If any of you read my last post here, you'll know that I had a rather stressful week all told. I'm just here to say that after much prayer and thought, I've reached a decision on the next steps to take in my writing pursuits.
After the input I've received, not only from my editor and a friend from church, but you guys as well, I've decided to go ahead and restart my series. If the core plot wasn't one of the issues, I would go the revision route. But as it is, I've decided to basically start from scratch. At that point, I'd just as soon write new content then try to so drastically modify what's currently there. I have a number of scenes that I can keep, and of course an entire world populated with plenty of characters. So mainly I'll be building my world better and drawing up a new plot. Which means I won't be getting a book published before the new year as I had hoped, nor will I complete my series, which I had almost finished. In the end, those are the only sad parts of this.
My other option is to leave that world for the time being and start working on the ideas I've been forming for a new series. That's my biggest undecided dilemma right now.
I struggled with this tidal wave of change at first, but as the days have passed and I've thought about it, I've come to see that this is the best path for me, even if it doesn't lead to publication as soon as I would like. I'm totally at peace with my decision, and to tell the truth, kind of inspired to get working and put out a compelling novel that won't smack of LOTR. I knew this was the right choice when I told my brother that I wasn't even going to finish the series, but rather start writing something new. His response was "Great. Now I'll get to read something I don't know anything about" (one of my main problems was too much LOTR, which my siblings easily identified and weren't forgiving over).
So there you have it. My crisis has passed. Now it's time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.
