The first three chapters had to be completely rewritten from scratch, with only a few fragments of chapter 3 carried over. Got rid of a "meanwhile on the Isle of Monsters" scene with Faol and Gweulan because it didn't move the story forward; I've decided that this one will focus heavily on Balthasar and his family, and that Faol won't even appear until much later in the book.

Chapter 4 onward will be heavily revised for style and a large number of scenes and elaborations to existing scenes will be added, as well as several thousand words worth of dialogue.

The final story may be closer to "Cirrostratus" in length, but my main focus is on bringing the entire Occidentania cycle to a crisp, clean, tightly-paced, and well-polished conclusion that will mark the emergence of my mature style from the stiff, stilted, pedestrian first effort "The Goldenlea" represents and the promising but inexperienced effort seen in "Basecraft Cirrostratus."

A lot of ideas that have been developing throughout the cycle have grown into a story that has written itself somewhat organically, though for now what I have isn't so much a proper first draft as an "alpha" version, a kit from which I can assemble a fully-developed novel after a lot of sanding and painting. Although I'd like to get a workable draft out before April, I'll be pleased if I can get something worth submitting done before my 30th birthday this year.

The honest truth is, I've had a tough couple of years and I've taken a lot of damage from bad decisions and setbacks coming to a head. I've become very insecure about my ability to think rationally about the writing process, and I don't want this to be looked back on as a cry for help from a mind on the verge of collapse.

The chaotic, disorganized way in which the story has grown and the difficulty I've been having in making it all fit together make me worry that I may have lost the ability to write coherently, which scares me. Maybe it's simply because I've never tried a chaotic approach that I find it intimidating, but this is such a far cry from the disciplined, linear way I typically write a story from beginning to end. This is frenetic, like painting with dynamite and then trying to refine a work of art from the chaos of the blast pattern.

If this chaotic approach is a success, I'll adopt it; if it's not, then I may have to take an indefinite hiatus until I find out what's wrong with me.