My Family: Ready for Final Draft

Time for a very brief update. I’m taking a break from Muffler’s Ministry for a while. I reached the midway point of the second chapter, at which point I realised I needed to do a little more detailed planning of the society and politics in my fantasy world. Having completed that, I’ve now received feedback from my son on the second draft of My Family and Other Ghosts. It’s actually a natural stopping point, so I’ll be switching back immediately to complete work on the final draft of My Family, ahead of trying to find an agent.

At a quick estimate, I think it will take at least a couple of weeks to go through all his feedback. I’m really pleased with what he’s told me. It’s definitely highlighted a few areas where the words on the page don’t match the vision in my head. There were few things I was worried about which he’s put my mind at rest, and conversely, a few things I thought were fine that he’s highlighted flaws with.

About 90% of his comments look as if they’ll be minor one-line tweaks. Most of the rest will only need fairly straightforward alterations, a bit of foreshadowing, a bit of context from the protagonists’ perspective to justify. There are a couple that need a bit more thought though. That’s what will take most of the time – and need the most original work. I’m missing inspiration for one scene that needs something unique to happen. It’ll come to me, I’m sure. I hope.

At the moment, I believe I’m going to add a short new interlude between parts one and two, and between parts two and three. That will give useful additional context to the back story. Then, the first chapter of part four will be reworked to become another interlude between parts three and four. Part five will then be renamed as the epilogue. Which is what it is already, really. There’s also one relationship arc I need to tie up better in there. This paratrap h is as much to remind me what I’m going to do, than be interesting to you as the reader!

I’ll report back when the final draft is ready, and update the preview on the website at the same time. As I say, I’ll see if I can get an agent interested in picking up this book, before I go ahead and self-publish, but will be preparing the ground for that anyway. At present, it’s looking as if mid-July will be the likely publication date if I do self-publish.

Right… let’s do this.