Okay, the ball is rolling. I’ve started writing a novel, Ghost Ronin. Longtime readers have seen other iterations of this story as In Shining Armor.
Why am I revisiting this? Several reasons, really.
The first is comfort level. I’ve been picking at this story for 20 years. I still feel a strong connection to the story and the characters. I know these people, which should make it easier to maintain momentum.
At the same time, I’m making some pretty big changes this time around. Mike is no longer an athlete crippled and then recruited by a shadowy government agency. Now he and his friend Chris start out as soldiers in Iraq, where Mike gets blown up. The agency that “brings him back from the dead” is a independent contractor (such contracts account for over 70% of the Defense Intelligence Agency budget) which doesn’t always work for the United States. I’d already decided to use a form of Zen to allow Mike to control his nanotechnologicially-enhanced reflexes, and I’m taking this even further by having the agents trained in a 21st century Bushido, with the corporation taking the place of the Japanese feudal lord.
All of this brings the story solidly into the present day (not bad for an idea that came to me during the Reagan administration) and gives it a lot of new angles for me to explore.
Finally, this is the kind of story I want to tell. Homeworld, my Nano ‘06 project, is probably next on deck, but I really want to tell a fast-paced and emotional action story. Maybe I’m going back to my roots (I read more comics than novels as a kid) but this is the kind of adventure I think can build momentum and get me back into the writing habit.
Plus swords and stealth armor are cool.
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