So after struggling with Faerylander for a couple of weeks, I read Chapters 6 & 7 of The Dead Spend No Gold at writers group last night, which I hadn't looked at for a month.
How refreshing. It felt nice -- it felt, if I may say so myself -- very professional. Even the critiques were right in line with making the story complete; a couple of different starting points, and a clearing up of POV. Simple fixes.
I do believe I've gotten considerably more proficient in my writing. Not the struggle that Faerylander has been. (As I say, I must really LOVE Faerylander to keep at it.)
Meanwhile, I'm about 30% through the current rewrite of Faerylander. It's a straightforward narrative, which actually feels kind of strange. But all the pieces are falling into place.
I think I was trying to cheat in earlier versions, because I knew the story was dense, so I was trying to put "tease" chapters earlier in the story. But I have to trust in the narrative; and that the reader will stay with it.
We'll see when I get about 2/3rds in -- that's when all the flaws seem to accumulate.
This time, instead of just moving scenes around from different versions to get a rough draft, I'm trying to get each chapter "right" before I move onto the next.
I figure a couple more weeks and I'll have a nice workable draft to send to the editors, and then I can get back to writing Ghostlander again.
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