"Deadfall Ridge is done."

A full and complete rewrite of "Deadfall Ridge" is done.

I really worked on this, and now I can't really see the story. I have to assume that the original story still works the way I remembered it, and all the rewriting has improved it.

As I've mentioned, I'm not completely confident of the 1st person narration. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably do it as a 3rd person.

Then again, I was hoping to create a main protagonist and supporting characters, a locale, and a tone that I could continue doing. So I did that. If it works, I've got more books I can do this way. If not, I'll try something different.

There is no end of rewriting that can be done. Every single time I open up the file I find something to change. But I believe you can tighten a book too much. There has to be few woolly elements here and there to make it human.

I'm sending this off to some people who are familiar with the wilderness, hopefully to catch any howlers and recommend some telling details.

And I'm getting it edited. I'll give it one more rewrite when all those edits and suggestions come back, and send it off.

If it doesn't work, I'm going to try not to be discouraged. This was a type of book I've never tried before. I think I learned a lot by doing it. I just need to apply those lessons to the next book.