久しぶり is Japanese and means “after a long time”. This title basically means “long time no see” in the context of this posting. It’s been a while since I last posted on here.

With that out of the way… July is gone, and my first draft should be finished by now. It isn’t though, and I could come up with a number of excuses for it, like the summer heat, but the real reason is that I felt unmotivated. This always happens for a reason, but it’s not always immediately clear that there even is one. When I run into something like this, I don’t worry and let whatever it is that bothers me subconsciously simmer for a bit. I’m not writing books for a living, after all. At least not yet. So there’s no reason to hurry, or worry too much about my deadlines. I rushed a book once, Pendulum, and that shows. I won’t repeat that mistake. Instead, I’m playing games and relaxing, with a focus on staying alive… while thinking about what it is that made me put the pen down, and I think I found a satisfying answer.

I have four POV characters in this book, four narrators who tell their story. Ciara is the lead, the ambassador of the Winter Court. Then there is Nadya, a main character from Emergent, on an important mission. Then there is Makoto, Emergent’s lead character, who isn’t actively involved through all of this story (which is part of the plot, and I won’t put a spoiler here).

And last but not least, Chiharu Uehara, who is important, and her role in this book is like glue that keeps various parts together.
However, I felt that she lacks oomph.
I felt like she had untapped potential, and that was the source of my lacking motivation.

So I identified the problem, and now I’ll redevelop her arc, then go through the draft and find out where to insert or rewrite (mostly insert), then reshuffle the scenes and chapters a little, so all fits together in more satisfying ways.

I also feel the setting needs a bit more awesomeness, even though I think there’s some pretty cool things going on there (if I may say so myself). I still feel like I can show a few more things I find great about the setting, and Chiharu is a great character to show off things like the society at large.

For my schedule, this means things will take longer, but seriously, nobody cares. The result will be a better book, which is my number one priority. The good news is, Chiharu had only few appearances in the first two acts and can be fleshed out easily, and my lean first drafts make this sort of reworking easier.

But I need to develop this properly, and the summer heat is killing me right now, so I won’t beat myself up if this whole thing took a few weeks longer.