Update

I'm finally getting my high-speed internet connection up and running. Feels good after having stayed with dial-up far longer than any person reasonably ought to. Of course, by the time I've done this, the internet has advanced so far I'm sort of confused about everything all over again, but that's the way it goes. There are so many new things people can do with this technology now, and web sites are so much more "enriched" these days. That's okay...I'm patient, and I'll keep at it, and eventually I'll learn what I need to know to keep up, more or less.

There were a number of non-writing things that came up in the past week. I did put in a lot of time last week, but the past few days have been less productive. I'm getting back into the swing of things again now.

I'm still going back and forth with Chapters 8 and 9. I've rewritten them a few times by now and am still working on them. I had to find the real heart of the matter, the essential things that are true to the characters. These chapters mark an important transition. They bring the story to the mid-point. I need to clearly establish the MC's mindset and emotions, goals, etc. I've had to do a bit of searching to draw these out in a truly authentic manner, and then also find the right way to dramatize them.

I finally got it "right" but the way one of the chapters was written focused too much on individual introspection. I am now rewriting that chapter yet again to have the character arrive at these understandings through interaction with other characters, in a way that would make sense for him to interact with them. I'm throwing in some conflict as well, in order to heighten the tension, so that he doesn't simply figure out what he needs to do, but has to wrestle with it (quite literally). I don't mind longer passages of introspection when I'm reading someone else's novel, and find they often add a lot of insight, but I want to avoid that sort of thing for this novel, which needs to move forward with an absolute minimum of exposition or other asides.

With any luck I'll finally finish this delicate part of the story and then will be able to resume breaking new ground on new chapters by the end of the week. I look forward to getting some momentum going with that, to make some more rapid progress.

Best wishes to others as they work on their novels,

Adrian