I have finished editing the majority of novel one. However, the final chapter needs a major re-write. It’s all tell, no show. Or very little. I think I have finally figured out how to work it out. But I don’t feel up to writing it right now.

I am six pages behind, as of now, on novel two. I do know where I want to go, but it is taking longer to go there than I expected. It is hard to keep the conflicts going when I don’t like conflicts. Yet I know that conflicts are what makes the novel readable.

In chapter one the main character’s parents are shot. At the end of chapter one I let the reader know they are not dead. I wonder if I should. The main character grieves just as much, since she does not know they are not dead. But the reader doesn’t hurt as much for her since they know the folks are okay, or at least the mom is potentially okay.

The next conflicts are her caring for people who she is the only person who can talk to them and then being sold away from them. Then she is sold to someone and separated from her uncle. She does manage to, she thinks, get her uncle free. He, however, tries to finagle it so that her owner buys him as well. Her owner does bid on him, but since he buys Uncle with Uncle’s money, he tells Uncle he has only need of one and that he is free. That’s a problem.

Then I’ve got them separated. Uncle is a main character in the first part of this book. I guess I should just write.

My husband thinks I won’t send out book one, or so he says. The problem is there are only two publishing houses whose books I mainly read. One does not accept unsolicited manuscripts and the other is notoriously slow at going through the slush pile and likes to “guide” a new author. (A recent “guide” has ruined a new author for my husband.) So I can send to a house which does accept slush and has a quick turn around or I can send it to a house with a very slow turn around.

Plus, I want book one finished before I send it off. June 15 is my goal for finishing the final editing on book one and sending it off. It is also my goal for book two to be finished as a rough draft.