The Great Wheel, a never-written Tim novel
I originally conceived of this novel in spring 1995. I wish I'd actually written some of it. Would have been interesting.
The third part of the trilogy begun with DSW and continued in HSZ. This story is Tim’s big story, It starts with him walking around campus late at night and obsessing over fall quarter, how close he came to happiness and how he threw it away. Through his eyes, we see how Michael becomes friends with the girl he rejected and it makes him both sad and happy. He is also gradually coming back into claimstake society, and it is a difficult process. The story then climaxes with Memorial Day Weekend at Sophie’s house in Napa.
The Great Wheel: the ancients’ name for the endless revolving of the constellations around the pole star-the Zodiac. Also symbolic of the wheel of fate, how everything tends to balance out in the long run. One minute you’re up, the next you’re down. Linked also to the archetype of the Fool, who frequently has a major role in the twisting and turning of fate.
In TGW, the wheel of fate has to turn for every character. Tim, of course, is plummeted to the bottom-he has to reach bottom before the wheel can turn and start lifting him again. Helen, too, has to suffer a reverse. Michael ascends to the top just as Tim hits bottom, just as fall quarter Tim was on top of the world and Michael in the abyss of despair.
During the Napa weekend everyone else’s life turns around as well. Peter gets together with this amazing girl that he’s has a crush on for several years, a friend of Rebecca’s. Rebecca is Helen, Jake & Peter’s friend from high school who went back east to college at Holy Cross. There she became close friends with a girl, Kim, who has visited California several times. Both Jake and Peter are very attracted to her. Peter thought of her as unattainable, and also assumed she would go for Jake. However, that night, Jake makes a pass at her and gets thoroughly squelched. She then gets together with Peter. We see all of this through Tim’s eyes, who studies every detail of their interaction, because he too is attracted to Kim, though he tries to dowplay it too Helen, saying he doesn’t think she’s as cute as everyone else does, but Helen isn’t fooled and mock-encourages Tim to go for her.
Peter also tells Tim his intention to end things with Jamie once school ends.
What’s Jessica’s role in the story other than as Kim’s friend? She, too, should scam, with a local guy from Sophie’s high school, who’s also back from school.
Sophie & George have a major argument, when they get into a intense discussion. Possibly Jake gets really wasted and tells Sophie the truth about George and she gets shocked into reality.
What about Mick? In some way he is the one character who doesn’t go up or down, he stays even in the story, if he’s there. He may not serve a purpose, though. Unless there’s some resolution to him & Tim. On some level Mick is attracted to Tim, and this plotline needs to be resolved. In some weird way, Mick feeds off of Tim’s attraction to Helen and encourages him to do something with her, although Mick talks about it abstractly.
Who’s there?: Tim, Helen, Jake, Sophie, George, Peter, Rebecca, Kim, plus two guys and a girl from Sophie’s high school. One guy and a girl are a couple and don’t figure much.
Does Jessica get developed as a character in TGW? Does she come along to Napa & scam with someone totally foreign to her? Every character has something sort of extraordinary happen to them, some reversal, except Mick, who just gets as drunk as he ever has and disappears in the woods, to live like an animal. He passes out sitting against a tree. He reappears the next morning, slightly dirty.
Both Jessica & Rebecca scam, with a pair of guys from Galena who are friends. They went to Sophie’s high school and both went to midwestern schools.
What about Sophie & George? Does George tell her about his multiple indiscretions, in such a way that he doesn’t think Sophie will react but something breaks through her and she becomes broken-hearted and Jake has to comfort here. George & Mick go off to drink together after that, to reappear for the big conflagration in the pool. However, the Sophie-George saga doesn’t get found out until the next day, when Jake tells Tim about it, much later in the afternoon. Tim finds out about after he gets back. The night before, he sees part of what’s happening, though. He gets the complete story the next day.
In TGW, adapt scene from NFFN where Tim goes over to Helen’s house and starts compulsively trying to find all of the pens in Gretchen’s pen set while he self-consciously thinking about what he’s doing.
How to adequately include Michael in Tim’s story, so we feel resolved with his life. There needs to be some drama in Michael’s involvement with Tim’s former friends in the dorm, so it’s not at all in the background. This occupies the parts of TGW before the big Napa trip. In some way Michael’s decision to go away with Paul, Amy & Krista affects Tim and makes him go to Napa (originally he wasn’t going to go just because he doesn’t feel up to it, but then he thinks about Michael going away and he decides to do it too).
