The God in Haven: Third Draft Update
More than two months ago, I provided an update as I set off on the third draft of The Gods In Haven. I was just finalising my plans, and in my mind, I thought it would take between one and two months. On that basis, I expect you think I'm here to tell you it's complete.
Um, well, er, I've... just finished part one.
Look, things happened, okay?
It started off well. The biggest change I opted to make in this draft was due to my son's advice, although my motivation for doing it was different. The two threads in part one were based on short stories I wrote, one featuring Chandra, one Anjuna. I split each into three chapters, significantly reworked them, and interleaved them.
The biggest issue is that they are tonally quite distinct (by design), and these tones gradually shift and converge across parts two and three. However, their destination is closer to Anjuna's position, yet I started the story from Chandra's perspective, which set the wrong baseline for the story. That needed fixing.
The obvious solution was to swap the odd and even chapters around, and start with Anjuna. It would need a little rework to reveal a few details of the world in Anjuna's first chapter rather than Chandra's, but that wasn't the biggest problem. The bugbear was that the end of Anjuna's final chapter had to occur after Chandra's last chapter.
Luckily, another piece of feedback was that the end of Anjuna's story felt rushed. The solution was obvious – split the chapter at around the two-thirds point, and create a new, expanded chapter to go at the end from the final third. The part one chapters would then be:
Poetry in Motion (Anjuna)
Ringing in the New (Chandra)
Rhyme or Reason (A)
Harbinger of Whom? (C)
History Lesson (A)
Coming Up Short (C)
Second Coming (A)
Perfect. I set off apace, and the changes to the new first chapter went as well as I'd hoped. I was ready to go full steam ahead.
Then my right eye started hurting. I knew immediately what it was, as it's an eye condition I get every few years. Luckily, I keep the steroid eye drops to treat it in stock, so started the long treatment regime immediately, and set my reminder alarm for every couple of hours, day and night.
The pain was under control within a few days, but depending how it goes, the course of treatment is ~6 weeks, slowly weaning my eye off the steroid without making it flare up again. The remaining problem was that it quickly got painful if I stared at a computer screen for too long. I think it was the regular change of focus needed as I look away. So it seemed prudent to have a break.
It was frustrating, and I did check to see how it was every week or so, but in the end I opted to not take any risks and just have a complete break from writing. Driving for too long was a problem too. Although that was only a dull ache, I decided not to risk that either.
On the positive side, looking at things with a longer focus, like a TV, was fine. I'd also just borrowed my son's Nintendo Switch on long-term loan after he purchased a Switch 2. I also nicked the two Zelda games from him, which kept me entertained while I wasn't up to much else. You suck, Ganondorf.
Once everything had settled down, it took a week or so to get back into the story and remind myself what I was trying to acheive. I think I re-edited the first chapter about five times, but finallly, things began to flow. I've now finished the restructured and expanded part one.
I'm now ready to plough ahead. Parts two, three, and four should be straightforwrd. There's nothing structural there, just a little characterisation work, especially in the dialog, and a lot of tightening up and clarity to add. Part five will be a little more work, as I want to lead into the finale slightly differently, but that shouldn't be too significant.
I'll report back once that is done. Overall, that should take somewhere between one and two months.
Oh wait. Haven't I said that before?