Not better or worse -- just harder to do.

Read the first 3 chapters of The Last Fedora at writer's group last night.  They seemed to like it.  Pointed out a couple of cliches:  "deep wells" for eyes, and "soothing the savage beast."

They also thought the 10 year old character was way too precocious for the age.  Easily fixed, actually.  I can make him 12, 13, or even 14.  I'm thinking 13 right now.

One of the readers hadn't heard of Golem's.  I figure anyone who tracks down a book called, The Last Fedora: The Gangster Golem Chronicles, is going to know what a Golem is.

Back to the salt mines.  Trying to get Tuskers III right.  I always know I'm in trouble when I have to fiddle with the structure of a book.  I don't know why this sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't.  It doesn't really make the book better or worse -- just harder to write.

I had another brainstorm.  Do it in 3 parts.

Z Day, Minus One.

A continuation of the characters from books I and II, with a heavy emphasis on a Tusker named Napoleon.

Z Day, Plus One.

The new characters and how some of them meet the characters from the first two books.

Z Day, Plus 523.

This is set a year and a half after the events in the first two parts.  Bringing all the characters together in one final confrontation.

Z Day Plus One is more or less written.

I have a bunch of material that originally was going to be threaded through the story, but which will have to be rewritten as a separate Z Day Minus One.

Z Day Plus 523 will have to be written pretty much from scratch.

I'm going to do something different I think.  I'm going to outline each of the first few chapters; be clear about what I'm trying to accomplish before I write them.  Don't know if this will work, but I'm going to give it a try.

It is going to be a challenge to make the first part of the book work, but that's okay.  I probably need a challenge.

But, damn.  I wish they all came as easy as The Last Fedora or the first Tuskers book!