I’ve put in some 42,000 words and counting into Hemo Sapiens, so I’ve taken a couple of days to step back and take a long view. I want to ensure I am keeping my original vision with integrity. A major motivator for me is to write a social commentary. I am a philosophical and psychological person, but I am not looking to come across like Dostoyevsky, one of my favourite writers. Besides, this is adult contemporary speculative fiction, not psychological literary fiction like Fyodor. I’m shooting more in the space of Margaret Atwood or Cormac McCarthy, at least thematically.
The working title is Hemo Sapiens: Awakening. I might amend the subtitle to Awakenings. Time will tell. The story is about the awakening of the hemo sapiens. I’m always refining, but here’s the general pitch:
Nearly a hundred strong, a family of genetically engineered clones confront harsh realities when discovered by a fearful outside world.
It’s a story of the construction of group and individual identities—going from no conception of identity to battling an imposed identity as outsiders to form one of their own; from no individuation to a semblance of personal identity.
I hope to pay homage to Erikson’s stages of identity formation and Kubler-Ross’s stages of dying. Kubler-Ross gets double duty, as I wish to personify characters with each of her stages: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
It will also serve as a critique against post-Enlightenment Modernism. Whilst I agree that change was necessary and inevitable at that time, the direction taken was not necessarily for the better. As a so-called Postmodern™, this is my default position. As Rousseau notes, promises of freedom abound, yet most remains enchained. Or in the lyrics of Mad Season’s River of Deceit,
My pain is self-chosen…
Anyway, back to writing.
Ridley Park 