My writing has evolved--or devolved...

My writing has evolved--or devolved--into a very basic form. Sparse, simple, straight-forward.

Maybe too much so, I don't know. It can be startling to go from working on one of my stories to reading authors who have huge chunks of inner dialogue or descriptive passages or explanations.

Part of my rewriting is just looking for places where I can extrapolate, explain, describe.

My simpler style is closer to the style I see in thrillers than in SF or Fantasy or Horror.

I'm currently reading a book with two authors: the son of a very famous SF writer, and another SF writer who I've read. So I don't do negative reviews, so I'm going to be somewhat vague.

It's a very mediocre book. Obviously trying hard to hit the motifs of the famous father's best book, but pretty much missing. I now suspect that none of the books by the "son" are actually written by him; indeed, I suspect they were all written by the second author.

Lots and lots of description of motives and attempts at subtle power positioning. (The thing the famous father's best book is known for) but comes across as heavy-handed and obvious. Pretty sophomoric, actually.

Anyway, this is all just to say that my writing is very different than this--it may be just as sophomoric, but in a different way. Less pretentious, I would hope.

Really, what it's come down to is that I have suddenly realized that I have indeed developed a style of my own.

I know the ways I can improve on it, but it requires a fair amount of work, which I'm always a little leery of--not because I'm lazy (though I am) but because I've had too many experiences of taking a perfectly good story and ruining it.

So that's the constant balancing act.

The biggest thing I'm adding to this equation is time. All my stories can benefit from sitting on them for a few months. Then, after some thought and research, doing a page by page rewrite.

And then setting it aside for another few months.

Thing is, I now have enough material written to be able to do that, and still hit my publication schedules.

This sort of patience is hard, and requires true diligence. I sometimes fall short, tell myself that the book is done before it is. I have to watch out for that,

Sometimes I come back and find the book to be perfectly fine. This happened with "Eden's Return." I thought I'd do some philosophical research--the story is sort of metaphysical--but upon rereading it, I realized that adding more would be too much. So I'm sticking with the spare, but hopefully elegiacal tone of the story.

So now that I sort of halfway know what I'm doing, I'm hoping I can combine the right story with the right style with the right working process, and write a book that is perhaps better than the sum of its part, synergistic and elevating. The perfect little book (or big book) if you will...

Every book I start, there is that chance.