When I first wrote Pendulum, I had that “druids in space” idea as the central premise for the setting. The concept for “Aes Sidhe” was (and still is) based on worlds like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, or Iain Banks’ Culture, standalone books with recurring characters, cameos and so on. Pendulum itself was supposed to be a story about a scout ship and its crew looking for suitable planets for colonization, as start of its own little series with this cast of characters.

I made the mistake of planning it as part of the overall universe, as “an Aes Sidhe novel”, instead of doing what I had planned earlier, a standalone novel. As part of the greater universe, the story is okay (not great), but it sure can’t stand on its own legs.

I learned a lot since, after writing and finishing two more novels. About writing itself, techniques, the craft, the workflow, about my personal strengths and weaknesses as a writer. I know now what I’m good at, and what to avoid, and Pendulum was part of that learning process. What I don’t want is people stumbling over Pendulum somehow, reading it and discarding me as an author. I know I can do better, already did so, and twice. So I’ll unpublish the book, rewrite it and publish it here for free. With any luck, this will turn out to be good PR (I wouldn’t know, I’m a lousy businessman), plus, I get the chance to fix some mistakes and turn it into something way better.

I have some ideas about how to achieve that. Thankfully, I already have the foundation. I’ll add a new arc to it and modify the existing one (needs more rewrite in the second half), so I expect the novel to grow from 70.000ish words to about 90.000. I’ll strengthen the connection to its roots in the universe of the Aes Sidhe, introduce a lot more conflict and change the pacing.

I will start posting the story one scene at a time every Saturday, starting on February 5th 2022. That leaves me a bit of time to set it all up, so I can go through it properly without losing track of things. For one, the whole thing needs to be re-outlined. I have the story, but not my original outline anymore, so I’ll have to reread it, sort the scenes, make my notes and add and edit as soon as that’s done.

The way in which I will fix the novel leaves me some breathing room. The changes won’t occur at the beginning of the story, that part is fine. I have some edits in mind for the first third, but nothing major. The slow publishing schedule of one scene per week also lets me write, finish, and edit it ahead of time. I also want to work on the next book, so if possible, I’d like to get this done quickly, but not hastily.

Anyway, this is what I was planning for now: start it in February and stick to the Saturday schedule.