The conversion of the ending has gone smoother than I expected.

There is still a lot of clunky writing, but I'm trying to fix that as I go along. I have become a much better writer over the last 3 years.

In the process, I've cut a good 5000 words. I could probably could cut a few thousand more. I'm hoping by the time I add the Cobb's Bestiary entries in that it will push the book back up over 60K words. If not, I may have to do some adding. I'm thinking about adding in Tolkien and the Holocaust writer. It will mean shooting my bolt on "Famous writers" but if Faerylander doesn't work, nothing that follows will matter that much.

So...yeah, I'm going to do it. 

I think this book is now consistent in story and tone and character. Now I need to move on and do the next book, and hopefully have both done by the end of the month. Send them to Lara, and give myself some time to write the 3rd book, and then...when they come back, give them one last rewrite.

Huge effort, but it does create five books (freeing up books 4 and 5 which couldn't be published without the previous volumes.)

So it's worth it.

Couldn't quite get to the end. Still have to do the last two chapters. It's going to end up almost exactly 60K words. If I cut more, than add the Bestiary, it should come in just right.

Amazing how simply cutting out what doesn't work can actually fit. Very little new stuff needs to be written, actually.


Reading last night about what Lucas did wrong with SW 2nd III. Talked about having a "theme."

Nowadays, every book I write does have a theme. But when I started writing Faerylander, I didn't think that way.

The other thing that happened to Faerylander is that I hadn't learned yet to tell the story through scenes.

So there's this Curse, see. Whenever Cobb uses magic in his Exile, the Curse takes away his memory. Drinking causes him to lose control. Therefore drinking + magic = curse.

So simple enough. Except that's pretty much exactly the way it is introduced in the story.

Nowadays I'd have a scene illustrating the Curse. Cobb gets drunk, uses his magic, forgets where he is. Simple, illustrative, interesting.

(In fact, now that I mention it, I'm going to try to figure out a way to do exactly that.)

Anyway, this is just one example among many. Part of it is that Fantasy stories have world-building, and yet I write without doing the preliminary. In fact, I discover the world through writing. Which leads me into traps that are hard to extricate myself from.

When I write in the "real" world, the assumptions are all there. No explanation required. Which is why I'm more comfortable these days to write in the real world with a fantasy overlay. Even Faerie Punk, which has quite a bit of world building, is oriented primarily in the real world so I don't have to slow down and explain.