"The Story Dictates the Cast," so says...

crime mystery writer, Janet Evanovich.

I agree. I cooked up a story and am creating characters to act in and carry forward that story.

However, in my case, pre-written dialogue dictates the story. I am not starting with a blank page but 400 or so pages each of which begins with another's quote. It's not the easiest way to create a novel, especially when those opening quotes are obtuse, contradictory, and mostly depressing.

What I am adding--humor, cartoons, philosophical and theological reflections--will hopefully make Ecclesiastes accessible to modern readers. I say "accessible," and not "understood." I'm not sure I understand it. I hope to empathize with and validate readers who puzzle over this strange book. Or who puzzle over the meaning of life. Or who are depressed or suffering or experiencing existential angst. I want to give persons of faith permission to raise questions of justice, science, meaning, sin, wisdom, death, suffering, and food.

I'm worried that I'm 100% irrelevant to my intended audience, university students. My dialog is loaded with boomer friendly illustrations so I'll lose 90% of twenty-somethings. Of the 10% that remain, I lose 7% for being too theological and 2% for being too philosophical. Of the remaining 1% .5% don't read, .4% gave up comic books at age 12, and the remaining .1% look like fans at a Bassnectar concert.

Fans of Bassnectar; not one graphic novel in the mix

So why do I keep going? Ecclesiastes U is therapy for sadness. I didn't expect to end up visiting my wife in a nursing home at our young age, struggling to understand her words, or watching the glimmer in her eyes fade away.

In fiction story dictates cast; in real life stories crash upon, squish like a bug, and rattle the cast to their bones. This cast member, anyway. There's high probability that, once finished, this massive project will languish on a digital shelf, a fitting end to illustrating an absurd book inspired by an absurd disease informing an absurd life.