Legacy

I don't know if most writers have as clear idea of there career as I do. I already have four ideas for novels with an idea of the order they will be written in. They have titles, a basic idea of the plot (some are more well defined then others) and what kind of book they will be (in length, format, things like that). I think I can write them in the next ten, fifteen maybe even twenty years. Along with this I'm going to write alot of short stories. I want to be remembered, in addition to being a good novelist as a good short story writer, though I am probubly going to be remembered as a novelist I want to be known for writing good short stories.

I have titles for all four of my novels. Some of these titles may change and the order in which I will write them may also change slightly. All books will be connected by recurring characters, texts and concepts (ex. The Rosicrucians). But I have this very well-planned out. This is the list I have them currently in.

1. The Last Dance Revolution
2. The Lost Gospel of Joshua Nazrewsky
3. The Beat Hotel: A Mystery Novel
4. The Alchemist's Game

The Last Dance Revolution and The Lost Gospel of Joshua Nazrewsky are alike in that they are looking to be between 300-400 pages and have no traditional narrative styles. The Beat Hotel is going to be more conventional and I'm hoping short, something I could do for NaNoWriMo maybe. This I'm not so sure about what it will be like, all I know that Jack Monsairty is the main character and it's set at the Beat Hotel. The Alchemist's Game is the Big Novel, it has a name know. That is going to be an epic, granted one which will take place only on a few days, but with flashbacks that will involve most of the legendary time period that was the 1960s.

Before I write all these novels, not to mention what I hope will be alot of good short stories, I plan on doing alot of indepth reading of the classics. Writers I plan on paying praticular attention to are Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce and Pynchon. Other writers I plan on reading are Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, G.K. Chesterton, Salman Rushdie, William S. Burroughs, Dashiell Hammett, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Chandler, D.H. Lawrence, Herman Hesse, and Hunter S. Thompson. I'm also going to look into surrealism and possibly magic realism, since I my writing style seems to be turning towards some mutant branch of magic realism. I also plan on looking into poetry, since I am toying with the idea of being a poet. A poet seems to be the least commercial thing one can possibly be and since I am against commercialism on principle so I plan on learning how to become a poet.

After I write my first four novels and lets say fifty short stories I am going to continue to write, but I am not concerning myself with that stage yet. I plan on writing after that, though what I will write is unknown. I may write another novel on the scale of Alchemists Game, the hypothetical Really Big Novel. I may start writing straight epic fantasy. I may become a religious mystic, write mystic poems and write short mystic novels that espouse retirement from the world. I may not have anything published for a decade or two, publish the long awaited Really Big Novel, die and then have various papers I have written published, such as the various Wold Newton articles I hope to write published. I may write novels that will be even greater then the First Four. I may not write anything at all, but I sincerly hope not. I may write a romans-al-clef like Kerouac, but not to the extent he did. I may writer mystery novels under a pseudonym. I might write something under a psuedonym some day, to mess with people and make them think "Did Dylan write this?" I don't know what I'll do.