Talk about a long, strange trip! I first purchased the unbound.org domain in 1999 with the intent on using it to promote my book-to-be. I didn't expect that it would take eight years to get to this point, of actually being ready to publish. But since the book has taken three times as long as that, eight years is really as if nothing.
Given my lack of tools, the very first site was pathetic and died a swift, rightful, and righteous death. However, I retained ownership of the domain, and am now ready for version 2.0! I'm still learning web design (obviously) so the improvements will be gradual; nonetheless, I'll keep updating the site with any news and events worth mentioning, along with the new material. The Blog will probably be getting most of the attention. Once the novel gets a deal, I'll prepare the site to sell the books over it, and begin serious updates across unbound.org in anticipation.
I've been asked why I chose a dot-org over dot-com. Well, the answer is a combination practical/silly one: Back then you only had a few choices, and dot-com just seemed so common, capitalistic, and business oriented, and the story is the complete opposite of all those things. I wanted the whole UNBOUND Project to be more creativity-focused and driven by positive energy rather than "commercial", so dot-org seemed more appropriate. Also, "org" reminds me of "Organum" and "Organon", two of my more favorite words, for various reasons.
At the time of writing this, before Launch, I have no idea what to expect once it goes live. Since I did nothing to get people to the last version of unbound.org (not ready to promote yet), and I'll be doing everything I can to get eyeballs this time, things may be a little different... I better raise my expectations of activity, because right now I feel like I'm typing into a void! It's so vewy vewy quiet...
Well, we'll see what happens...
*sigh* Well, I suppose this was inevitable. I really dislike talking about myself but I'll bear up. Born in San Francisco May 10, 1952, a 5th-generation San Franciscan, and they don't get older than that. Raised on the fringes of the Mission District on Dolores Street near 16th. Had two out-of-body experiences before age 6; at age 7 saw my Guardian Angel in my bedroom. I wrote my first stories at age ten and eleven, mainly "borrowing" from "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and the like, utilizing little 3D action cards as "screens". This is easier to type than to explain. (I still have them, so perhaps pictures some day.) Wrote my first poetry at 15, compiled three slim volumes (unpublished, natch) through age 20. That was it for a while...
Brought up Roman Catholic (Dad agnostic but supportive of Mom), attended Mission Dolores Boys School until graduating 8th grade. During that time was choir boy, altar boy, crozier bearer for bishops and archbishops, 3rd string soccer player, and didn't make the baseball team which changed my life's direction, probably. Or else it was getting hit in the temple by a fly ball hit from 300 feet away; that might have done it. Lots of things changed; everything did; it was a time of change. Guess that's what it was time for...
Next came a year at Sacred Heart High School; got a "D" in Algebra and so had to attend Summer School, 1967, and the Summer of Love. My first taste of mixed classes, yummy... flowery, lovely young girls, mini dresses, affectionate spirits... and if I pass this class, I get to... GO BACK TO BOYS SCHOOL!?!
Hmm... wonder how that turned out.
Oh well, as Grace Slick said, if you can remember it you weren't really there. Flash-forward to my new High School, Mission High. Aside from the occasional riot and pencil-stabbing, here I majored in English, History, and Creative Writing. The most notable event here occurred in the enchanting Miss Joan Howlett's Creative Writing class and meeting Maya Angelou, who encouraged me to pursue a career in writing because she felt I was talented judging from the poem she MADE me read to my class. Long and funny story, but really a great woman, and I owe her many thanks because due to her kind and sincere words I was able to keep burning my righteous interest in Poetry, and later presevere and write my novel, with her always in the far back of my Writer's Memory, but very present. I do hope that someday she is able to read Lily's story and see what resulted from her prodding!
I wrote three volumes of poetry through 1972, then stopped after joining the workforce. The notion of UNBOUND got me back into writing prose several years afterwards, but the poet in me was crushed by the middle-class blue-collar working reality, coming back to life briefly upon exposure to the music of Kate Bush in 1985. Kate has been a huge part of the creation of this work. The depth of emotion, quality, and complexity of her creative output encouraged me to attain such heights if I could. That's what I've always wanted to do with my writing, contact the reader as directly as possible. Even if I couldn't, still, I should be able to reach quite far, and I strived to, to help the recipient Feel. I can't really express in words how intense this discovery period was, its significance, or Influence (if that's what it is). Suffice it to say that UNBOUND is very much a Gift to Kate, as a Thank You for giving us her own wonderful and moving Creations, tendered by a grateful one who was touched to the point of communion...
The final poem I wrote in 1986 was published in "The Thrill and the Hurting" (2006), a tribute book dedicated to her. However, the Poet did manage to make his presence felt in the writing of UNBOUND, as I've been told it is very poetic, rhythmical, and musical to read. Some would say that Lily's "Caterpillar Poem" in Chapter One was my work, but no; she wrote that one ;-)
Compromises are fine. Time moves on, matter changes, and we flow with it through space; and suddenly here we are... and the story is still here too, all of us changed, richer for the voyage. And now I have a loved one named Lily, who would love to Gift you with her story, if you would give her the time to read it...
