New book, old book

As I work on the new (or not-so-new, given how much time I’ve already put into it) book, I’m enjoying its contrasts to Bones of Faerie, in a “it’s good to get out and meet new people even though I of course still love the old ones to pieces” sort of way.

Somehow I wound up with a missing mother again for the new book (and she’s so deeply a part of the story’s conception that there’s no getting around it–why do we writers do these things?), but the reasons and their consequences are very different.

The father in this book is actually sane, which is a really nice change–it’s something of a relief to deal with someone less intense, a character who is flawed but who loves and cares about his daughter and doesn’t have to go all dysfunctional on me in order to show it. Dealing with psychotic characters is exhausting, even when they aren’t real. (Every time I edit L’s final confrontation with her father, I feel out of breath at the end, like I’ve been running the entire length of the chapter.)

I’m still getting to know my current protagonist (even after an entire exploratory draft and half a first draft, yes), but I do know that she doesn’t take herself quite as seriously as my former protagonist, though she doesn’t exactly take things lightly, either.

I can reference the whole wide contemporary world in the new book, which makes things both easier and harder.

There may be another angsty shapeshifting boy–unlike the missing mother, I can’t really claim that was an accident.

This book is set before the end of the world, rather than after it. If I’m lucky, I may even get to stop the world from ending, this time around. Maybe.

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