…and edited. But with good reason. And I’ve been busy.

I kept trying to start the second chapter, and Shad’s crits of chapter one kept coming to mind. Foremost was the whole identity issue. Shad mentioned that the sisters didn’t have much individuality; I was aware of it, because it was an intentional plot point, but the more I thought about it the more I recognized that the beginning might not be the right place for it. It would work just as well at the end of the book, and in the beginning it made more sense to have strong characters to hook readers. They might not make it to the part where the characterization issue came up, if they just thought the writing was so bland I couldn’t even make my characters distinct. So that sat in my head for a little bit.

And then I got an idea for the ending. I knew the general ending, the general outcome, but I didn’t know the specifics of what happened. I got a neat idea, but the way it worked would leave the reader hanging and wondering, unsatisfied. I knew that as a reader that would annoy me, so I would have to do an epilogue. An epilogue from the girls’ point of view simply wouldn’t make sense, so I had to use a different character, but that was jarring because the whole rest of the book was from the girls’ POV, and it’s annoying to suddenly switch with no real precedent. And that gave me an idea for a prologue from the same character’s point of view, to kind of tie everything together. I was really happy, and I sat down to write the prologue.

I realized after that that the first chapter didn’t make a lot of sense. There was so much hostility from the villagers that they run the girls out of the village once their protection is gone, but the girls were totally clueless about said hostility. The action came as a surprise to them, and I realized that it was totally unrealistic. This, combined with the prologue, gave me a new idea.

So I started rewriting chapter one, from this new direction, and then I realized that I’d gone and done something I really didn’t want to do: I’d made the setting a carbon copy of Celtic lands. I don’t want to write fantasy where the reader says “oh, they’re Celtic” or “oh, they’re ancient Egyptians” with a fantasy world twist. So I did some research and relocated them. Instead of the lush green forests and hills of traditional “Celticy” stories, Chronicles is now set in a grassland savanna, on the edge of the desert. (Well, part of the time, anyway.) (I really need a new name besides “Chronicles”, which itself is just a shortened version of the old name. But what to call it…)

I’m also doing it a different way than I have in the past. I’m writing it all out longhand, and once the chapter is written I’m typing it up. It’s a little hard, I’ll be honest- I get stuck on a paragraph and I just want to type, because as I type I do minor revising, which generally makes me feel better about being stuck- at least I’m accomplishing something. But I really want to get the whole chapter out and then do the typing/revising all in one go- I think it’ll be more cohesive that way. I don’t have as much of the story outlined as I would like- I was trying to have the seven chapters upcoming loosely plotted out, but right now it’s just the one I’m writing and the one following it. Since I know how the final chapter goes (though I haven’t pinpointed where, yet) I have a better idea of their path. It also helps that I’ve designated an approximate length for chapters and from there extrapolated the number of chapters based on my word count goal: I’m aiming for 100,000 words, which is a bit much for publication but should be good for a rough draft in need of editing, which is broken into 25 chapters of 4,000 words. It’s only an estimate, though, a working model that may be changed as I need it. We’ll see.

I’m posting the rough draft chapter by chapter on Google Docs; if you’d like to offer your constructive criticism, let me know and I’ll get you access (I just need your email address).

Anyway, I have a lot of writing to do, so I’ll catch you later!

Autumn // Kat