For the last week or more I've been having trouble with Crystal and the Stars. A nagging little problem that grew and grew, until I couldn't hardly sleep at night, wondering about it. The story just... got boring. Not horribly boring, but weak, lifeless...

I went to bed at 6AM today, tossed and turned for another couple hours. I knew I had to go back and add things, rewrite things... change things.

Change something.

And I suddenly knew what I needed to change. About midway through what I'd already written I did something that made Abby and Tristan weak and very nearly useless, leaving the war in the hands of the others. That didn't seem so bad in the original version, but now I realize that I need more of the two, not less. And I need to show that they're ready to take on the next challenge at the end of this story, not just move on.

So I've gone back and begun changing things. This is going to take some time. I'm on page 132 of 278. I've added about 500 words so far, even though I keep deleting huge chunks. Something has to go in to fill in the gaps, after all.

It's going to mean a lot of reworking up to the point where I left off. I don't normally work this way... but I don't normally have a book under contract either, so I might as well give it a try this time.

I think it's going to work.

And I better get back to it now. Oh, and the hand and arm are a lot better, though long stretches of typing still makes them go numb. Well, always knew I should get up and move around more often anyway...

Took most of yesterday off from internet stuff when I started having trouble staying on. It cleared up. I didn't get a lot else done, of course, but still it was a good break.

Tonight is the Culture Class. I've got everything ready for it, though I do keep going back and tweaking things. Then I'm going to go back to writing. I think it should be a good night. It's quiet outside, mostly because the temp dropped quite a bit again -- back down to the 60's tonight, and probably going to slip into the 50's. This weather is strange.

But off I go... time to get the last of the class stuff done!

Two small chapters added so far. I odn't think they amount to more than 1500 words. Snippets of life on the other side, and of the gradual change in Tabor as he realizes that he holds answers because he is not limited in his possiblities by his demon blood. It turns out there is a good side to being half human after all.

I'm not getting very far word-wise, but I have made a big improvement in the story, just in those few hundred words. A different feel. Now if I can just change the feel of some of the other material...

Well, first I'm going to get it written up. I'm very nearly to 50,000 words. I would like it to run somewhere between 75-90,000. I suspect that it's going to run short, but if I keep coming up with ideas like this last one, I won't have much trouble.

And the zoo stuff seems to be working. I'm testing an upload right now. We'll see... still some work to do on it, but I think it's going all right.

I hope.

Back to work...

When I went to bed this morning, I laid there a long time wondering how I can improve the excitment in Crystal and the Stars. I think I finally found it, and it's a problem I had with another novel a few years ago. The enemy is faceless. We know who it is from the previous two books, but for most of this one, they are behind the scenes.

So I'm inserting a few chapters that will expand on what Gix and his half demon son are doing. So far the first one is going well. I don't expect these pieces to be very long, but I think they'll add a nice flavor to the mix, a bit darker...

Time to get things together. New month. I will have this one done soon. At least I've gone over the middle, which had lagged -- but will be better when I put the new material in. Now I'm working my way down to the ending, and I can see it falling together better. And I can see... yes, the reason why the demons are not present in the next two novels. I knew why not, but I can work it into something a it more drastic in this round.

Good. Off to work.

Well, I've done next to nothing so far today. I got the zoo website done, only to find that it would not load. So that's taken a considerable amount of my time. I have written some material today... a short free verse poem for one thing. Odd. I don't do those very often. I had intended to write a short story on the subject, but the feel leant itself far better to something sparser.

At any rate, at least it's done in first draft, which is more than I can say for a lot of other things I've been working on lately!

I am going to try to finish a short story tonight as well, just so I can say that I've done the apprentice short story dare. I did get four stories out for the rewrite dare, so that's good too. Not my best dare months, but not terrible.

I've misplaced The Mediterranean book again. It's too expensive to just leave sitting around, so I always end up misplacing it. Ah well. It's a day to write, anyway.