Chaotic Good

Now that the dust has settled, it's time to move forward. I said on Tuesday that I thought NIGHT AND CHAOS would be the easiest of my three Damnation Books titles to re-home, and I figured I may as well start working on that now before I commit to any bigger writing projects again. So yesterday I pulled the manuscript and did a read-through.

I haven't really thought about this book for years. I could probably have given you a brief summary of the plot, but there were huge chunks I'd totally forgotten about, and because I was never happy with the last chapter, I've always had it my head that this isn't a particularly good book. So I was kind of surprised to start reading and feel like...wow, this is cool. This is good! It's dark, it's full of motifs and themes I adore, and I love Ryan, my bad-tempered heroine. Why did I never write the sequel???

Well, obviously I never wrote the sequel because my experiences with Damnation Books soured me on NIGHT AND CHAOS. And I was kind of blinded by panic as I was re-reading yesterday, because I'd left all these little clues in the text as to what might happen in that unwritten sequel, and they didn't make any sense to me anymore. How am I supposed to write the sequel if I don't know what the sequel is??? Still, my memory awoke as I read and revisited some of the original research I'd done, and I think I know more or less what I had planned for the trilogy overall.

I finished my read-through last night, made some minor revisions, and the temptation was to just submit it there and then. I'm excited to have this book back! I'm in love with it again! Why wait?

But last night I was severely sleep-deprived and we had new episodes of Ghost Adventures to watch. And, whilst that final chapter isn't as bad as I remembered, I still felt like I'm capable of better. So I decided to sleep on it. And this morning I decided that I definitely should re-write the ending before submitting it. I also decided I should work in an MKUltra reference, because I have my priorities straight.

So the plan is to polish up that tricksy final chapter today and submit. And then it's all in the hands of fate...Well, my publisher, anyway. Wish me luck!