Putting my money where my mouth is

In a way this is a continuation of the last post put in this blogging lot.

I can be an asshole, I know. I'm honest, some might say harsh, with prose. If I don't like something I say so, sometimes in reviews, other times I talk to the writer.

As much as I have harped on about continuity, my current re-reading of Shattered Dreams is dumping my own words on my doorstep. Which is good. In the years since writing the book, I've learned a lot about my craft, some of it expressed in my ramblings here, some as guest blogger elsewhere. And some just in conversations with other authors.

Dreams is old, a pastiche of what I wrote when I started out writing in English, just a few bits and pieces, and then the newer stuff I wrote during therapy. I was still figuring out the world, whether fictional or not, and still stumbling more than walking. My mind was a jumble of thoughts most of the time, and my fingers sometimes were unable to keep up.

That people love the story despite errors in prose and continuity speaks for for the strength of the material, a fact that makes me smile each and every day.

But I can't tell people "You need to change this and that" "This doesn't make sense" "There is no logic in this" and then ignore the same with my own work, especially when it's older.

Dreams has been "finished" for 7 years now, it was published, overall well-received by those who have read it, and now it's in the pipeline with Crossroad Press. As I said before, after the final edit I never picked it up again. I had to keep the achievement of me actually finishing something, anything "alive" so to speak. Writing it was part of my therapy, but now, with so many years separating me from the book, it's much easier to take pencil to prose and fix what needs fixing.

Some reviews pointed out the flaws, and I concur, and I hope I am fixing all the stuff that survived.

While writing Hopes, a lot of things changed, my attitude towards my world changed. Before, I freely admit, parts were influenced by Dragonlance, and while my stepping away from Krynn was completed in Hopes, I hope, Dreams never got the same treatment. I'm still debating some of my decisions but I feel more confident about the majority.

Again I say: there are no major changes! The plot remains the same (the song too). Most is cosmetic, and some is to course-correct if you will, and has more to do with the history of the land and its legends.

Nobody who has already read the book needs to buy the new version of Shattered Dreams, folks can continue with Shattered Hopes once it's out.