This is to be my journal pertaining to the creation of the net version of Spectral Shadows. Here you can observe what progress I’m making in getting this mammoth novel series ready for net publication.

The Spectral Shadows project was begun in 1979 under the working title “The Omman Chronicles.” From that point through about 1984 it existed mainly as reels of tape containing a makeshift soundtrack made from my record collection, and some sparse notes indicated what each track on the tapes represented to the story.

Around the mid 80’s several novel sized episodes began to be written. These contained my early ideas for the concept, much of which would later be changed. And in 1993 some 500 pages of novel text representing the first 5 serials were submitted to the Library Of Congress for copyright, where they now sit enshrined in some large folder, feeling neglected.

Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, whenever I had ideas for stories, or when I actually felt so into a scene that I could write down some dialogue, I committed these things to notebook paper. And, owing to my singular lack of organization, these pages now are strewn about in various places, making the project difficult for me to view as a whole the way I used to.

From the mid 90’s to present I had pretty much decided to scrap this project. And thus even less care was taken with my notes. They have been stored in over heated closets, in boxes under dressers, in damp basements and various other places that are not kind to paper.

The most essential material I need to reactivate this project is stored on floppy discs from my old word processor. Suddenly realizing that I didn’t know where these were I have just torn my entire apartment apart looking for them. I finally found them hidden in the back of an antique Victrola. It still remains to be seen if the old word processor, which has been clinically dead for 10 years, can be made to function well enough to read the discs.

The status of work on the new net version so far consists of some 80 pages of new novel text for a serial that no work had previously been done on. I discovered that there was a fandom for anthropomorphic animals on the net and decided to work on this serial first, as I think it will have more appeal to fans of anthropomorphic cartoons than other sections of my saga.

Actually, this is the first time in more than a decade that I have been so involved in scenes from this series that I could just kick back and write down what I was witnessing in my imagination. Unfortunately for me, when I do that the story takes on a life of its own and starts generating new characters rather quickly, before I have any idea what I want to do with them.

I’ve known, probably since the late 80’s, that my human character Christine was going to take a time/space trip to an anthropomorphic world. But I did not know until last month that she would be turned into an anthropomorphic red fox, nor did I know she’d be getting married there and having a child. Likewise, I did not know my anthropomorphic canine character Perry would be getting married to a blue fox, and likewise contributing to a new generation of young characters I never saw coming. Turns out the anthropomorphic panda housekeeper is also getting married and preparing to increase the cast.

Eeek! What will I do with all these kids? Something in the C. S. Lewis vein, I should imagine. Oh well, that probably means I’ll have to imagine 7 entirely new serials just for these kids to wander around in their own private Narnia. Might be fun.

Also of interest, it seems music is still a driving force in my creative process, as the story I’ve just been writing will have several Heart and Pat Benatar songs on its proposed soundtrack. Being as I find myself writing a story about an anthropomorphic rock band with a female lead singer, I auditioned dozens of songs by female groups and artists to help me visualize their concert so I could describe it.

The name Fox Stars just popped into my head for the group. Guess I was thinking of Sailor Stars or something like that. It didn’t occur to me till later that this is an inverted version of Starfox, but what the hay. That’s pretty par for the course with this project.

I also later came across a couple of other cartoon animal net projects that I’m worried some people might think I’m alluding to – Cassie The Rock Vixen and Vicki Fox. I’m deliberately not reading those projects so I can honestly say I don’t borrow from them.

I guess Vicki must be a pretty common name for a fox character. Fortunately Vicki Fox is a red fox and my Vicki is a blue fox. And Christine as a red fox is much cuter than Cassie The Rock Vixen. Also, I think Cassie is more of a punk rock singer, while Christine is more of a classic rock and folk rock singer. (Vicki gets to sing all the Bangles and Cyndi Lauper songs)

My friend Jason will probably give me some ideas about what to do with the band. He’s a Saga fan and kept talking about The Saga Moth. After hearing this for a while it began to hit me that Sagamoth was a great name for an anthropomorphic character. And Jason suggested Michael Sagamoth. Thus an anthropomorphic keyboardist is born. Though I don’t want to use the Saga imagery for him. Maybe he’ll end up looking more like the Malice Mizer moth. Though I personally see him as more of a butterfly boy, and musically I think he’s more inclined to Gary Numan.

I’m leaning towards putting that serial aside for the moment, as I have no clear idea where it should go from the point I've reached. So I’ve decided to throw myself into what seems of most immediate importance – getting the first 5 serials transferred into a format that I can upload to a web site. (Once that is done I'll worry about getting a web site)

To do this I needed to find a useable master copy to work from. The only copy I was able to find was a badly faded carbon copy – some pages of which are illegible. Thus I had to start plowing through drawers trying to find a better copy, but apparently I have given all the others away to friends. (Wonder if they ever read them or got anything out of them?) But I was finally able to find some scrap pages left over from carbon mishaps that replace some of the bad pages – most importantly the first two pages which had been completely faded. (I also found half a page of text that I had no idea was missing from the master copy)

And so, like putting together the pieces of a 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle, the process begins.