throw another bear in the canoe

Things I love about All the Windwracked Stars.

1) A character who talks in psychic boldface never needs attribution, or dialogue tags for anything but rhythm and emphasis.
2) Kitten with a whip.
3) The goffy wolf-boi. And his fully-lined drama queen cloak...
4) Brokedown steampunk sybercity.
5) Derelict everything.
6) Did I mention the soundtrack? I knew I was hanging onto all that Sarah McLachlan and Oingo Boingo for some reason.

I am really into broken things, you know?

Anyway, I have definitely hit the downhill slide of this book. I have about 150 pages to go, which means I'm now at the point where I start sweating if I can possibly fit the rest of the story into the rest of the book.

And I'm not even looking at the original manuscript anymore, because we have diverged so far. I know where I'm going, and the rough outlines of how to get there, and I know what has to happen to the characters between now and then, in terms of how they change, and I may salvage bits of the very end.

I'm, you know, a little fuzzy on some of the details in the middle. And really have no clue at all how I'm going to handle the not!sex. Since the characters having it now have POV, which means that I can no longer do the thing I did before, which was to basically have everybody stare at their shoes and scuff the floor a lot whenever the subject came up.

Muire is a much more clueful person in this draft, which is good. Maybe I have finally learned that coyness and withholding make for frustrated readers and boring books.

And I did figure out a big reveal that goes in book three, which I am excited about.

I may sit down and try to do a little outlining, and see where it gets me. Basically, I have to get the unfallen angel to meet with the rat guy, and then get back to the city to can go to bargain with the evil overlord and get harangued by preacher and the fighter-type, the then rescue the boy hostage, and in the process, kiss the girl. Then the unfallen angel and the boy hostage have to hook up, and the unfallen angel needs to come up with a plan, and the boy hostage needs to make his Horrible Mistake so the fighter-type can pay the price and the boy hostage can have his breakdown. And then the unfallen angel has to make a bargain, and then needs to have A Serious Talk with the mostly-fallen angel. So The Awful Troof can come out. And then they need a reason Gather A Posse and to go and do the Dangerous Thing, during which Somebodies Get Hurt, and then the bargain does not work out, and there is the Jealousy Issue, and so Some Person has to Make The Vasty Sacrifice.

And then I will have made a book. *g*

Huh. I guess that's the outline, then.

All you get is laughter, ridicule, and a trip to the house of pain.