Since I had rather a lot to say in response to your last post, Kee, I decided to make a post out of my comments rather than just stick them onto the end of your post in the comments section.

I am sorry that you are having such a rough time. I know that when John is out of town (and never for more than a week!), I swear that we can never divorce because I don't want to be a single mother. I can't imagine how they do it! And it must be multiple-times worse for you with twice as many kids and 4 times as long an absence, so I think you have the right to cut yourself a little slack.

That being said, I think the stress of your current family situation might be coloring your perception of your writing. Maybe you could take a break from it until Scott is back. If nothing else, no changes to your manuscript = no mistakes, at least until you can get some perspective on it.

And now I am going to head off at a slightly different angle, but I hope I can manage to pull it back around without losing track of what I am saying. *g*

From an article by Eric Flint in Jim Baen's Universe:
"There's an old saw in science fiction—I've forgotten who first came up with it—that says you have to write a million words of crap before you write anything worth reading. That's a bit of an exaggeration, in my opinion. At least for me. I've gone back through my personal history and added it all up, and I can now strut around and say very proudly that I managed to start writing pretty good stuff after writing only (by my best count) about 400,000 words of crap.

But whether it's a quarter million or half a million or a million words of crap, there are almost no writers who've managed to start writing well without a lot of practice, false starts, and a learning experience. Nor does that end once they start getting published. Almost all writers continue to improve with practice, for a period of many years after they start getting published."

This is something we have to keep in mind: we are both relative beginners at writing. It takes practice (which takes time) to learn a skill, and writing ficition is a series of highly advanced skills, I would argue. No one starts out with all the right tools in their writer's toolbox. Every writer has to learn about what tools she needs, and then basically contruct each tool from scratch to her own specifications. Think about how long a carpenter would need to make all his (physical) tools!

By including the quote about the million words of crap, I don't mean that you are writing crap. I mean that the million words represent the training phase of learning to write, and you learn writing by *writing*. It's a classic case of learning by doing.

But you also have to learn what *not* to do. I think you, Kee, may have fallen into the pit of trying to second-guess the market. I know you want your novel to sell, and well, but trying to guess what any given editor or agent is going to want to read and buy--and that is a single person whose buying habits you can research--much less guess what "the market" wants is the path to madness. I think you would be better off writing a book *you* want to read; after all, you are a reader in your genre. If you would want to read it, then there is probably someone else out there who would, too.

As Miss Snark used to say, "Write well." I wouldn't worry about following a trend in your genre if that is not the kind of book you like to read or write.

Having said all that, my advice to you, Kee (and what else is a big sister for?), is to put down the current version of Ransom and dig out the last draft of the earlier version and give it a read-through. I will bet you a jelly donut that you like Breck version 1 better. If you agree, I think the only thing to do is to stop screwing around with the new version that is making you crazy and go back to the older version and start from there. I know you added quite a bit of plot info, and most of that you will be able to salvage, but trying to chop Breck version 2 out would be like trying to clear a field of kudzu at this point.

One thing the article I quoted above did not mention was what happened to those million words of crap. Are they completed stories that got shelved? Chunks that were cut out of stories that went on to be sold? Just because you worked hard to write something doesn't mean you have to hold on to it. I worked really hard making Hannah, but that doesn't mean I wanted to keep her umbilical cord. *g* It served a purpose at the time, but afterward it was (medical) waste. It will hurt like a band-aid being ripped off a hairy spot, but getting rid of the parts that aren't working for you will be a weight off you, I bet.

Or you can ignore everything I said, but just think: several people read your earlier version and liked your characters. If you think you need a character who is a tough lady or whatever, save her for another book. I know you have another book in you! You don't have to use every ingredient in your kitchen for just one dish, so don't try to cram all your "good bits" into one story: a teaspoon of pepper may be just the thing you needed in a pot of beans, but it will really ruin that cheesecake.