Current Events Are Killing My Novel

A note from Lawrence

For eight years I’ve been building a science fiction trilogy set in 2042, after a Second Civil War and a Greater Depression broke North America into new nations. I made maps. I made flags. At the time, it all seemed far-fetched. Then the actual timeline started outrunning my plot.

This is a writer’s lament, with an excerpt about the Flash, the bomb that wipes out Washington in my book’s backstory. In the scheme of what we’re all facing, my distress ranks somewhere around billionth place. But I’m still writing, because the book is ultimately about hope, and about how science can help rebuild a shattered world.