Not Much Left to Do

The end of the seventh revision to Doleful Creatures is close. Here’s what I have left to do: 

• Establish through the Man in the Rock that when the Lady and her shadow reunite underground, she is bound there for a thousand years and cannot harm anyone who lives – or intends to live – in the world after the setting of the sun on the sixth day.
• Establish that the multicolored bird seen in the cave and out of it is the embodiment of He Who Marks the Sparrow’s Fall, and that he is proud of what Jarrod and Aloysius accomplish.
• I’ve got to have a scene with the Sparrow-Minder, and another scene with the Man in the Rock doing his thing, as explained above. Maybe another 1,000 words, and I’m done.

Done to start again. Aloysius, Magda, and Chylus developed as characters in this go-around. Jarrod, not so much. I’ve got a few things in store for him as I go through it for the eighth time, but this time around I won’t have to do a major reconstruction as I did on the seventh. At least that is my great hope.

Then after that, it’s to the beta readers again. I think I’ll see if I can get my daughter to read it this time around, just to see what she thinks and where she might identify things that need to be fixed. She’s thirteen and an avid anthropomorphic fantasy reader, so hopefully I’ll find something with which to hit her hot button. Or if I don’t, hopefully she’ll give me an idea of what needs to be fixed.