"Eden's Return" is coming slowly, but I'm determined to finish it this month. I can't have another incomplete story after abandoning "Castle LaMagie" and "The Wyvern Riders." In fact, when I'm done,  the next job is to finish those two stories as well.

Now that I'm 35K words into the story, I'm realizing I need certain characters to make the story work. Fortunately, I have a squad of 12 soldiers, so I can just adapt a couple of them to the necessary plot points.

Even when I don't do much writing on my walks, I'm figuring out the plot. I think I have a satisfactory ending now.  Maybe a little too on point, but there it is. If you're going to write about Eden, you probably can't be too subtle. 

I can't seem to suss all this out in advance. Fortunately, this time a least, it's just a matter of insertions to get the job done, instead of rearranging. I've had to completely rewrite the beginnings of both "Shadows Over Summer House" and "Fateplay." It actually was all right in the end, but I'd prefer not to have to do that.

So at least half of the quality of "Eden's Return" is going to have to come from the rewrite. This percentage seems to be varying for each book, anywhere from getting 50% right to 90% right.

I'm going to muddle through on these three stories, but the next time I start a new story, it's back to the old process which worked so well. I experimented with a slower pace and it didn't work.

Busybody that I am.

Sometimes it seems to me that I can see clearly what others should do, in both writing and in storefronts.

I can walk into a store and figure out a dozen ways to improve it instantly, without a huge amount of investment, just by reorganizing.

I can read a story and instantly figure out a dozen ways to clean it up, sharpen it, and make it much better.

Or so I tell myself. (I hereby formally recognize the caveat that I might be wrong.)  

Can I do anything about it? Hell, no. In fact, I have to be careful not to say much at all. People don't appreciate it. Either I couch it in such a diplomatic way that they pay no attention, or I try hard to convince them, which repels them.

Even in writer's group, which is more or less set up for this purpose, I have to be very careful and selective with what I say, and with the knowledge that they probably won't take my advice anyway.

So here's the thing: what if there are people out there who can do the same thing for me--both in my writing and my storefront? How would I accept it or reject it?

I think I have a rare turn of mind, frankly. Analyzing constantly. Cutting to the quick. So the truth is there probably aren't that many people who can do it. And those who can, are constrained by the same problems of diplomacy as I am. But most of all--everyone is busy with their own stuff, you know? Including me--so that if anyone actually did take me up on my offer, I'd probably find myself over my head rather quickly.

It drives me nuts sometimes. Especially in bookstores. "Just do this," I want to say. "Try it!" I want to go in and start cleaning and organizing and straightening. I want to pull books from the back and highlight them, and take other books and file them differently.

In writing, I want to take a red pen and slash and burn.

Last week at writer's group, I took one paragraph of a story and had my way with it. The story itself is very interesting and fun but the writer is a little addicted to modifiers and adverbs, so I went through that one long paragraph and cut them all, then read the result to her.

To me, the whole paragraph was vastly improved. She nodded her head as if she understood, but I never know whether they actually change things.

Obviously, it's much, much harder to see my own failings, in both business and in writing. I don't know what I don't know.

It's just that there are things I know, and I can see how some of those things could help others, and I have to just watch as they--in my opinion--do it wrong. 

Give me my SF and Fantasy straight, man. Don't dilute it.

I want to like Doctor Who, really I do. I want to like Terry Pratchett, really I do. I want to like Douglas Adams, really I do.

It would make things so much easier.

The humor escapes me. I mean, I love the bon mots of Buffy and Firefly, the Marvel movies, and so on.

But when it comes to straight SF or Fantasy the quirkiness pulls me right out of the story.

Linda and I watched the first episode of the new Doctor Who. I noticed that Linda was chuckling throughout the show but it got nary a chuckle out of me. It seems very light, not much to invest in. I mean, I've seen snippets of Doctor Who, such as the Van Gogh story, that were powerful, but when I watch the show itself I'm just sort of not interested.

Linda has shows she watches, and I have shows I watch, and I have shows that she watches with me, and she has shows I watch with her, and then there are shows that we both love.

Lodge 49 was a show that Linda watched because I was watching it. But by the end, she was fully into it.

"How can you not be?" I said. "It's kind and gentle and down-to-earth, just like you are."

I mean, talk about quirky--but I loved it.

So I can't explain my resistance to humorous SF and Fantasy. I 'm not altogether consistent--I loved Good Omens, for instance, which is Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. But mostly, I'm turned off by it.

Give me my SF and Fantasy straight, man. Don't dilute it. 

The overall story mystique of "Eden's Return" has me in its grips. But the story itself--I'm struggling. Oh, I could write it. I have the basic framework in mind, but it wouldn't be remarkable in any way. It would be predictable and pedestrian.

The idea deserves better than that.

I'm trying to coax the inspiration out. I'll spend a couple of hours each day just hoping that a single thread of original thought will come to me. I've spent several days with nothing coming. I'm hoping for something a little more.

