The Re-Ordering

Sure… and it’s only me.

But.

After giving The Holy White Fire the grooming and attention it needed after the grooming and attention given to Books 2 and 3, I have decided that since they are my own thing out in the wild that I would re-order them as they were originally intended. The Ivory Pick has become book 1 and THWF and TWD are now books 2 and 3 respectively. This wasn’t an easy decision.

Well…

The first reactions to the Ivory Pick being part one were lukewarm at best. But at the time, the text was lukewarm at best and I understand why. After having gone through some classes on writing and formatting etc., TIP is a very different book. The text is much cleaner. It makes more sense, and the characterization is a lot better. As an opener, it gives you all the junk in the world, but it’s not a hand holder full of stereo instructions. Having been intended as a later part of the series, it assumed you know a lot of stuff already. Here it makes for a brisk kind of “catch up” feeling-a kind of “you just gotta figure it out as you go along” style.

THWF went through a final revision that I should have done the first time. I was always iffy on letting people read it as I knew it needed work. I didn’t want to put any more time into it. By the time the other two were finished and I had a whole new toolbox to work with, I finally succumbed and did a final editing pass. I’m glad I did. It reads much better, it’s clean, and it falls more in line stylistically. I wanted to move it more toward adult and it is. That became a little more sexuality and a little more horror. As I had it read back to me by the trusty Alex living inside my computer, I realized how much horror is in it. I don’t have qualms calling it ‘dark fantasy’ now.

THWF really needed to be cut down as it was pushing 160000 words. Most of that was in the bloat of making a doorstopper originally, and the second bloating cutting it in two to make two books for my original publisher. Now it is cut down to just over 140000 words, and most of that was from cutting dead text and filter words. I could have cut it down to 120000 words, but really that would mean re-writing it to keep those character beats that I would be losing in just wholesale slaughtering chapters. I’m not going to put in the time for that. So there are some long, some might say repetitious sections, but they contain the necessary character beats that build the characters so they remain. If someone is ever going to pay me to re-write it, I will, but until then this is what it is. I’m not unhappy with that. It’s unique. It’s not a “Children of Gristle and Tires” generic fantasy. It has something to say, even if it’s a little long-winded about it.

What was once a bigger puzzle box, now that it is back in order, is a lesser puzzle box, but I’m okay with that. It doesn’t need to be Cloud Atlas, though I long thought of how many different ways I could break up the text. I have versions that are literally cut and pasted, mix-matched sections and versions that put the whole thing in continuous order. I contemplated making a single version of the whole thing for Amazon.

The secondary news would be me stepping away from the series for a moment while I pursue an idea of two non-fiction books to submit for publication. One will be on writing from a (not necessarily) unique perspective, and a book of esoterica at the encouragement of other writers of similar esoteric works. Once I’ve done that, I will look at completing The Brightest Star and perhaps the fifth book. I would hope to push those books to publishers as well so they may remain well hidden until that course is fully pursued.