For my listeners: Due to technical difficulties, my recordings sound like it was made from inside a barrel. I apologize, but I’m simply out of time.

My current work in progress centers around two main characters. I’ve read that that’s against the rules, and I understand why–more so every day. The point of these two characters is to explore how much a stable family (secondary characters) can contribute to healing deep psychic wounds and whether a pair of committed, self-aware individuals can heal themselves and one another. How can that happen?

This novel is the third in a trilogy. I didn’t intend for it to get this massive, but there you are. In the first novel, I introduced Bobbi Bowen, stymied by economic depression from her desire to attend art school, and then I inflicted her with repeated sexual assaults, betrayal, and near starvation. In the second, I introduced Connor Conroy, a Nebraska farm boy, thwarted in his desire to attend college, who spent years traveling the West as a hobo and then got sucked into World War II as a combat infantryman. The third, my work in progress, puts them together, complete with their psychic traumas, to see if there’s a way for them to heal and thrive with only the rudimentary mental health care available in Nebraska at that time.

I’ve just begun my second draft and find that the point of view jumps from one headspace to another with breathtaking frequency. I knew at the outset that point of view would be tough in this novel, but I’m only beginning to realize the depth of the challenge. I’ve thought of using an omniscient narrator, but I prefer more immediacy.

HOWEVER, I’ve just finished editing a scene in which the POV leapt from one head to another five or six times, including a couple of jumps to a secondary character’s thoughts. It appears that this draft will be almost nothing but point of view rewriting, and that leaves out structure, actual character development, layering backstory, pacing, language, rhythm, and cutting the crap I don’t need. I even have a few scenes in which I will need diversity editing.

 This may take some time. I don’t suppose I’ll be selling boxed sets any time soon.