Meredith Mansfield, Author

On several fronts.

I have the first fifteen minutes of the audio book for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE to listen to–again–and either make suggestions or approve it. It’s really good. But I want to listen again.

And, now that I have a better idea of the right story structure for this story, I’m making progress on BECOME, too. (Also, I just revamped the cover.)

Lightened it up a little. Not quite so dark and brooding. I’ve left the series title off, for now. I need to do some more thinking about that title.

I’ve also started getting critiques back on the final book of the DUAL MAGICS series, WAR OF MAGIC.

The second (partial) critique to come back is from a reader unfamiliar with the earlier books in the series. I always like to find someone who hasn’t read the prior books. Only they can tell me when I truly confuse a new reader. Of course, I hope new readers will start at the beginning. But I have no control over that, so I really need to try to make the opening chapters as non-confusing as possible. By the fourth book, reintroducing (in brief) all the characters and their relationships to one another, and a touch of the previous story (enough for going on with) without slowing the story to a complete stop is . . . well, tricky doesn’t quite cover it. Apparently, I didn’t do as good a job as I’d hoped at the start of WAR OF MAGIC.

So, plenty of things to think about.

I’m also starting to think I need to find some way to take at least a day or two off and recharge the creative well. That’s going to be even trickier to figure out, since the budget won’t get me very far right now. Thinking outside the box may provide a solution.