I basically have two story threads--one is reality based, a struggle for survival, the crew being picked off one by one. I mean, the reader would know by now that that is happening, so the only suspense is how exactly they get picked off and who, if anyone, is going to survive.

Even that, I'd like to bring something surprising to, but that may not be possible. This is more a matter of crafting the action, making it interesting and evocative.

The other storyline is more mystical and strange--and that's the part I want to fly. So far, I've had an "imaginary" friend, who is a manifestation of the Refuge, or Mother Nature, or whatever force created the Stasis.

So that was satisfying, and I'll be able to bring Artemis back when I want to.

The second mystical thing to happen is that Shani astro-projects, sees what is happening to the soldiers. That was also satisfying.

So far I don't think I've missed anything, but it is coming slowly, and I want to continue to have that feeling that I haven't missed anything. The moment I'm not satisfied is the moment I stop and try to coax out something different.

I haven't always done this. I've continued to write stories at a certain pace, and sometimes plot lines develop that I'm not completely satisfied with, but which fits the needs of the story and so I've gone with them.

I'm not going to do that anymore. Each choice needs to be one I feel comfortable with.

It is taking a lot longer--waiting for inspiration--but I have the time. I've written so many stories by now that I no longer fear being stuck. Something will happen, and I'll wait for it to happen.

More luck than planning.

I like the plot of "Eden's Return"--such as it is. It's very simple. More thematic in structure than twisty.

The simple is hard.

I have two viewpoint characters and I'm alternating chapters between them. My guess is that part one will come in at about 50K words. If there is a satisfying climax, that may be the whole book, allowing for a second book. If not, I'll need to continue and just make it a longer book.

50K means that it will end up around 60K because my rewrites always add about 15% to the total. 60K is more like the length of the books I wrote when I started out. When I thought I might be writing for the mainstream, I pushed myself into the +80K territory, and ended up with several books +100K, culminating in "Fateplay" which was 120K. 

It's been slow going, which is fine as long as I can keep my focus. My focus comes from really feeling like I've got the right action. So I've been inching my way, making sure I feel good about where each scene is going.

The writing is kind of clunky. This isn't one of those books where the first draft is close. But I've become resigned to the process of rewriting, of doing thorough second drafts. I think I'm even starting to like it, kinda, slightly, at least the results.

I'm purposely slowing down from the pell-mell pace I was going at for several years.

It's weird how I constantly feel like I'm just learning enough that maybe this time I can write that book that will have everything. Because that's what it takes. Everything you have, all the brains and emotions and experience you have.

The luck factor even in creation is much bigger than I'd have ever thought. That is, you need a good premise but you can't always tell what a good premise is until you write it, and then the process needs to work out, where you can really focus, then the plot has to go in the right direction, which doesn't always happen, and then you need a couple of characters to take over the book, and a surprise twist that you yourself didn't see coming, and then...well, like I said, everything has to come together and that seems more like luck than planning.

One thing is for sure--I need to have a fictional dream in my life or it feels empty, so not writing is simply not an option.

This has been slow going with "Eden's Return." I feel like there is a real book here, and that I haven't taken any missteps, but to go forward I need a couple of dramatic turn of events.

First of all, I need for Shani to manifest some of her powers. How, what, and why? I also need to continue to explore her spiritual side.

Secondly, I'm pretty relentlessly killing off the squad, one by one, and the reader by now must know that is happening. So how do I keep that fresh?

So those are the two problems. Normally, if I tease at these kinds of problems for awhile, the answers come to me. But not this time. I think maybe because I want the solutions to really elevate the book. I could easily come up with something, but I don't want to settle for anything but that "Wow" feeling I get when I think an idea is special.

So I'm going to continue to worry it, tease it, twist it and ponder it, and hopefully, the right turn of events will pop into my mind, full-blown and magnificent. Heh.

Metaphors need not apply.

One of the frustrations of my earlier writing efforts was people warning me away from genre mixing. I couldn't see any reason why romance and fantasy didn't go together for instance. If only I'd listened to my own instincts.

The other frustration was my efforts at SF and Fantasy were almost always knocked down because I didn't explain everything.

The current story, which is called "Eden's Return" has a lot of logistical things I'm not trying to explain, events that don't necessarily have a neat solution. (As you might guess from the title, there is a lot of symbolism going on.)

I've created a scenario where a bubble has formed over the Pacific Northwest and all the humans have been kicked out and nothing man-made can cross. It is pure nature inside, without mankind's interference.

I'm not explaining the how and the why of it.

There is a current member of my writer's group who is very concrete minded. She keeps asking, "Where are they? What are they doing? Why this? Why that?"

Metaphors need not apply.

I'm going forward. I know the story needs to have internal consistency, but that doesn't mean everything has to be nailed down. To me the story makes an intuitive sense and by the end, I'm sure I'll know more and can go back and maybe do a little explaining.

But dammit, if I want to put in a few anachronisms, I will.

 Go with the flow...or don't.