I’ve committed to a major rewrite of my novel. It’s actually a singular detail related to date/time, but will vastly open up the relatability of the story, as well as the market. It will also take a lot of pressure off me, regarding feeling that it has to be under contract at a specific date in order to be timely.

One of my creative writing professors in college said, “You have to kill your darlings,” meaning, you have to be willing to sacrifice your favorite line, most beloved character, most brilliant plot arc, if it means the whole functions more cohesively. Every essay, short story, book, poem, article, and blog I’ve ever written has had a sacrificial darling. For this novel there have been two. One is the opening line, and the other is that it all correlates to a specific date. There’s been much ego in the date for me, as so many think of 2012 as this hyped armageddon. They do not know or care to understand the indigenous perspective on the date, and that has been my entire momentum for this book. The fact that in western Anglo culture the date has been prescribed in so narrow and linear a fashion degrades its historic and modern function, the point of which in indigenous cultures is to be fluid.

So I will take on that lesson, myself, and cultivate right timing, rather than enforce a darling that for now, is killing function.