My Junior Year at Miami kept me too busy to do any writing work on the book, although I continued to work through ideas and story problems with Doug. Much of the following summer was also taken up with preparing for and participating in a study tour in Italy.
I finally got down to writing in August 2008 were I quickly jumped through chapters 4, 5, and 6(which now comprises chapters 6, 7, and 8, maybe 9. These chapters marked a shift in the intended story to a ‘grayer’ or more morally ambiguous story. Many of the characters and exchanges were still two dimensional and largely just filled a role in the plot, although Val’inar himself gained more complexity.
Sometime over the next year I also wrote what was originally my 7th chapter and part of the 8th. It was here that I hit another snag in that there were a number of complex things that had to happen to move the story forward but just didn’t make logical or character sense.
My memory on the point is vague but I new it took between 3 to 6 months of discussion with Doug to talk through an adequate solution to the problem. In finally overcoming my plot snarl of getting Val’inar and Urgar through the political minefield of Ramalda I ended up creating my first three dimensional character in Lady Myra, who largely just wrote herself from then on.
From there, in late August and early September 2009, it was as if a damn burst. Spurred perhaps by the imminent start of Grad school I wrote the rest of the book in a matter of weeks. All the sequences that I planned out just sort of wrote themselves. The characters were more well rounded, the sequences more interesting and vivid, and I had found the theme and moral tone that I was happy with.
There was still a lot of editing work to do, especially in the early going, but I had done it, I had written a book. Little did I realize just how much work (and procrastination) was to follow. . .
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