Well today I started actually editing The Queen and The Tower…as in, I finally opened the file and worked on the book itself, as opposed to twiddling with the (currently) 16 single-spaced pages of notes and backstory.
And it went well! I wrote a new opening scene, three pages or so, that doesn’t entirely suck. This will tie into the current/previous opening scene, and provide a nice contrast to it, I think.
Brilliant Editor happened to be in town and stopped by, so I read him the scene, and he didn’t hate it either. Then after he left, I read it to Mark and he had some feedback, so I tweaked a few things. I’ll look at it again tomorrow, then try and move forward.
If the edits take this long, I’ll be done with this pass in, oh, a year or two! 🙂 But they won’t. They can’t. I’ll find my stride, and it will move along faster. Anyway, I’m okay with this. I want the opening to be Just! Right!, so you-all keep reading. And that’s worth a little obsessiveness, I think.