#go rewrite

[ineffable-endearments]

GO Rewrite thoughts.

I am strongly STRONGLY considering tweaking the way the Book of Life works.

In GO3, the Book of Life basically is reality. They are one and the same. The Book = physical manifestation of Everything. Change the Book and reality catches up. Take someone out of the Book and you cancel their existence.

In Christian lore, as I understand it, Jesus has to write the names of the saved in the Book of Life. It isn't "running the universe" UNTIL the Second Coming. It's basically a completely different thing.

In my version of events, I would like to write it so that all the angels genuinely believe that the Book of Life equals reality, but actually, it's more accurately described as the nexus of Heaven's influence over reality.

In other words, people, and even things, have a core existence outside of the Book. That's what "free will" is. The Book can absolutely physically remove someone from the universe, but it can't truly 100% "make it so they never existed." And if you KNOW someone is trying to erase you? Like, if you're watching it happen? You can fight it. You end up with an awkward situation where people are essentially hanging on like ghosts - or like Crowley keeping the Bentley together as he drives through the flames on the M25.

Because the truth is, I absolutely adore books, and specifically the Book of Life, as a metaphor. I love it to pieces as a device that can be used to act out series themes.

But.

For some reason, I find the "erase you from existence" thing incredibly, offensively irrational. I guess it just makes NO sense to me - if you erase someone, then based on cause and effect, they used to exist! Spiritually, I also find it incredibly nihilistic. And I suppose this is supposed to be the horror aspect of it, but I can't abide the notion of a universe where a magic book alters the fabric of reality BUT the free will of sapient beings can't even push back a little.

I don't know if this is my way of being a huge quitter because I just don't like the Book of Life mechanic as presented. It feels like I can do more interesting things with it my way, whereas if I do it the GO3 way, I have to treat the Book more delicately and won't get the opportunity to use it as thematically. However, I am aware that making it Secretly Not That Powerful lowers the stakes, which affects how compelling my own story is.

[ineffable-endearments]

I went ahead and bought Scrivener because it made me feel fancy.

[ineffable-endearments]

All right, I need to go ahead and write at least one or two major ending scenes for the rewrite, even at the risk that they might have to be rewritten AGAIN later. I've been trying to avoid it, knowing there's so far to go and what belongs in there could very well change, but I've kind of been feeling like an angry bear with hemorrhoids lately, and probably a large part of it is that it's frustrating not being committed to any specific vision for where my creative efforts are going, not to mention the inability to say "no, thank you" and replace images I don't like in my brain with images that I do like in my brain.

[ineffable-endearments]

Something that is driving me nuts is having to work on the story an hour or so at a time. I really want to be focusing more than that, but there is always SO MUCH to do, and then there's the non-stop urge to sit there and stare silently into the distance.