Eureka!

I finally figured out what the problem was with Part Two of Blink! It sucked! Yay me!

Actually, since I tweaked Part One, Two was even more sucky by comparison. Thank goodness I saw how bad it stunk before I sent it out for submission. Egads.

But seriously, Part Two was giving me problems because there were such glaring inconsistencies in the story. Too many unanswered questions; too many gaps in the world-building. I mean, if there were a technologically advanced Utopic society for Mary to discover, why in the name of all that's sacred wouldn't they have eradicated the bad guys decades before the beginning of the story??? If I have to send my MC out into the wasteland, it has to be a real wasteland. There can't be a yellow-brick road leading to a magic land that's afraid of the wicked witch, so to speak. They'd kick the witch's ass. If you had the means to stop oppression, wouldn't you kick some dictatorship ass??

So I have to make Mary's life difficult again. She's up to the challenge. So am I.

Tonight I blew away almost 18K words. (Don't worry. I never completely delete anything. It's on the cutting-room floor, but the pieces are still there for posterity.) After I deleted it, I began the rebuild. I have the majority of it plotted out in a skeleton sort of way, and I've already written 445 new words.

To be honest, I've really never had to do this before. Should be an interesting learning experience. Wish me success. (After all, luck is what you make of it.)

Now, off to the quarry.