In TGW, what’s repressed comes out for every character. Tim makes a pass at Helen, Helen flirts with Tim, Jake gets rejected, Peter gets together with what he considered to be an unattainable woman, Jessica gets together with a conservative guy, Sophie becomes very emotional, Jake is tender when comforting her instead of going off with Kim to score, Rebecca gets together with an un-PC guy as well. (does this parralel Jessica too much?) Mick becomes very intimate & un-ironic with Tim.
Tim goes to Alta Lara one day and drives around aimlessly, going to his father’s empty house, drives by his old high school. It’s a hot day and helistens to classic rock on the radio. He’s supposed to be driving back to Santa Zita but he procrastinates and shines his class.
Ends with Tim coming back from a night out with Michael & Helen (how come he’s alone, then? Michael took the bus home earlier while he stayed later) after Memorial Day weekend, relieved that he’s still friends with Helen and jealous of Michael & Robin (which Michael told them about that night). Michael’s planning to attend the summer language program at UCSZ, while Robin lives nearbye with her mom. Tim thinks about the totality of life while he pees and gazes at the entire Monterey Bay, thinking about the women he’s loved and where they are, what they’re doing, if they’re making love that night, looking at the lights of the houses. Then he turns around and walks alone back up the hill.
During spring quarter Jessica and Tim become closer as Tim tells her about his life and what happened when she was gone (this may be how we find out what happened to Tim in A-dorm). After the Napa weekend, they talk again.
During the Napa weekend, Lana is there as well. She dropped out of school that quarter and has been living at home in Galena, working at an organic farm so she can save money to go on some kind of wilderness program. The other characters are very surprised to see her, since she has grown apart from all of them since the year before. Sophie invited her because Sophie has never understood why Lana left the group, though she partially blames Jessica, since Jessica told Lana and Helen that she couldn’t live with them anymore, and Lana took that rejection hard. Lana had actually planned to live in Santa Zita that summer, but then she ended up going back to Galena. Helen has to scramble to get a new housemate, which is how she ended up getting back in touch with Gretchen.
Lana comes over on Saturday afternoon. Tim is very tripped out. He is already very buzzed, since they’ve been drinking since eleven o’clock. Spring quarter of his freshman year he had a big crush on her. Lana had liked him as well, but neither ever made a move on the other, so nothing ever came of it. Sine then, though, Lana has always acted strangely around Tim, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. She makes him feel like he dogged her when he feels like he should be the one who feels dogged. Lana stays for the night and everyone is psyched in varying degrees-Sophie, Helen & Jessica talk to her the most. Lana is into new-agey/hippie-trippie type things and becoming more feminist-aware which alienates her from Jake and Peter and especially Mick, who has always made fun of her ever since she dogged him freshman year.
That night everyone gets completely wasted. Sophie & George have been sort of broken up for a while. A few weeks earlier (possibly the same night as a party that both Michael & Tim go to) Jake told Sophie about everything that George had done, and she was distraught. (On some level Jake still resents George for sleeping with his first serious girlfriend in high school and they’ve always been competitive about Sophie, since she was in love with Jake freshman year, even when she and George went out, but Jake also cares about Sophie and hates seeing her get hurt). After that, Sophie decided to permanently end their on-again and off-again relationship and just be friends. For the past month she’s kept to her resolution. George wants her back, of course, and he sees the Napa weekend as the perfect opportunity. While they’re wasted that night, George makes some intense passes at her, but Jake steps in and helps deflect George. Lana is wasted, too, and there has always been an unspoken attraction between her and George which they never acted on, though George has always flirted with her.
Tim meanwhile has been thinking about Lana and feeling attracted to her, drunkenly fantasizing about them getting together, and how romantic/ ironic it would be if after all those years they finally did it. Lana, under the influence of alcohol and being around her old friends, feels herself reverting to her old ways. She and Tim have an intense moment, but Tim ends up doing nothing and she feels rejected again. George comes on to her, and they start scamming. Tim is amazed and becomes very depressed, thinking how his life always ends up that way and he never can make a move no matter how good the opportunity. Tim is completely tripped out because once again he has lost out ot another guy and he goes on a big self-pity trip.
Sophie sees George and Lana together and she is devastated, since she still cares about George in spite of herself, and she is hurt that he would go for one of her oldest friends in front of her. She knows he’s doing it just to get back at her. Sophie breaks down and Jake comforts her. Jake gets very angry and confronts George out on the porch. They argue, push each other and get in a brief fist-fight. Jake plants a healthy right on George, giving him a nice shiner. They look at each other, stunned. Jake starts laughing, and they suddenly shake hands and embrace. George decides to call it a night, pausing only to vomit. Jake can’t believe what he just did.
