Not much actual ‘news’ regarding the book.
I’ve been through the whole thing and made hundreds of minor changes. I’ve decimated* words like ‘that’ and ‘just’ and ‘suddenly’; I’ve worried over using lovely words like ‘itinerant’ and ‘gleaning’ (both of which have been picked up by readers as needing explanation) and ‘kudos’ (which was accused of being too ‘modern’); I’ve puzzled over whether ‘lord’ should be capitalised, and if so, where; I’ve rechecked the bark, leaf, sapwood and heartwood colours of ash, beech, elm, birch and hazel trees, among others – to make certain my Silvanii and woodmaids were appropriately described, as each reflects the appearance of her tree in her own appearance. And so on.
I’m left with three sections still needing work. And they’ve been left until last for a reason – they’re the hardest to deal with:
- Fabiom meets Gwillon, the son of a birch Silvana. I realised I’ve missed lots of opportunities for foreshadowing exactly what being Silvana-born means.
- The revelation of why Fabiom had been betrothed to the daughter of the Lord Holder of Windwood, which involves a little of his Uncle Tarison’s backstory. I don’t want to go off on too much of a tangent, nevertheless…
- Fabiom’s two years away from home on service. Originally I began this chapter a week or so before the end, so he was on his way home. We looked back over the past two years. But confusion ensued. I’m still fiddling with the time-line.
I have exactly one week. Wish me luck!
* I use decimate in it’s literal** sense, as in I reduced the incidents of such words by about 10%.
** I use literal in it’s, er, literal (?) sense – having recently read that, according to certain on-line dictionaries, literal can now mean either – well – literal or (drum roll) not literal.