If you do what you have always done, you will get what you have always had.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

Working on the draft

I'm back to working on the Sword and Scabbard draft. Scott's deadline is today, and I thought I had some things to work on, but I couldn't remember what they were. I haven't looked at it since I got back from our work session early in December. I figured it might be a good idea to get going on my parts so when I get his, I can insert and edit. Yesterday I was reading through what we had and I came to the scene where Sieger arrives to visit her father for the Spring Solstice, and it hit me: that's the scene where our readers meet Sieger for the first time. It was a revelation to me, so I went back to the beginning of the scene and read it more slowly, taking note of what your first impressions will be. I was almost entranced, and a little annoyed when I had to shut it down to go to work!

I know it doesn't make any sense that I would be surprised by that, but let me tell you the back story. After we finished The Dragon's Lady, Scott started working on Gravity's story and suggested that I do Stephan's story. I was hesitant to take it on; Stephan is a character he made, but he told me what I thought I needed to know and I got started on it. Half-way through, it became clear to me that what I was writing wasn't about Stephan. I thought it was her mother, so I kept going. Further along, I realized it wasn't about Stephan's mother, that Stephan wasn't in it at all, but I kept writing to see what would happen. What I came up with was Sieger's story--the story of the first female Dragon Lord in Temeer. That was about eight years ago, before we even got started on Sword and Scabbard. I revised it once, and then the Sword and Scabbard plot fell apart before my eyes, so I put it away. I already have to re-write the last third of the book, and there's no sense re-writing until we get S&S ironed out.

Hence the reason it surprised me when I realized that scene is where you'll get to meet the young woman who's been knocking around in my head for years, the girl who refused to be Stephan. ;-) It's OK, she and Stephan are friends.

I think I like this world again.

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