It’s been a while since I’ve posted and figured it’s high time I provided an update on how the book is going, how it’s changing, and when it will be out. So here goes.

At the same time, I’ve engaged in my own critique, generating checklist items that sometimes overlap with the beta comments and some times does not. All of this goes into an outline segregated by character, subplot or some other logical division – in all, over 25 different major headings, each with a few to dozens of subsidiary bullet points. I won’t end up including everything on the list, but most of it, I expect, will be reflected in the final version.

The longest section of that outline involves Crypto, as I continue to be focused on the challenge of convincingly and credibly presenting the inner life of a mentally ill character. In a way, he’s stolen the book.

Two of my beta readers are psychologists, which has been extremely helpful, as has been the courageous and honest autobiographical account of Dr. Elyn Saks entitled The Center Cannot Hold, which describes her ongoing struggle with schizophrenia.

Here’s what the Crypto portion of my outline looks like:

1. Crypto

• Introduce his war council earlier; have Crypto enlist a dedicated US lieutenant to carry out the apartment and office exploits against Frank
• Have Crypto find himself in a situation where he’s hospitalized against his will; reminds him of the Stasi; vows never again; commits to retaining control; fixation on blockchain helps
• Perhaps goes to an authoritarian clinician and is both attracted and rebels
• Or finds a complacent doctor who is generous with his meds
• More about the challenges of living with his psychosis; learning to look normal while hearing voices and having visual hallucinations – people in meetings with heads on fire were evil and dangerous; it took him a long time to convince himself they were not, but that did not always hold
• Crypto believed in the beginning he could kill people with his thoughts; during sane moments, he was relieved to see he had not
• Leather straps and four-point restraints. Talk about the hard, cutting ages of their aged, cracked edges and the smell of the agonized sweat of countless madmen that had been restrained on the same gurney before him. The bare bulbs and dingy corridors of the penal institutions that had changed little from the custodial 1900s
• Reads up on schizophrenia; what is he destined for? Schizophrenia has both positive and negative symptoms which are useful for a conclusive diagnosis. Positive symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, and racing thoughts. Having negative symptoms meaning sufferers exhibit the following: emotional apathy, nonexistent social functioning, disorganized thoughts, high difficulty concentrating, and disinterest with life.
• Feelings of godlike power. But also that he was evil and needed to redeem himself somehow
• Had to fool the people in the hospital to escape. He carried that lesson with him for the rest of his life.
• Emphasized his feelings of apartness and isolation and being different
• Navane works far better for him than Trivalon. Acts faster. Fewer side effects.
• Tardive dyskinesia and twitching
• Come up with a more pivotal moment for Crypto on the political front?
• A chapter from the Bees point of view?
• Rejects treatment as being the same as his GDR teachers indoctrinating him and the US teachers doing the same. This is who he is and how he will understand himself and the world in his own way, not theirs. He rejects the way they see politics and ideology, so why accept how they look at reality?
• Crypto distrusts authority and orthodoxy of all types; Decides he’ll educate himself about schizophrenia, with particular regard to the patients themselves, especially the high-functioning ones. He will be the best of who he can be as he is, using medication only to the extent he must
• Have Crypto view himself as a high functioning schizophrenic with creative abilities that are more advanced than others as a result. Still, wonders whether, for example, his political thoughts have been affected. And also, can he take credit for his thoughts, or does he have to give credit to his voices? Are they two, or one? Is it I and me, or are we all us? These were questions that worried him, and that he could not answer
• keeps to strict work schedule, sleep, food habits, exercise, to minimize symptoms
• Paliperidone plus antidepressents
• “A cacophony of voices swirling inside his head; sometimes they all seemed to be saying the same thing; other times not. Sometimes an individual voice would become clearer for a while and then fade as another took its place. But over time, two voices predominated, seeming to crowd the others out. A female voice that could be soft or shrill, argumentative or demanding, and a male voice that always boomed.
• Only one in five schizophrenics will live independently
• Has a script to read – almost like a religious credo – to help him chase the delusions away. He is not evil. He cannot control others with his mind. Neither can they control his
• Had to fool the people in the hospital to escape. He carried that lesson with him for the rest of his life
• Emphasize Crypto isn’t the person who killed Fang

Next time, I’ll post an example of the additions that are resulting from my turning the outline into text. I expect that the book will be about 15% longer than the blog version as a result of these additions, with several sub-plots and themes expanding significantly in the process. In each case, the primary purpose will be to make the main plot stronger and more credible.

And now as to timing: life has been busier than anticipated, with a lot of domestic and international business travel keeping me away from the book for days or weeks at a time. That said, I still hope Book Five will be available before the end of the year, most realistically in November.

Finally, Beta Reader William Lupton has sent me a link to a remarkably Frank-ian column from the ever-worthwhile and appreciated Guardian newspaper. It made me grin, and I expect it will make you smile as well (there’s even a tortoise!)

Now it’s time I got back to Frank.