The Next Novel

First and foremost, the Gig economy is changing our world: how we work, how we pursue personal relationships and interests, our larger sense of community and human connection, and how we obtain and synthesize the knowledge that we use to craft our lives. It is hard to think of an era more pregnant with change, for better or ill, akin to previous significant technological changes (e.g., the industrial era, the printing press, the wheel and human mobility).

In addition to this heady stuff, the word gig has a fascinating etymology that has evolved over several centuries as technology and society have changed. Sweet! So it's hard to think of a more helpful working title to keep me focused on the story's milieu, characters, and themes.

I love Melville's MOBY DICK. Love, love, love it. In addition to its quirky/queer nature that makes for endless reading pleasure and interpretation, the story offers an archetypal structure to explore the phenomenology of obsession, which will be central to the story.

Additionally, while performing my research, I encountered Yeats' THE SECOND COMING for the first time. I was left thunderstruck by the work, and as I pondered its manifold provocations, I was affected by the incorporation of an old-fashioned meaning of the word gig (e.g., gyre, in addition to a few allusions to spinning, rotation, 'centre cannot hold'). Yeats employed this word and these allusions to depict the apocalypse, which aligns with my thoughts on how the gig milieu could impact us, which is just... spooky-cool. 

It's the kind of serendipity that taunts me to undertake a project such as this.

I've completed a detailed outline (essential for my writing process). That means my initial research is done, a skeleton plot is developed, key characters are defined, and the thematic connections between characters and plot are marked for each chapter. 

Now I'm working through the first draft (a.k.a. the appropriately, though distastefully named, vomit draft). I expect to complete it by end-of-year. From there, who knows how many revisions are in store. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