Writing Update: CH & KM
King's Monster, Clockwork Heart
In the meantime, I’ve written another chapter and a half for King’s Monster, which is quite a feat, considering that I’ve been writing and then scrapping scenes right and left these last two months. KM is on its fourth complete version now, although I think I’m finally at a point where I can move the plot to completion. The only problem is, I’m not sure the good guys (such as they are, in this novel full of killers and thieves) are going to win! They did in the previous versions, but this one has become a lot more complicated by love and lies. Now, to be sure, letting the villain win would give me a great opening for a sequel, but I’m not sure it’d leave readers very satisfied….
To make matters worse, the King’s Monster MS is currently 329 single-spaced pages long, and I’m still a good five or six chapters away from completion. Clockwork Heart, by comparison, was about 240 single-spaced pages long, and it’s a pretty thick paperback, if you ask me. So either I’m going to have to edit out a lot of scenes — no, no, anything but that! — or KM is gonna be monstrous in more than name and character.
Ah, well. I’m off to Georgia for a workshop Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I’m bringing three books I need to review for May’s issue of The Harrow, a stack of journalism papers to grade, and, of course, my laptop, in the hope that my capricious muse will deign to visit me in the hotel….
drupagliassotti @ April 3, 2008