I’ve been rereading Lost Magic, partly to take notes for the book I’ve been working on (which is a sequel), and partly to decide how much is wrong with it and how fixable it is. And if I thought it was worth fixing.
The good news is, most of it’s fixable, and I think I have good ideas for doing so. (I’d have been worried if I couldn’t find anything wrong with it after two years.) And I still love the book.
There are a lot of spots with minor wording issues, just a slight awkward feeling on the sentence level. The first three chapters need tightening (which I knew two years ago, but didn’t see how to do it). And there’s a superfluous scene in chapter 10. I like the scene, it does some good things for the worldbuilding, but not enough for plot or anything else, and it doesn’t fit with its surroundings. I can steal many of the descriptive bits for an earlier scene and kill this one.
There are a few larger issues that are fixable, and one that I’m not so sure about. There was something that started bothering me before chapter 16 (and stopped bothering me before chapter 19). I think I have an idea for what to do about it, but hm. We’ll see.
And description. It’s still sparse, I suspect, but I can’t tell. I visualize the scenes as much now as I did when I wrote them, as much as I do when I read other people’s books, and so I still don’t notice how much is on the page. I’m just not going to worry about it.
So, how’d I do on my January writing goals? I’d wanted to finish the first draft of Seliveon’s book, but I got stuck at the beginning of the end, as usual. But since I’ve made good progress at starting the rewrite and I reread the previous book, I’m going to call that a success.
For February, the plan is to fix Lost Magic one last time. I’ll put the first three or so chapters up on the OWW when they’re ready (they’ll be called Trapped Magic then; I’m changing the title). I’d also like to make “significant progress” on Sel’s book. Whether that’s more first draft or more second draft doesn’t really matter. And I should fix Lost Magic’s query letter and synopsis, too.
