Now that the latest Most Challenging Story I Ever Wrote is out making the rounds and has already been bounced by F&SF and is now headed to Asimov's (which is okay; some of the folks in the workshop said, "You know, I could totally see this at Asimov's," while no one said, "You know, I could totally see this at F&SF"), the next project is one last rewrite/clean-up of the novel. The thing's been sitting around for a couple of years now, which is bad and good--bad, in that it's been just sitting around, and good, in that during a reading of it several fixable problem spots just about whacked me in the face.

So it's time to fix them and send it out to sink or swim and so I can write another one.

But I noticed on the first chapter that some of the perfectly reasonable problems spots that folks had asked me to fix were very hard for me to fix. Not because of plot or prose or anything--my darlings had become a little too darling to me and I was having trouble killing them off.

The very beginning had been the beginning since--well, the beginning, and I thought it was real purty and other folks had said it was real purty and I don't usually write real purty, so I wanted to keep my real purty. That ended up being somewhat of a compromise. I hope it's still fairly purty. The other big change was in introducing a second character earlier than I'd done so before. I can understand why people wanted me to do it, but I'm still not sure the character would actually do it. It makes her too modern. Gary said it does help that chapter, though. And I can figure out ramifications in the next chapter that help it, too. So, it's staying.

Next big challenge is a very lovingly described lion dance. I can still remember how much fun it was to write, and how clear it was in my head. But it's just too damned long. It's this big speed bump in the story just when it needs to really get moving. So--gotta shorten it while still keeping it cool. Wish me luck!