COMING SOON!

John and the Universan: Nothing is Known has not yet been published.

The Story

On the way to visit Stonehenge, John wonders whether his English ancestors might have been involved in the building of that mysterious megalith. Suddenly, he finds himself held prisoner in a spaceship by an Alien who tells John that – despite government secrecy on his home-planet – he has heard rumours that over many centuries his own ancestors have taken part in a series of major building-projects here on Earth. Together, John and the Alien embark on a tour of ancient sites, including Stonehenge, in search of their common ancestral roots.

The Making of Nothing is Known

This journal records the author’s reflections on the process of the crafting of the novella as it evolved through the stages of planning, writing, editing and polishing. It constitutes an effort to be as conscious as possible of the process whereby the single idea that suggested the topic of the novella was expanded into a complex work of art. Topics range from the nuts and bolts of writing to the nature of the novella as an art-form.

Planning Nothing is Known

During the writing of the novella, the author kept a notebook which records the day-by-day development of the novella as it found its shape and style. The notebook – now in print form – reveals how a vast cluster of thoughts was sifted, selected, structured and polished into book-form.

The Project

Together, this novella, journal and notebook comprise the thirty-third installment in an on-going novel-writing project in which the author is exploring the concept of form and meaning in the novel, and of the novel as a form of expression in the 21st Century. All of the published journals and notebooks are available for free download.