Well, I can't do it.

Well, I can't do it.

I mean, writing three fresh new chapters, that was a good idea. They're much better than what I had before. I plan on writing a fourth new chapter.

But the idea of turning it all into Hart Davis, and/or 3rd person accounts is proving to be just too difficult. I either have to write the whole book from scratch or go back to the original format, with improvements.

Just having Hart and Nicole in the book is difficult by itself, but I think manageable.

So either this format works or it doesn't, but the book doesn't exist without it. I tried to convince myself otherwise, but it is not to be so. Changing it to third person loses most of the original flavor. It was meant as first person and is written that way. I can keep the content, but not the tone.

So I'm just going to have to put a disclaimer close to the beginning, explaining that it is all transcripts and witness testimony, and hope that works.

But in the process, I did very much improve the narration of the first ten thousand words, and that's a big improvement.

So it was all worth it. A book deserves a little work and attention, doesn't it? I mean, it was never supposed to be easy, right?

Arrrgghhh.


I've started yet another draft, and this time I think it's really going to work!

Where have I heard that before. heh.

Whether this book works or not, I guess will be up to the reader. But I do think this is the best version of this book, much better than it was before. It is much more accessible, and the continuity is much stronger in the first third of the book, which was always my biggest worry.

A book with merit, a bit of an experiment. I guess we'll see. But I know I tried to make it as good as possible.

I think I had to re-familiarize myself  with the format, and as I did so, I became more comfortable with it. I think the problem wasn't so much the format, as the choppy way I did it at the beginning. By smoothing that beginning, I think I've made the book better.

So the format will have to stand or fall on it's own, but the execution of it now makes more sense.

I don't know what that means for the reader that I had such a hard time. I'm neither a first time reader when I rewrite, nor as familiar as I am when I'm finished. I'm sort of in-between. So the hope is the first time reader won't have the same difficulty.