In recent weeks I completed a revision of the novel I’ve been calling ‘A Dangerous Magic.’ It’s taken a long time to reach this point and it feels like a very different book from what I started out to write. But each book is a journey and an education.
The same thing happened with At the End of the World. Each revision of a story alters not just the words and sentences but the story and the characters themselves. Little may survive the earliest drafts of a novel. And even as I revised this novel’s last scenes, I discovered something new about the two main characters. These revelations will ripple throughout the book in the next revision, changing the novel again.
It’s over 500 pages and I need to cut about 75 of them. I’m also no longer certain ‘A Dangerous Magic’ is the title. This revision took nearly two months, seven days a week. But I’m grateful to have crossed this milestone and I can finally lift my head.
It has allowed me to work on short stories and a secret project. More on that soon when I hope it will no longer be a secret!
Kevin J. Fellows 