Faerylander sucking me in again.

My magnum opus -- and my albatross -- Faerylander is beckoning again.

Bren did an edit on it recently and she had some legitimate concerns.  Enough so that I think it would require a complete rewrite to accomplish her suggestions.

Is it good enough? Yes.  It's been "good enough" for some time.  But I have higher ambitions for this book as well as the books that follow.

I've lived with this book for almost 4 years now, rewriting it constantly. As a result, I have the complete book in my head, and I've built a lot of back story.  I still feel it has tons of potential.

But it has become somewhat of a burden.  Each time I walk away from it, I think I'm done; that either I'll publish it as is or I won't -- but that I won't rewrite it again.

And enough time passes and I start thinking, "What if?" again.

Anyway, I started to wonder if I couldn't split the book in half.  That maybe that would straighten up the plot problems.  But no matter how I looked at it, I couldn't figure out the place to break it in half.

The other night, I realized that while it would be difficult to create two books out of this, there were natural splitting points for three books. There would need to be some original material added to make the transitions, to solidify the climaxes, but I can see how it would work.

Thing is, I want to be absolutely sure I've worked out the plot problems BEFORE I start actually working on the book again.  So after I've written my chapter of Gargoyle Dreams each day, I've been turning my attention to Faerylander, mulling it over and over and over and over again.

I think there are three parts:

Faerylander: The War Between Cthulhu and Faery, Part I.
Zombielander: The War Between Cthulhu and Faery, Part II.
Cthulhu-lander: The War Between Cthulhu and Faery, Part III.

What this would probably mean is that I would bring back much of the previously jettisoned material.  Ironically, many of Bren's criticisms were actually things I had removed, that were there previously.

If I do this, there will be tonal differences between and within the three books. But I think that's all right.  The reader can handle it.

The main thing is to have fun.  I think I sort of lost sight of that, trying to make it a serious book. Because the book is such a mess, it has kind of freed me up to do what I want. Probably self-publish it.  I have a cover I bought that I have three different versions of, the same picture of the main character; who has fire added to his hands and feet in the second version; and Cthulhu-like tentacles threatening him in the third version.  Same basic picture, but with enough differences (especially if I use different colors in the titles) that it would pass for parts I, II, and III I think.

So I'm going to work on this project between and while I'm working on my other stuff.  It's easy for me to go back to because it's all firmly in my head and I don't have to reintroduce myself again.  Like I said, I'm going to have a FIRM outline before I start tinkering, otherwise I can see it turning into a morass again.  Really don't want to go there.

But I love this story.  Not to mention, I have two sequels already written which are just fine:  Wolflander and Ghostlander.