What will probably be my magnum opus (because I can't imagine spending more years or effort on anything more ambitious), UNBOUND, formerly "The Puddle Club", was sprouted from the seeds of inspiration planted at age ten after reading Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus," and Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound." These works cast long-term spells about me; their writers fascinated me, and practically inhabited me since that young age, especially Percy, whom I have related to ever since, and been compared to tempermentally by others. When I realized that several elements of their works were coming forth in the story I decided to allow the Muse to channel (if you will) the essence of the Shelleys while writing UNBOUND. I feel that she succeeded very well, and the whole project felt blessed both by the Poet and his Mary. This story is meant to be (among other things) a Thank You to them for their inspirational works.
But the main motivation from the very start had been to (idealistic as it sounds) create something special, and present it to the World as a Gift, let's say of gratitude, if a reason is needed. I wanted to tune into the creative process as intimately as I could, commune with my Muse as clearly as possible, and faithfully re-tell the story that she senses, feels, and knows the World wants and needs to hear. I know it must read kind of strange/weird/touched, a Present from the Muse, a Message from the Angels. But there's really so much we don't know, isn't there?
And I'm sure you do know that besides Loving, Creativity is the one god-like act we can perform? And that each of us can do this, create something beautiful and moving out of nothing? And when it works, when it moves you, isn't this almost miraculous?
It almost died many times before it was even started; I passed through a hellish gauntlet to just begin writing it in earnest. It was a long, harsh, and depressing road, but only up until the time I started writing the story. Since then the path has been smooth, willing, and cooperative in order to finally produce UNBOUND. This is simply my gift to you, born of the purest Creativity, the Muse's sweetest words, the gods' hottest fire, giving back to You.
Well, I told you it was weird. (Pssst! *whispers* I don't really think so, I'm just being condescending towards those who do.)
So after stopping and starting the project over a number of years due to the distractions from relationships, work, and entanglements, I finally quit my job, moved away from hometown, hearth, and friends, and began writing it in earnest from 2001 onward, finally completing the final draft in 2006, and registering it with the Library of Congress for the copyright. Done!
But since I've been preparing such a large scale assault on the world for so long, have spread Lily's name far and wide online and otherwise (not to mention her photos), and now have potential readers in countries spread all across the globe, I'll most likely be needing an agent to negotiate all those rights first. Agents are also the only way into the Big Six Sisters' offices (the main publishers); what seems a majority of the rest take only agented submissions as well. Daunting. So, over the years we've been creating a little anticipation, you might even say "enthusiasm," for Lily and her story.
And I'm very sorry to have talked about it for so long without any signs of progress! But that's how we work, I guess... Recently I found an old letter from a girlfriend encouraging me to "finish that book!!!" ...dated 1988! So, a lot of patient people have waited a long time for this... (thank you for waiting!)
Now, at last, it's off to market, to market. We have to find just the right agent who can persevere and take Lily's story to just the right publisher who can step up and see that it gets presented to as many readers as possible and in just the right manner. It's tricky business; I don't want to sell this story short, but I don't want to oversell it either. I do have immense faith in it though, and want to keep the energy around it as positive as it was during its creation.
I also want to look into filmic opportunities, though lately I've become more convinced that an anime-style animated series might be a better suited medium; what better way to reproduce such an involved, dreamy, and brutal vision as UNBOUND? It's about time for a North American anime series, and I'm looking into this possibility as well as graphic novel possibilities. UNBOUND has always been a BIG project.
Strange; I'm not really an ambitious person. But "over-ambitious" is an understatement with regard to what I want to accomplish with this dream of Lily's. Most details will have to be kept close to the vest, while I keep on letting you think I'm telling you too much ;-)
And just like a dream, the story's Plan changes and shifts as it flows through Time with me; even now it changes, as we do. UNBOUND has already morphed in intent from Concept Album, to Epic Poem, to Screenplay, to Graphic Novel, to series of songs again, then finally to Novel, where it has found its suitable Space to expand in. I'm so anxious to see what can be grown from this story! We can be the gardeners, wielding our watering cans and pruning shears, creating a garden of lillies, where all probable things will become possible...
My everything for the time being, and has been for a while. Such a wonderful, delightful, and beloved character not only for me, but also judging from reactions of those who read her story. (See her own section here for further exploration.)
Lily is more than anything else a concept, and will be taken differently by each Reader. In the story at times her apparent cluelessness and disconnections are jarring, but at others she will prove caring, determined, and selfless. I wanted her to be a person whom the Reader might care for, a lot, in order to drive the point of her story further into his or her heart. Just as in the Wilco tune, "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart": I'm sorry, Nothing personal, It's just how the story goes. Lily knows, and she'll definitely show you...
And in the near future, God willing, both of you will take a journey to find out just what happens when that happens. How far do you dare to take it? What will you do; who will you believe; where will you go? What will you choose?
It's all up to you... and Lily.