Lana meanwhile, has come to her senses and taken off without saying goodbye, deciding that she can’t go back to being her old self. (she tells this to Tim, leaving she runs into he and Mick?)
Mick and Tim are off by themselves when they hear Jake confronting George. They come in and see the fight. Mick cheers it on. He says after it that it was the only way to resolve things and it was something they should have done years ago. Tim is still feel sorry for himself and when Mick suggests that he and Jake drink straight whiskey shots, he foolishly agrees. This brings Tim drunkenness to unheard-of levels. Mick congratulates Jake on his punch, Jake is modest and feeling guilty. Jake tells them how he got dogged by Kim, but that he’s happy for Peter, who ended up with her (they’re sleeping together at that moment in the small guest-room). Mick & Tim are impressed (and jealous) that he’s gone to bed with her.
Everyone is amazed after this event. Sophie suggests they go night-swimming to lift the mood. Everyone strips to their underwear and run out to the pool.
While this is all happening Jessica is scamming with the conservative guy off in the grapevines. At one point Tim wanders off to pee and discovers them. He returns and spreads the scandalous tale.
Does Jake get dogged by Kim or does he pass on the chance to scam with her to comfort Sophie?
Tim contributes in some way to each story. He doesn’t scam with Lana, opening her up to George’s advances. He tells Jake Sophie’s crying and distracts him from Kim. He stumbles across Jessica. He talks to Peter and Kim, and unwittingly guides their conversation where they start to really connect. He’s foolish and makes everything happen. He jokes about serious things.
Helen flirts with Tim, saying she’s jealous of his attraction for Kim. This trips Tim out. He becomes incredibly happy, since he wonders if Helen is secretly attracted to him and he never knew.
Integrate elements of GSZPS into TGW. A very burnt keg party which everyone goes to. Tim gets jealous of Michael & Helen hanging out together and develop Mick & Tim further, as they watch Michael & Helen. It’s the night Tim finds out what happened with Sophie & George. Night ends for Tim in drunken self-mockery.
The third part of the trilogy begun with DSW and continued in HSZ. This story is Tim’s big story, It starts with him walking around campus late at night and obsessing over fall quarter, how close he came to happiness and how he threw it away. Through his eyes, we see how Michael becomes friends with the girl he rejected and it makes him both sad and happy. He is also gradually coming back into claimstake society, and it is a difficult process. The story then climaxes with Memorial Day Weekend at Sophie’s house in Napa.
The Great Wheel: the ancients’ name for the endless revolving of the constellations around the pole star-the Zodiac. Also symbolic of the wheel of fate, how everything tends to balance out in the long run. One minute you’re up, the next you’re down. Linked also to the archetype of the Fool, who frequently has a major role in the twisting and turning of fate.
In TGW, the wheel of fate has to turn for every character. Tim, of course, is plummeted to the bottom-he has to reach bottom before the wheel can turn and start lifting him again. Helen, too, has to suffer a reverse. Michael ascends to the top just as Tim hits bottom, just as fall quarter Tim was on top of the world and Michael in the abyss of despair.
During the Napa weekend everyone else’s life turns around as well. Peter gets together with this amazing girl that he’s has a crush on for several years, a friend of Rebecca’s. Rebecca is Helen, Jake & Peter’s friend from high school who went back east to college at Holy Cross. There she became close friends with a girl, Kim, who has visited California several times. Both Jake and Peter are very attracted to her. Peter thought of her as unattainable, and also assumed she would go for Jake. However, that night, Jake makes a pass at her and gets thoroughly squelched. She then gets together with Peter. We see all of this through Tim’s eyes, who studies every detail of their interaction, because he too is attracted to Kim, though he tries to dowplay it too Helen, saying he doesn’t think she’s as cute as everyone else does, but Helen isn’t fooled and mock-encourages Tim to go for her.
Peter also tells Tim his intention to end things with Jamie once school ends.
What’s Jessica’s role in the story other than as Kim’s friend? She, too, should scam, with a local guy from Sophie’s high school, who’s also back from school.
Sophie & George have a major argument, when they get into a intense discussion. Possibly Jake gets really wasted and tells Sophie the truth about George and she gets shocked into reality.
