D.L. Shiloh's new pilgrimmage into modern life is THE PILGRIM COMMUTER.
Novelist D.L. Shiloh is wrestling with how to present his newest story about modern life. He feels a small sense of duty, since his new main character - like the author - is a descendant of Mayflower blood. Shiloh will probably never write about sunshine and flowers or traditional romance, instead mining real life and its ups-and-downs to find its comedic and tragic elements.
“We have blogs and journalism to give us the immediate, so it's pointless to write in that vein in the novel format,” Shiloh explained. “But I want to publish this faster than any publisher would. That was always a frustrating part of researching common publishing. It could take a project two years to make it from manuscript to the bookshelf. I'm starting its writing now and want it done in 400 days. The old system is very 19th century.”
The differences are many, but both novels by D.L. Shiloh have his fingerprints all over: quirky characters, lone souls searching in a vast busy world, a mix of sex and death and a struggle to find their own way. “PILGRIM is much more mainstream than POOKOO.”
Time is bearing down, like a slow moving avalanche, for the writer who took 17 years to write POOKOO, a satire of celebrity and grief. He set a self-imposed deadline to have THE PILGRIM COMMUTER available by year's end 2009. His blog has a countdown clock you can keep track of.
Not that there's anything wrong with the 19th century, Shiloh smiles. “The great thing about stories is that they represent the human condition. The storyteller's task is the same as it was in Greek and Shakespeare's day. But the medium needs to keep pace. I saw where CRUSOE was on NBC this weekend. It looks different than the book, but at least people will be knowing DeFoe's work. It's the compromise you make as an artist if you want to survive past your lifetime.”
When Shiloh is not wrestling with the challenges of a 21st century publisher, he's tackling the newest financial crisis and mid-life blues in his own unique perspective. He's also making sure that THE PILGRIM COMMUTER is not a rehash of his first novel, packaged to either satiate or fake out readers.
“The unsaid contract between writer and reader is, If you will pay attention, I will entertain, enlighten and give value. You work all week long and sit down to read. I work all week and sit down to write. We should be visiting a work to gain something new. If I ever work on a sequel, it can't be a repeat. You'd be better off to just re-read or watch something again. It's an insult to consumers to not get something new. Producers shouldn't just serve out the same old crap. If a new idea comes to me, something completely different, I allow myself a day to explore what's being received. Then I question whether I'm just treading old ground. For instance, that happened last night. I was writing about a female lead character (I won't say whom) and wondered if I'd already bookmarked these events for another story and character. I guess spending 17 years on a book (POOKOO) gives you a fresh set of eyes to not use the computer's copy and paste buttons.”
If Shiloh seems irked, he has reason because of his research into initially selling POOKOO to an agent and a publisher. “It's common to spend a half million dollars on launching a title, so the businessmen enter the room and because of that reality, we get a nice bestseller chart of cyclical items. I understand business. But I'm a consumer, too. We lose so much as a people and for our language. With those who published over the decades and were important voices of their generation, boxcar loads of authors are already being forgotten. It doesn't need to happen.”
So with mainstream as a bone of contention, Shiloh maps out the new novel. “POOKOO is Nathanael West and PILGRIM isn't. But that's partly due to the single person city dweller vs. the suburbanite. It's the path of many now. You move out and get a piece of land and put a family on it. The mainstream aspect is that so many people will identify with it so easily. I'm not concerned with repeating myself in this book. But fans of POOKOO will follow because just like a suburb, there's more than grass and trees and wood and shingles. If they tune in, it'll be because of the voice they've heard. And then I need to challenge them on the next book.”
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