From adequate --- to possible good or possible disaster.

Whenever I make significant changes, I start a new version.

I've got the older versions sitting there on my computer, from the last "polished" version, which was Nearly Human B, the one before that, Nearly Human Dead,  to the next version,  Faerylander Ex, to the kitchen sink version, then regular Faerylander, followed by Faerylander Parts, then -- Faerylander Severe, then -- Faerylander- Combo.  And so on and so forth. 

Before that I had plain old drafts 1 and 2 of something called Almost a Human.

So this one is called, appropriately enough, Faerylander Gutted.

I've had the sense from the beginning that the story was inert.  No matter how polished the writing, no matter how many interesting ideas I had, the story just didn't move forward fast enough.  It didn't have a consistent voice and it was hard to care about the characters.

So I kept trying to fix it, and each time I wrote a new draft, I think I did that.  I do believe the last draft or two of the book would have been "adequate."

What I've done with this latest restructuring is thrown out the "adequate" and risked everything on a new version that may be a complete disaster.  I mean, it may be much worse.  But I'm hoping it will be good.

"Adequate" just wasn't something I wanted to put out there.  I needed to risk complete overhaul in the hopes of changing adequate to good, but by doing so I may have changed adequate to bad.

I don't know yet.

A book either feels right or it doesn't.  Good or bad, the Vampire Evolution Trilogy "feels" right.
Freedy Filkins feels right.  Led to the Slaughter feels right.  Wolflander feels right.

Sometimes a Dragon seems -- adequate.  Deviltree seems -- adequate.  They've both been done for a long time, but I'm not willing to put them out until they feel "right" not "adequate."

Like I said, this isn't really the same thing as saying a book is good or bad -- it's possible that one of my adequate books may be a better read for some than one of my feel right books.

But I have this inner sense about whether something is really and truly done or not and I have to go by that.