will be likewise radically different and very recognizable.
- This is a story told in 4 parts. It's a little risky saying that now, but it's woven into the structure, so I think that's unlikely to change.
The wild thing about HopePunk is that it both intrigues and repels people before they have any idea what it is. Which says something fundamental about us—most of what we think is packaged in preconceived ideas deep in our brains—and something about the power of the genre. No one has a radical opinion about steampunk or cyberpunk before they watch Carnival Row or Blade Runner. After, sure, but not before. That pesky word hope both thrills and evokes disdain. Obviously, I'm in the thrill and intrigue category, or I wouldn't be dedicating quite this many neurons to the endeavor.
I'm not worried that people won't like the series or won't "get" it—although I'm not immune from desiring those things, of course. My chief worry is not having the ability to finish it, either because COVID comes for me or I simply can't give the story what it requires. Either is a possibility, so there's no small amount of leap that's involved in sharing about this as I go.
But that's part of the radical vulnerability that goes with HopePunk's audacious demand that the world do better. Be better. And so I can hardly shrink from that, not while writing it. The cognitive dissonance would be too much.
That's all for now—more soon! My plan is to send an update such as this each week throughout the writing of it.
Peace and Love,
Sue
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