I’ve been focusing on finishing art and sewing projects this week, so I did a read-through of Afterworld in my downtime – my next writing project, my fantasy trilogy. After about halfway through it I felt like it turned into fanfic or something, so, because I can, I’m gonna just nuke the whole last half of the trilogy and start over! Kind of liberating feeling, actually. Justin isn’t Malk, so I need a little less self-deprecation in his story.
This happens when I know exactly how I want the characters to develop, but the action that needs to happen alongside it takes a lot of effort and research. Afterworld is very much so a research book because of its environment and setting, so the characters, who are completely developed and stand on their own, kind of just blazed forward before the world was ready for them. Having grown as I have with the recent work on Division 53, however, I’m completely comfortable deleting half the story and redoing it. The first book and a quarter are fine as they are, so I don’t feel like I’m deleting anything that is worth keeping.
If I didn’t think that the books would be better doing so, I wouldn’t bother – but I know that the whole story will improve if Justin, Mira, and Widget grow along with the crap they’re going to get into. And honestly, I’ll take any excuse to write more about my refugee, anti-princess, and sarcastic charade dragon. They don’t get as much attention as my D53 children, but I love them just as much.