I hate this part of writing a book.
I’ve screwed up. The point at which I’ve screwed up is pretty clear to me, and a fair distance back now. Most of what I’ve written can (probably) be used anyway, at least in concept. I just have to get stuff rewritten back there and rearrange everything. In essence, the synopsis had a better idea, but the story offered an easier path, and…
…look, by now I should know better than to take the easier path. It’s just, y’know, every time, I think, ‘Oh, okay, this is going to work.’ And it *could* work. It just wouldn’t be as good and I wouldn’t be as satisfied with it. And I can never quite figure that out _in the moment_, because it *does* work, just not as well as it should. So now I’ve got to grit my teeth and go back to the point where it breaks (and I *know* where it breaks, dammit) and see how I can fix it. In the current version, something has been accomplished that needs to *not* be accomplished, and…there could be death, backlash, or rebound instead, which would…probably keep Character A in danger & give Jo a reason to try to get him out of the picture, and which would probably lead to Character B’s introduction earlier in the story and make certain that once again, poor Jo doesn’t get a full night’s sleep throughout the course of this book.
Dammit. I hope I don’t have to chuck fifteen thousand words. I *hate* this part. :p
On the up side, I guess, I’ve re-read quite a lot of URBAN SHAMAN and COYOTE DREAMS, particularly, the last couple of days, refreshing my memory about stuff, and sort of to my surprise, I think they’re quite good. I thought re-reading them would be painful, but I’ve really been enjoying them.
ytd wordcount: 258,200
miles to Isengard: 75