Yesterday I mentioned to a friend that before “A Step Beyond Context” I’d been working on a novel set in an early-Victorian magical subculture in England – but that I’d abandoned it because I couldn’t get the pacing right and it was too long and drawn out.
I decided to dig it out just to take another look at it (and show off some of the good ideas lurking in there) and discovered that I’d already redrafted it, sorted out the pacing and made it a lot narrower in focus and a better work as a result.
I have no memory of doing that. At all. And it’s about 75,000 words. I was not in a good place (as they say) at the time but even so you’d think I would have remembered at least doing something. Maybe the fairies did it overnight in exchange for me leaving out saucers of milk.
I had a good time reading through it but was baffled.
Otherworlds 