Every question you’ve been getting is about lacmw and as much as I want to give you a refreshing ask, I still want to ask you about lacmw (and I’m so sorry). I want to know, when you do get back onto lacmw, what do you plan on doing with it? Are you going to jump straight into it from where you left off, go back and rewrite chapters, a total overhaul, etc? I’m curious because of how the story left off and the comment you were left with at the end.
Thanks for asking! I’m happy to explain–as best I can, anyway…
If it weren’t such a massive undertaking with so much published already, I think I would go back & do a ruthless purge/overhaul–at least, as ruthless as I could manage. And either a TON would have to be cut–like, 50K words cut–or it needs to end after ch. 45 & ch. 46 would begin a 2nd book.
If I go back to read some part to refresh my memory, sometimes it just makes me cringe. I want to pull it & start all over & do a much better job editing.
BUT. It’s out there now, so I’m not doing that. It just seems so unkind to readers who have invested so much in it & waited so long, and who knows how long it would take me to get it the way I want it? When Marvel has a Black Widow movie, probably.
So I’m picking up where I left off–but that’s going to be with Steve in Minneapolis, and Thor back in London. There’re some things Steve needs to deal with before he sees Thor again.
I was shocked at how strong the negative reaction to various events/characters in lacmw (thor in particular) was. I’m still a little raw about some of the comments that were made. I would like to develop a thicker skin so I can blow that kind of thing off, but wanting to do it & being able to do it? That’s still a work in progress.
Actually, I think there was some valid criticism in there! But it was hard for me to hear it fairly after it started to seem like some readers were using the comments as a space to vent to each other about the things they didn’t like in the story rather than direct those comments to me. And since they were responding to each other, I think the tone got to be more brutal than would have been the case if they were addressing me. At least, I like to think so. I guess it doesn’t matter what the intention was. It hurt enough that I dreaded working on lacmw–because while most people were really great & supportive, I couldn’t ignore those few voices that weren’t.
One final bit of whining: I had (have) a plan! Like anybody, I make mistakes. I can get off track, and lacmw is the longest thing I’ve ever written, so if I’m going to get off track, it makes sense that it would happen with it.
But Thor’s interest in Steve is not a semi-gratuitous porn insert!
It serves a purpose in the plot. I could have explained it, but that would reveal a fairly largish spoiler, & I didn’t want to! I like to surprise y’all! And I felt like: if you’ve stuck with me this far, could you please trust me to get us past this thing you don’t exactly like? So I was annoyed.
not just a gratuitous porn insert, anyway. If it were just for porn, I would have gone with the two of them Turkish wrestling (yes, that was something I thought about. I think the appeal of Thor & Steve, stripped down to long shorts & grappling with each other while covered in olive oil, speaks for itself. But did I go there? No I did not.)
