Writing projects are continuing along at a good pace!  At my last update, I was going through beta-reader feedback on Thorns 1, making quick edits and putting more complicated comments into a combined document.  I ended up with a document with about 95 comments – some my own, some from readers – noting needed revisions.

I took a step back from the story after sorting all that out and did a read through of my WWII/Phantom story, making some notes on some fairly significant revisions I eventually want to do there.  This was a NaNo project that I thought I had outlined pretty well, but now that it’s mostly written I see some changes I’d like to make, especially in the flashback sequences, which will feature Erik and Meg (some fifty years after my Guardian trilogy!)

The reread took a week or so, and then I went back to Thorns 1.  At the time of writing, I’m down to 27 comments that note work still needed – and some of them are, inevitably, the more substantial edits!  But I hope to have this complete and back out for another reader pass by the middle of August.  I have a writing retreat scheduled for a month from now, so my goal is to finish this revision pass by the end of that weekend.  We’ll see!

For now, perhaps an excerpt?  One of my biggest revision goals is to clarify and dig deeper into Terrence’s relationship with his family.  So here’s a brief passage early on when he’s thinking about venturing through the wall of thorns to rescue the princess.  I made some edits to bring in some of his family dynamic much earlier in the story.

Terrence could have walked away.  Now, now that he was on the inside, he wasn’t sure yet whether he wished he had.  But he had been reading about adventures his entire life, and he had come here to rescue the princess.  How could he have walked away from that?

Besides, if he didn’t walk forward, the only alternative was to go home.  He’d have to face his father and his brothers and admit he hadn’t rescued the princess.  His father would see it as one more example of how his youngest son failed to impress anyone, Gregory would remind him about it any time they argued, and nothing would change.

So he’d taken a deep breath, put his right hand on the lioness tattoo on his left forearm, and prayed for whatever divine help Mariqwe, God of Passion, was willing to give him.  Then he’d gone into the tunnel.