I'm down to the last three or four chapters as of March 28. Last Tuesday, on March 25, I finished the final story that arcs back in time and deals with the greater history of Fable Avenue.
The last leap back is set in the year 1899, far past the glory days of the Old West. The tale expounds on the story of Joseph Pepper IV and his adventure with the Fable Avenue Saga's universe's legendary African-American outlaw Thunder John and his crew called the Brother Dogs. This exploit was mentioned by Joseph Pepper IV in The Ghost of Gabriel's Horn as he recounts to his lover, Theresa Amat, the means by which he acquired the mysterious veil he presents to her as a gift.
Before jumping into the writing of this grand adventure, I took time out to write a chapter dedicated to the origin of Thunder John and The Brother Dogs, which takes place in 1878. Like I mentioned in the last post, the story was gritty and bloody, and I listened to nothing but Wu Tang while scripting it. A short chapter after this narrative puts the reader back in the Old West, nineteen years later. Thunder John and the Brother Dogs are a little war torn. And here's a young Joseph Pepper IV dragging them into a hunt. It felt good to present the story in its entirety. One thing that was added to the mix was an antithesis to Joseph Pepper IV, a rival to his scholarly teachings. This character is in addition to Joseph Pepper's Belloq-esque arch-nemesis Ethan Cassidy (also featured in the story). Joseph describes this new character, added to his rogue gallery, as doing more damage to his own people (black people) than the slave master. A man obsessed with traveling to areas where Joseph has spoken and holding lectures attempting to negating his words. Humorously, Joseph says the man is a shame mostly because he has such an interesting name for a black man. It sounds strong, but Joseph considers him weak minded despite his name. Completing the story put a great deal of references made in The Ghost of Gabriel's Horn, concerning the larger story, to rest. The story took longer to write than I expected, putting me about four or five days behind my writing schedule.
As it stands now, for the second book of this saga, there's nowhere to go but forward. So what's ahead? Well, we're sticking to the contemporary
setting of the story for the remainder of the book. Chapter 30, which is
the chapter following the final leap back in time, was a blessing to
write. Though I've talked a great deal on Joseph Pepper IV and his adventures, he and his exploits are not the main focus of the story (as important as they are). It was easy to slip back into the main characters and their drama, as it now winds up to a grand climax (for this installment of Fable Avenue). The main female character pays homage and gains inspiration from Thunder John's wife (the true leader of his crew, and Governor-Queen of the town Copper Lyall mentioned in The Ghost of Gabriel's Horn). With danger looming over Fable Avenue, this young woman looks to the past to help her keep her home and culture safe.
Chapter 31 is what I'm looking at now. This chapter is a bit of a sandwich. After some narrative I'll be flowing into the second-to-last stanza of my fourth and final epic poem. Coming out of that, we flow into an action sequence that starts off with a bunch of stealth moves. Once the sequence meets its climax, and when things are settled, we flow into the conclusion of my fourth (AND FINAL) epic poem. This will be great, and of course worthy of an entry into this online journal (and perhaps, a little more). My quest for writing four independent epic poems will come to an end. And this will setup the concluding chapters to this installment of The Fable Avenue Saga™.
And as I write, the editors are tearing through the manuscript like a caterpillar eating up a leaf. Chew. Chew. Chew. Red mark. Red mark. Red mark. But it's all for the good of the story.
b write black
