Once more I am back in edit mode, and having finished editing The Journey Home, I have now started on The Quest, the second in my Chrystias trilogy. My only problem is I am feeling decidedly overwhelmed by the whole thing and wondering if I will ever get my writing to a standard that will be worth printing.
How did I come to such a thought? I have a group of friends, some are just readers, but two are writers. They provide me with the details I need, the specific comments, they look at my work with a critical eye and tell me where I went wrong, point out any misjudgements in errors, character flaws etc that is required to hone my skill.
One chapter in The Journey Home was severely picked on, and justifiably so. It is a scene where the giant comes across the group of nomads and he joins them. However he has history with the villian of the piece. Now who, in their right mind, would hear this piece of information and say, sure, come and join us. Well, the leader did, because he felt a connection with the giant, but this doesn’t seem like a valid enough reason to have him join in. Herein lies my dilemma, would any man just go with their gut instinct and accept the word of someone they barely know? Especially one who is escaping from the Warlock himself?
There are also comments about my leader, Tycelon. He doesn’t really appear to have the characteristics needed to be a leader, yet he is. A couple of times I have been pulled up and told that he is acting wussy, yet he is a leader that needs the great outdoor spaces and when he finds himself confined or in tight places, he likes to get out in the open, to clear his head. How do you portray this without making it seem like he is running from his problems?
These are the things that made me question my own writing abilities last night and wonder if I would ever get the story into a solid cohesive read and publishable material. Will it ever happen? I hope so, one day it will, but in the meantime, I have to keep reading it and thinking, does this sound OK? Does this character sound realistic? Are they genuine. Oh I HATE EDITING!