When things go right

I've been working on and off on this mosaic novel idea for the past year or so (or much longer for parts of it, actually...but a little less than a year on the longer story that weaves the rest of the pieces together). I go back and forth on whether it's a any good or not. Some parts of it, as I reread and revised it a few weeks ago, had me thrilled, but other parts just felt awkward and silly. But I couldn't seem to adjust things right during that revision pass, so I was still going back and forth between telling myself it was well on its way to being a great work of experimental imagination and cringing as I thought of it.

I've started a new pass through the story now, and for the past week I've been staring at the first chapter before flipping to one of the other things I'm working on. But then today a bunch of things came together. Partly inspired by some of the visual art things I've mentioned over the past few months, I had some specific things in mind to fine-tune the atmosphere of the piece. And doing that helped me see where I could cut some big sections of the opening out and replace them with something much more fitting.

I'm feeling good about the story again. No promises how long that will last, but for now...I like it.

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