The original "Goldenlea" material that I've included in "The Linen Butterfly" is taking a much darker tone with this new retelling! I think a complete re-imagining was what the original story needed. It's moving away from its original Brian Jacques inspiration which might disappoint some readers but in a way, that's good. It's becoming less of a high fantasy story and more of a dark, twisted science fiction story.

That said, taming the story down to a reasonable length will be a major effort. Currently the word count is close to 75,000 counting everything I've written specifically for this book, and I'm only about a quarter of the way through the original Goldenlea material. Exactly how much fluff I can cut from the original Goldenlea story line remains to be seen (there was a lot of fluff, digression, and needless backstory dump), but it ran about 98,000 words.

I will try to keep this under 150,000 words.

Also, I have decided that once "The Linen Butterfly" is done, I want to spend more time working on screenplays. I will still write novels in the future but I'm excited to try a new medium; I've been working on perfecting my technique as a novelist for almost 15 years now and I've come a long way, but the thought of honing a new format excites me.

A reminder: for those who still like the original "Goldenlea" text, you will be able to download it as a .pdf on this account as soon as "The Linen Butterfly" has an ETA.