From the Beginning

I've started work on revising Chapter 1 in order to bring it into line, stylistically with the later chapters. Most of the first third of the book will end up undergoing such a revision. To give you an idea of how much it is changing, take a look at this screen shot of the work done so far:




In other words, the work is significant. And necessary. When the manuscript was most recently rejected, I had to face the nagging concern that had been eating at me for quite some time. I was afraid, and now think it was true, that there was too much of the parody left in the early chapters, too many self-consciously bright lines. I had gone through and taken out a load of jokes a couple of years ago, but I hadn't done what really needed to be done, which was thoroughly rewriting that part.

The end result of this process should be a much stronger manuscript.