What about Mick? In some way he is the one character who doesn’t go up or down, he stays even in the story, if he’s there. He may not serve a purpose, though. Unless there’s some resolution to him & Tim. On some level Mick is attracted to Tim, and this plotline needs to be resolved. In some weird way, Mick feeds off of Tim’s attraction to Helen and encourages him to do something with her, although Mick talks about it abstractly.
Who’s there?: Tim, Helen, Jake, Sophie, George, Peter, Rebecca, Kim, plus two guys and a girl from Sophie’s high school. One guy and a girl are a couple and don’t figure much.
Does Jessica get developed as a character in TGW? Does she come along to Napa & scam with someone totally foreign to her? Every character has something sort of extraordinary happen to them, some reversal, except Mick, who just gets as drunk as he ever has and disappears in the woods, to live like an animal. He passes out sitting against a tree. He reappears the next morning, slightly dirty.
Both Jessica & Rebecca scam, with a pair of guys from Galena who are friends. They went to Sophie’s high school and both went to midwestern schools.
What about Sophie & George? Does George tell her about his multiple indiscretions, in such a way that he doesn’t think Sophie will react but something breaks through her and she becomes broken-hearted and Jake has to comfort here. George & Mick go off to drink together after that, to reappear for the big conflagration in the pool. However, the Sophie-George saga doesn’t get found out until the next day, when Jake tells Tim about it, much later in the afternoon. Tim finds out about after he gets back. The night before, he sees part of what’s happening, though. He gets the complete story the next day.
In TGW, adapt scene from NFFN where Tim goes over to Helen’s house and starts compulsively trying to find all of the pens in Gretchen’s pen set while he self-consciously thinking about what he’s doing.
How to adequately include Michael in Tim’s story, so we feel resolved with his life. There needs to be some drama in Michael’s involvement with Tim’s former friends in the dorm, so it’s not at all in the background. This occupies the parts of TGW before the big Napa trip. In some way Michael’s decision to go away with Paul, Amy & Krista affects Tim and makes him go to Napa (originally he wasn’t going to go just because he doesn’t feel up to it, but then he thinks about Michael going away and he decides to do it too).
In TGW, what’s repressed comes out for every character. Tim makes a pass at Helen, Helen flirts with Tim, Jake gets rejected, Peter gets together with what he considered to be an unattainable woman, Jessica gets together with a conservative guy, Sophie becomes very emotional, Jake is tender when comforting her instead of going off with Kim to score, Rebecca gets together with an un-PC guy as well. (does this parralel Jessica too much?) Mick becomes very intimate & un-ironic with Tim.
Tim goes to Alta Lara one day and drives around aimlessly, going to his father’s empty house, drives by his old high school. It’s a hot day and helistens to classic rock on the radio. He’s supposed to be driving back to Santa Zita but he procrastinates and shines his class.
Ends with Tim coming back from a night out with Michael & Helen (how come he’s alone, then? Michael took the bus home earlier while he stayed later) after Memorial Day weekend, relieved that he’s still friends with Helen and jealous of Michael & Robin (which Michael told them about that night). Michael’s planning to attend the summer language program at UCSZ, while Robin lives nearbye with her mom. Tim thinks about the totality of life while he pees and gazes at the entire Monterey Bay, thinking about the women he’s loved and where they are, what they’re doing, if they’re making love that night, looking at the lights of the houses. Then he turns around and walks alone back up the hill.
During spring quarter Jessica and Tim become closer as Tim tells her about his life and what happened when she was gone (this may be how we find out what happened to Tim in A-dorm). After the Napa weekend, they talk again.
During the Napa weekend, Lana is there as well. She dropped out of school that quarter and has been living at home in Galena, working at an organic farm so she can save money to go on some kind of wilderness program. The other characters are very surprised to see her, since she has grown apart from all of them since the year before. Sophie invited her because Sophie has never understood why Lana left the group, though she partially blames Jessica, since Jessica told Lana and Helen that she couldn’t live with them anymore, and Lana took that rejection hard. Lana had actually planned to live in Santa Zita that summer, but then she ended up going back to Galena. Helen has to scramble to get a new housemate, which is how she ended up getting back in touch with Gretchen.
Lana comes over on Saturday afternoon. Tim is very tripped out. He is already very buzzed, since they’ve been drinking since eleven o’clock. Spring quarter of his freshman year he had a big crush on her. Lana had liked him as well, but neither ever made a move on the other, so nothing ever came of it. Sine then, though, Lana has always acted strangely around Tim, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. She makes him feel like he dogged her when he feels like he should be the one who feels dogged. Lana stays for the night and everyone is psyched in varying degrees-Sophie, Helen & Jessica talk to her the most. Lana is into new-agey/hippie-trippie type things and becoming more feminist-aware which alienates her from Jake and Peter and especially Mick, who has always made fun of her ever since she dogged him freshman year.
