About 14 AD (Part Two): I finally sat on my first complete draft long enough. Percolated on it's difficulties long enough. I finally sat down and attacked it today and began a full revision. The more I study Tiberius, the more I feel sorry for the poor guy. But I also feel sorry for me! It's not easy to write about a man who had such complicated reasons for doing so very little. It doesn't make this job very easy.
I have to keep the 'mind-reading' in my narrative to an absolute minimum, but explain enough to keep the action [what little there is] from seeming pointless and absurd. I also have to show the complexity of the actual situation, according to leading classical scholarship, but I've got to do it in simple words for all readers, and try to keep it brief. This may be impossible.
It takes a long time to understand complicated things well enough to explain them simply without explaining them poorly. The difficulty is ONE of the reasons why this has never been done. But it needs to be done. It needs to be done well.
And so, I continue. Impossible is nothing.
2 comments:
are you working on a manuscript for future publication?
Yes, Lou. The current edition of Volume One (9 BC to 14 AD) is online now at www.year-by-year.com. My goal is to finish Volume Two (14 to 37) before I publish One. Then again, I've got over a hundred pages on 4 BC, so I may publish that first by itself. Then again, it all still needs a lot of support information - at least a few appendices. And I prefer to drive forward, for the moment. I got lots of time...
Thanks for asking. :)
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