I haven't written anything about this in a long time. I'm not very confident or sure of this whole documentary thing. It was really a loose idea to begin with. The problem with it (and I knew this from the start), is how can you be sure something is a failure? PLUS, how can you chart the thing from the start assuming its going to be a failure?

In other words, how does it spell out differently than a regular documentary? I don't really have an answer. So, from this point forward I will try to treat it like a typical documentary. The odds are still stacked heavily against my favor of the book being a success.

I will try to point out areas where the book and the project as a whole is destined to be a failure (there are certainly a number of areas I have identified as problems).

Having said this, you can expect to see a series of more frequent entries. Though I have not been working on this documentary very much, the book has been pressing ahead reasonably steadily.

I finished reading American Gods" by Neil Gaimon today. On a side note, I would recommend picking it up. I felt a little sad to leave that particular world. More precisely to have my connection with that world cut off. If I had my choice I would just turn to the next page and continue reading. Page 588 would not be my last contact. I feel that way with books or movies that I really enjoy. I feel a sense of loss, of melancholy to leave them behind. But with the GIANT I don't have that same feeling. I have a good idea of what the ending will be, but beyond that I know not how THAT world will continue. No more than a reader of the book would. Of course the book isn't finished yet. And I do have a habit of not finishing things. As if finishing severs my connection with the thing? I'm not sure.

I do enjoy the process, the act of discovery. Many things that I start, I can see how they will end, and thus never complete them. But as I've now forced myself to not let the GIANT sit unfinished I am beginning to look at that philosophy differently. Before I typed one word I had sketched out much of the book. I knew the main characters, the settings, some of the journeys involved. I had pictures and mental maps.

So I began in early summer of 2005 typing. It would be what? eight or nine months until I returned to it. Now it is more than a year since the beginning and I am returning to what I had written initially. A lot of it was horrible. Blgh. A bunch of hacky crap. At one point I wrote a note to myself the that following paragraph was horrible, but I was leaving it in for reference. I'm not sure what I meant by "reference". Some point in the paragraph that I bumbled through, or for me to reference the abuse of the English language. Probably the latter, knowing me (and I should).

Once again I start on one topic and finish with another.

Thanks for listening.

I've named the first official draft: Draft 1a.

The cover reads:

Draft 1a: Copy not complete. This version is an on-screen edit of the text in order to facilitate and complete the closing chapters. In doing so, some of the previously written material may be changed or deleted. Refer to previous copies of the text for this information.

The characters and the story arcs have changed as I've moved through the book, so I'm going back through tightening things up, filling in details and making everything congruent. I hope by the end of this draft writing to have a complete story, with all the pieces filled in.

Where does the GIANT start? Where was it born? I lived in Connecticut a few years back. I woke up from a dream one morning. A pretty powerful one. Strong enough for me to dig out an old sketchbook from a few years back and sketch out the dream (This was something I didn't do much back then). One image of a giant skeleton on some giant table surrounded by this futuristic fence (probably mentally lifted from Jurassic Park or Starship Troopers) sitting in the woods.

The other image was of a flotilla of ships, sailing to sea. On the bow of one of the ships was a banner with an inscription. I wrote: "text about noble giant killed by man...Honorary funeral @ sea" (This I know I took from the Civil War documentary by Ken Burns. More precisely the style of the newspapers, how they would spell out text in sidebars).

One page. I put this together in late 2003, most likely judging from the pages before and after. Then I had another dream, which I didn't write down, but remembered. That of a man driving to New York, or leaving New York, heading west? I'm not sure. Maybe it was all one in the same.

And from there? Things just fell into place.

About this "Documentary"

I always think a documentary should be filmed, but I don't really have any video equipment, nor the time or motivation to put something like that together. So I'm writing it out. I had this idea once: "Documentary of a Failure". I thought it was terrifically clever. Like, no one ever starts off a documentary from the vantage point that the subject will fail. But, like most of my ideas I could think of no subject, so I jotted down the line in my sketchbook and let it be.

Then it hit me! The GIANT. It's a book I'm writing. It's bound to be a failure, why don't I give that a shot? Perfect. So that's what I'm doing. I will, as dutifully and impartially as possible, chart the failure of my book, the GIANT.

Two things:

Do I really believe the book will fail? Part of me does. Part of me sees myself sitting with Regis, talking about how such a whirlwind things have been. The odds are in the favor of the GIANT not being a success. And if it does? All the better for me, then this Documentary (of a Failure) would itself be a sort of failure?

I really don't know if anyone has made a documentary from the start expecting the subject to fail. The more I think about it, the more likely it seems. Fantastic for them if they have. But I still want to give this idea a try, it seems interesting.