Finished!
At last, I managed to bring the whole story to a smooth conclusion.
Of course.
As some friends have said, there was still plenty more I could have explored.
But I think it was best for this story to "settle" here.
So here it settled.
Ever since I started writing All Worlds, I've spent every day writing, reading, pondering, and thinking, hoping to improve as a writer.
For the first half of this book, I wrote through "experience," focusing on how the characters felt.
I'm fairly happy with some parts.
But around the 1.7-million-word mark, I hit a period of exhaustion and didn't handle some things well. I'll own that.
In short, writing a book feels like playing a match.
You win some, you lose some.
And sometimes other factors affect how you play.
For example, when I was writing Gatekeeper of Myriad Worlds, a family member was hospitalized for major surgery around the middle-to-late stretch. I stayed at the hospital day and night. My writing time was limited, and my stamina couldn't keep up, so scoring points in that match was tough.
Back to this book.
It really was a new experiment in how I write.
Across these 2.1 million words, I used my writing to pursue the characters' experiences.
But web fiction moves too "fast."
No.
I was moving too fast.
I love putting words out, even if I'm fighting with drunken fists.
So by the time I'd gained something and begun to understand it, I had to give up this way of writing.
Rather interesting.
It was like spending more than half a year preparing a new book, only to reject all my material when I finally sat down to write it.
Here's another funny thing.
Everyone knows I'm terrible at coming up with names.
I