Last year I spent a lot of time working on a novel that didn’t come together. I put Book 2 on hold so that I could pursue this new idea and when I clocked out at about eighty thousand words, with two chapters still to write, I knew that I’d screwed something up.

Maybe it was a case of being pulled in too many directions at the same time.

I wanted to recapture something from Swann – to venture deeper into the confusion and frustration of that age – but I got tangled up in a bit too much ego and, at present, I imagine that the piece will never be finished in its present form. I can think about it quite clearly now – six months after the last word that I put into it – and I can see how I might rework the ideas into a much more exciting narrative. One of the dangers of the piece was that I settled into the comfort of that younger voice. The blind self-assuredness, combined with teen awkwardness, and scathing self-awareness. I decided that I could somehow tell a good story without pushing any of my own boundaries narratively or stylistically.

And that was a mistake.

For now though, that has been set aside.

I haven’t been writing much since last year. Travel and work has filled most of my time and I’ve enjoyed settling into a lot of reading over the last few weeks.

I have finally returned to what I consider to be a pretty involved edit of Book 2. It remains a complete thing, but as I explore its characters, at nearly two years remove from the original complete draft, there are many things that I can improve. I was ambitious in my proposed timeline for the release of part two of The Divining Mind. I thought that I could format it for print, slap a cover together and send it off into the ether – satisfied and one step closer to the completion of the trilogy.

The truth though, was that the moment I released Swann I got tangled up in the monstrous task of Book 3. I needed to get a framework together for the series’ thrilling conclusion. I knew, and have known for sometime, how and where it will end, but it bothered me that I hadn’t managed to work out how to start the final piece. Maybe I was haunted by the many false starts that plagued Book 2 and I was afraid that I’d never work out how to put it all together. Needless to say, the process pushed Book 2 into the background.

Excusing the fact that Book 3 continues to play a competitive game of hide and seek, regardless of the fact that there are large sections of the working draft that I’m very satisfied with – there are others that I know will require substantial editing. And the same, I now realise, applies to Book 2 as a complete work. It could be printed now and provide, what I feel is, a satisfying and engaging story that builds upon the ideas and challenges set out in Light’s Shadow. But would I be happy with it? Not as much as I could be.

Book 2 is larger, broader, and more complex than Light’s Shadow and I’m glad to have left the draft alone for such a long time between edits. Having the dust settle on it highlights the undulating landscape of its narrative and now, with fresh, older, and hopefully more mature eyes, I am able to see it in a different light and shape it into a stronger piece of writing.

With this in mind I have thought about release dates and how long it should take me to finalise, but it is a constantly shifting goal. After a good session of editing where I might move through 30 or 40 pages, adding in some minor adjustments or cutting back some needlessly superfluous language, I feel like I can get the whole thing ready to roll in the very near future. But then, the next day, I might spend the same amount of time moving through 5 pages, reworking the entire voice of a character for greater consistency and excitement, and then I feel really overwhelmed by just how much work there is to still do.

Let me assure you, there is nothing fast about getting two-hundred thousand words ready for print.

But it is coming. Don’t give up on me just yet 🙂