It’s been a difficult week, not only writing-wise. I’ve had little time to do anything, least of all writing.

I’ve been able to do a little though and chapter 32 is done. Now, I’ll enter the thoughest spot as I have to start the final events of the book.

On another note, my alpha reader started giving back some feedback today. It’s funny how I just said in my last post that I’ll only get out revised drafts from now on. I think I’ll have to print the current draft for my alpha reader after all.

The first comments are of two sorts :

• Things that appear out of character or out of nowhere
• Feedback on characters.

The first can usually be easily fixed. How did-I miss that a prisoner should be searched by his captors? The corrections here are obvious (of course, they searched the prisoner, they just found his personal effects to be unimportant!).

The second is more tricky as those require major rewrites througout the novel.

• The protagonist appears stupid
• The bad guy is too unlikeable

Those will demand some serious thought. I tend to agree with the assessment for the protagonist; for the antagonist, I’m not entirely sure – the trouble is that I have to make an unlikeable character at least understandable so the reader can form a link with him. This is not the case right now and my antagonist is seen as a despickable person, without any redeeming qualities.

I had estimated early on 6 months for writing and 6 months for rewrites. I think that I’ve been pessimistic on the writing side (I’ve written 80% of the book in 3 months) and very optimistic on rewrites… We’ll see, but I have a feeling that I’ll pass a long time rewriting and rewriting…