Twenty chapters

I feel that I should take a moment to draw a breath. Twenty chapters to revised draft. Fifteen to go. Nearly 90,000 words.

I haven’t covered much in terms of time, 1453-1455, the last fifteen chapters will take me to 1461. A lot happened in those few years, and Thomas was up to his neck in it. Stuff was going on in Maud’s life as well. Another chapter or two and there’ll be a bit of a break till 1457. The detail of their lives falls away at this point. Thomas, it would seem, was deputising for his brother in the Marches, Maud either enjoying or still fighting for her dower lands. As I still don’t know when she got custody of these, I’ve made a more or less educated guess and had it all sorted in the early months of 1455. The minute something comes to hand to change that… *sigh* Another redraft, or at least the shifting and slight changing to a chapter or two.

My most momentous achievement so far is wresting the St Albans chapter from Warwick’s hands. He didn’t want to give it up, but since I decided to restructure the book into four and pare back the voices to two in each, I had no choice. He’ll get his chance. He can have the second battle of St Albans if he likes. (I shall pay for that, no doubt!)

I’m feeling quite pleased with how things are going at the moment, but that could change in a heartbeat. My decision to alternate Thomas and Maud’s voices seems to be working. I don’t want to tie poor Maud in knots getting her to somehow tell his part of the story, and her voice, her part of the story, is pretty compelling to me as it is. I’m hoping I’ve been able to reflect that.

There’s still a lot of work to be done, and not just the last fifteen chapters (three of which have at least some words in them already), but the editing/revising/editing cycle. So, after another few moments of rest and mild self-congratulation, I’ve got a wedding to write.