About a month ago, I was completing a project and attempting to publish it via Amazon's KDP when I hit the unexpected snag of Kindle needing to know who the translator was for the edition of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea I had transcribed from. The idea of the project wasn't a complete transcription, although it had originally been intended to be a partial one, and the rest of the story completely rewritten or cherrypicked, as I had determined, when I read the book five years earlier, that I liked the parts without Captain Nemo best.
Well, I didn't know the translator, and Kindle didn't like that, so the book was left unpublished. I had transcribed only to the point Pierre Aronnax and company discover the Nautilus, and as yet are unaware of its true nature, much less its chief occupant. I'm not sure Jules Verne really nailed the shape of Nemo's role, but I loved the opening act as the mystery of the Nautilus unfolds, a kind of lost coda to the great age of maritime exploration last represented by Moby-Dick, so that's what I chose to feature in my version, and that alone.
Then I decided to tackle the idea from a different vantage point. Kindle has recently launched Vella, a serialized storytelling venture, and that's one thing I can always make time for, so last week I launched a revised version that features entirely original writing, a parallel narrative recapping the Verne tale and a modern sequel in which a descendant of Aronnax, a deteriorating Nautilus resting in his backyard, decides to undertake one last adventure.
I don't know how often I'll be plugging away at this, maybe once a week or so, which is the pace, at two weeks, I have set, but you can keep up with the results here. I also don't know how long it'll be, and I haven't attempted to prepare a full outline. At times such things can feel like both blessing and curse, as I have discovered with other current projects. I know the shape of it, thanks in part to half being drawn from existing material, as well as the probable conclusion to the original material.
Should be interesting.
I'd like to do something for Vella but I can't find the time. Unfortunately the flash fiction stories I've written previously are already on KDP so I can't put them on Vella.
ReplyDeleteLooks good so far. I read the first two chapters and am intrigued. I do hope you will find time to continue it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for having a look! This Saturday is going to be different, so I expect the next chapter to be written and posted earlier.
DeleteI've been following it along with great interest. In fact, it has inspired me to re-read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea which has been a couple of decades since I last read it. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate this, and that you’re enjoying it. Yesterday’s chapter was the last one drawing from the original story. Today and tomorrow conclude the original material.
Delete