So, I reached the mid-point in Shadow of the Swan. Huzzah, I’m happy, it’s all down hill from here, right?

And then I sat down to write the sales copy for the book, with a goal of releasing it on September 8. In doing so, I realized I had screwed up oh so majorly by adding a character who wasn’t necessary at all. In fact, this character actively annoyed me, which explained why my output had slowed down over June and July. Really, I should have been zipping along in the story, but knowing that I had to deal with this character was like a sea anchor that just draaaaaaaaaaaagged everything down.

(The character? The nice but slightly dim nobleman that Louisa is supposed to marry by order of Queen Victoria. I really didn’t like him, poor soul.)

And that’s when it dawned on me — Louisa is in mortal danger of being grabbed and taken off to Faerie by a deadly Fae king. Her uncle knows damn well that his niece isn’t interesting in marrying and popping out ANYONE’S kids, much less a deadly Fae king’s, but the only way to save her from this fate, ironically, is to marry her off to someone else first. The logical solution to this problem would be for her to marry someone 1) who also works for the Ministry and understands the situation, 2) is a powerful entity himself, 3) doesn’t want children, and 4) will disappear from public view fairly soon, leaving Louisa a respectable “widow” who can marry again should she choose to do so.

1+2+3+4 = Henry Carstairs, gentleman vampire. Which means I am now going through the chapters in Act I and retrofitting them to this new storyline. It also allows me to introduce another, very necessary, character earlier, which is good for the plot. All of this rewriting will result in a much better story, but this is also the third time I’ve frogged Act I of this book and restarted it. Here’s hoping the damn thing runs on rails now.