LOOKOUT has entered Final Draft Stage!
A momentous day! I have been working on this novel for 5 years, since the middle of the pandemic.
As of today, I am considering it in Final Draft Form. It’ll inevitably go through edits as I send out to my beta-readers and try to weasel my way into the world of publishing, but for now, it is done.
This novel, this story, has gone through so many iterations—I initially wrote it with intent for it to be a standalone novel, of which I wrote a full draft. But then Chaos entered the scene and I ended up writing a sequel, planning for it to become a trilogy. Then I scrapped all of it and came back to the drawing board, aiming to get it all down into one book. Then it sat mostly-neglected for a few years as I got busy with photography.
Recently, maybe because of the current political climate, I’ve felt compelled to revisit it, and over the past few months I felt that initial spark return that had me furiously writing back in 2020.
It is now a three-part book, pared down from my trilogy idea into one complete work. I do have plans for a second in the universe, though the intent there is for these two to be twin stories, you could pick either one up and read it and understand, but if you read them together there are even deeper meanings.
Lookout is a novel written out of frustration, isolation, a leery amazement around tech, and a deep, deep love for humanity and the world.
An excerpt — Prologue
It happened again.
It was late afternoonish but it felt like dusk, overcast, sky like slate. Weather oscillating between cool mist and a sprinkle. I was seated on a curb outside of what was once a gas station, elbows resting on my knees, somewhere east of Seattle. I had been wandering for some time. How long, I couldn’t tell you. Time was slippery, then.
I had very little on me, just the keys to a stolen U.S. Forest Service Bronco—now out of gas, a useless heap of metal—a carton with one cigarette left, a matchbook, a windbreaker with its sleeve torn off, some papers.
I was seated on a curb, studying the body of the man seated next to me.
He was propped up with his back against a blue post office drop box, upon which was spray-painted the words LIGHTS OUT in yellow, the paint beginning to run. His legs were crossed in a half lotus, his arms splayed out by his sides. His head tilted awkwardly back against the mailbox. His face was gaunt and pallid, a sickly color, in stark contrast to his black and wildly unkempt beard, and the tufts of black hair coming out from underneath his trapper hat. His mouth was slightly agape, his eyes barely open but focused on nothing.
The skin of his hands was worn with thick callouses and scars. A working man. But young—hard to tell since his skin was sickly, but he couldn’t have been over forty.
Beside him, an intricately carved cane with a handle the shape of a raven’s head.
I’d seen plenty of homeless before but something about this man struck me as odd, or otherwise significant. Something about him stuck with me.
Maybe it was the location. Why was he here? There was no one else around, not for miles. Everyone had already evacuated days ago. He was still warm. Where had he come from? How did he get here? Perhaps he had come from the mountains. Like I had. Or maybe that’s where he was headed.
That would explain his clothes, anyway. He was dressed like he was ready for some grand expedition, with a thick green canvas parka, thick leather work boots, and a trapper hat, all noticeably worn but of high workman quality. The cane too—intricately, beautifully carved. Its detail was stunning.
I wiped my cheek—I had been crying. I don’t know why, or how long. It seemed important. It seemed, all the same, utterly insignificant.
I closed the corpse’s eyelids, then retrieved the last cigarette from my carton, struck a match, set it alight. I breathed in and exhaled slow, watching smoke dissipate upwards into the gray, gray sky, letting my mind float away along with it.
Across the street, a lamppost fell over.
And then I awoke.
