Fractal Legacy: Second Draft Complete

Well, that was fast. I'm almost embarrassed to call this a second draft, but as I achieved all the goals I set out to address, I'm sticking with it.

Everything was more coherent than I expected. My daily edits and habit of keeping things up to date paid off. I'm not surprised that the first part was in good shape, as I'd given that a once-over before starting out on part two, but the rest held out well too.

I had a list of major concerns. To my surprise, I'd already addressed them better than I expected. A few minor story threads didn't lead anywhere, making them easy to purge. A couple of small areas needed expansion, but other than that, most changes were just wording adjustments for clarity.

The most significant change was the realisation that part one (which was half the novel) had two distinct phases and a natural pivot point. With minor surgery, it split into two parts, giving me four similarly-sized parts overall, now called Collaboration, Contention, Convergence, and Conjunction. Much better.

Overall, the expansions and deletions almost cancelled each other out. The novel went up by less than 100 words, which means it's now sitting at around 116,700.

I've now sent it out for comment. That, plus my own thoughts in the month or two before the feedback is complete, will lead to a third draft, which is where the bigger changes usually emerge. We'll see.

In the interim, I'll be carrying out a final review of the first two novels in the Fractal Space trilogy and getting them ready to publish. I'll also get as far as I can in preparation for publishing Fractal Legacy. Then, my thoughts will turn to what comes next.

I'm unusually less advanced in my ideas for the next book compared to usual at this stage, but that's not because I'm short of ideas. It's more that I'm still determining the approach I want to take, particularly whether to do another wide-ranging tale or a more personal, introspective story.

I could do both. I have this slightly weird idea that's a cross between Frank Herbert's Dune and Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day. Could be fun.