Still Writing

Things have been crazy this past year, as usual. Sorry I've been away from this board.

Yes, I have been writing. The colonists made it to 44 Bootis A, concluding Part One. Then suddenly I was filled with the inspiration to complete that dang fantasy novel. It looked like it was almost done and would need only a last read-through and copy-edit. Then it turned out that, on the last read-through, I had an inspiration of how to address a long-burning worry I'd had about the transition between Part One and Part Two. Then I realized a character was speaking in the wrong voice, and I needed to rewrite her dialogue. Oh, and, when I wove the scenes of her subplot into the novel, I'd left out one critical one. Hmm, and there were three lowlanders living in the forest who had lowland names, and their names should have been changed to forest names when they were adopted, because the renaming of another character at the end is symbolic of her adoption. Oh, and the torture scene is too graphic, it gives me nightmares, and could get me shelved with horror. Glory, after doing all that I think I'd better read it through again for another copy-edit.

But you know what? I think this novel is coming out good.

Ironically, I'd sent the first chapter off to an agent, as a sort of threat to myself to finish it. (You'd better have it ready if he asks to see it!) I'd initially conceived of the Native American influence as a way to set off what could otherwise be a standard high fantasy story about the magical people in Flimbottomland threatened by the evil Lord Hootchiekoo. Apparently, I was effective. The agent wrote back, and said I had great promise, and wrote very well. Unfortunately, he'd seen the story as being a wholly Native American fantasy, not a high fantasy with NA flavoring, and there wasn't much market for such things.