The Story

As John, the writer, sits beside his pond, polishing a chapter of his new book, a door opens up in the grass and the characters from Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass peer at him from the darkness. John tumbles down down down through a hole in the ground to Wonderland, where the characters are busy rehearsing scenes for a third Alice-book, which they hope John will persuade their author to write. But what if their author, Lewis Carroll, has other ideas?

The Making of Wonder Fall

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 Wonder Fall

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.