The most interesting thing about the writing/rewriting process for Faerie After (so far–editorial notes still to come!) is that while the initial draft was far closer to the final one than for Faerie Winter (where the first draft took place in the wrong town with the wrong characters), it took me more drafts — six (and arguably another third of a draft beyond that) instead of Faerie Winter and Thief Eyes’ five — to get the book to click together.
Mostly because there was this hole–right where all the climactic things had to happen–that kept fighting me like anything, and even after the shape of the book was clear, that hole kept fighting me like everything, making me work for every bit of filling it in I got. Plot holes in the last third of the book aren’t uncommon, but it feels like this one was more stubborn than usual.
Even though, now that I’ve worked it out, of course its events seem so clearly like they needed to be there that it’s hard to understand why it took so much fighting to get there.
Writing is a strange, interesting process.
Meanwhile, in my second rockclimbing class, I worked on learning to let go of the wall with more confidence. I’m sure there’s a metaphor in that.