That night everyone gets completely wasted. Sophie & George have been sort of broken up for a while. A few weeks earlier (possibly the same night as a party that both Michael & Tim go to) Jake told Sophie about everything that George had done, and she was distraught. (On some level Jake still resents George for sleeping with his first serious girlfriend in high school and they’ve always been competitive about Sophie, since she was in love with Jake freshman year, even when she and George went out, but Jake also cares about Sophie and hates seeing her get hurt). After that, Sophie decided to permanently end their on-again and off-again relationship and just be friends. For the past month she’s kept to her resolution. George wants her back, of course, and he sees the Napa weekend as the perfect opportunity. While they’re wasted that night, George makes some intense passes at her, but Jake steps in and helps deflect George. Lana is wasted, too, and there has always been an unspoken attraction between her and George which they never acted on, though George has always flirted with her.
Tim meanwhile has been thinking about Lana and feeling attracted to her, drunkenly fantasizing about them getting together, and how romantic/ ironic it would be if after all those years they finally did it. Lana, under the influence of alcohol and being around her old friends, feels herself reverting to her old ways. She and Tim have an intense moment, but Tim ends up doing nothing and she feels rejected again. George comes on to her, and they start scamming. Tim is amazed and becomes very depressed, thinking how his life always ends up that way and he never can make a move no matter how good the opportunity. Tim is completely tripped out because once again he has lost out ot another guy and he goes on a big self-pity trip.
Sophie sees George and Lana together and she is devastated, since she still cares about George in spite of herself, and she is hurt that he would go for one of her oldest friends in front of her. She knows he’s doing it just to get back at her. Sophie breaks down and Jake comforts her. Jake gets very angry and confronts George out on the porch. They argue, push each other and get in a brief fist-fight. Jake plants a healthy right on George, giving him a nice shiner. They look at each other, stunned. Jake starts laughing, and they suddenly shake hands and embrace. George decides to call it a night, pausing only to vomit. Jake can’t believe what he just did.
Lana meanwhile, has come to her senses and taken off without saying goodbye, deciding that she can’t go back to being her old self. (she tells this to Tim, leaving she runs into he and Mick?)
Mick and Tim are off by themselves when they hear Jake confronting George. They come in and see the fight. Mick cheers it on. He says after it that it was the only way to resolve things and it was something they should have done years ago. Tim is still feel sorry for himself and when Mick suggests that he and Jake drink straight whiskey shots, he foolishly agrees. This brings Tim drunkenness to unheard-of levels. Mick congratulates Jake on his punch, Jake is modest and feeling guilty. Jake tells them how he got dogged by Kim, but that he’s happy for Peter, who ended up with her (they’re sleeping together at that moment in the small guest-room). Mick & Tim are impressed (and jealous) that he’s gone to bed with her.
Everyone is amazed after this event. Sophie suggests they go night-swimming to lift the mood. Everyone strips to their underwear and run out to the pool.
While this is all happening Jessica is scamming with the conservative guy off in the grapevines. At one point Tim wanders off to pee and discovers them. He returns and spreads the scandalous tale.
Does Jake get dogged by Kim or does he pass on the chance to scam with her to comfort Sophie?
Tim contributes in some way to each story. He doesn’t scam with Lana, opening her up to George’s advances. He tells Jake Sophie’s crying and distracts him from Kim. He stumbles across Jessica. He talks to Peter and Kim, and unwittingly guides their conversation where they start to really connect. He’s foolish and makes everything happen. He jokes about serious things.
Helen flirts with Tim, saying she’s jealous of his attraction for Kim. This trips Tim out. He becomes incredibly happy, since he wonders if Helen is secretly attracted to him and he never knew.
Integrate elements of GSZPS into TGW. A very burnt keg party which everyone goes to. Tim gets jealous of Michael & Helen hanging out together and develop Mick & Tim further, as they watch Michael & Helen. It’s the night Tim finds out what happened with Sophie & George. Night ends for Tim in drunken self-mockery.
Works
Recent Writing
- Andy Warhol's Sister: Truth and Beauty
- Volume III: Table of Contents
- Volume III: Michael in the dark wood
- Notes For a Future Novel: Michael in the dark wood
- The Deep & Savage Way: Michael experiences doubt