Dissecting Gaia's Hands and Learning Nothing Yet.

Maybe Gaia's Hands wasn't the best book to enter to Kindle Scout.

I've proofread it, demolished it, paired it with another book, trimmed that back so that I have two instead of four main characters, re- and re-proofed it, and still when I look at it I wonder if it's a solid novel.

I've never known what to do with it. I love its plot lines -- discovering one's mystical abilities, a convincingly menacing pattern of harassment to one of the main characters, a taboo May-December romance (taboo because the woman is older than the man). I adore its characters -- a talented botany professor, a precocious young poet, his best friend the surly engineer, the refined yet hangdog lab assistant Ernie, enigmatic waitress Annie, and even the smooth dean and hostile department chair Jeanne has to face.

But I've never known what to do with the book. The scenes almost come off as vignettes, with the connections between strands unapparent at first. The plot is subtle, not as action-packed. The characters carry it, but I always wonder if the book starts too slowly. I edit it again and feel something's not quite there, I don't know what the "something" is. With all the improvement I've done in writing for the past six years, there's something in Gaia's Hands too quirky for prime time.

Gaia's Hands strikes me as a YA, except the male protagonist is too old at 20, the female protagonist is way too old at 50, and there's not enough angst. (For all the harm Twilight did to women's expectations of men -- it's okay to be a stalker? Really? -- it did angst exceedingly well. And it sold.)

I look at Gaia's Hands and feel like it's missing something. Despite my greater level of experience, my writing skills, better knowledge of writing dynamics -- my writing is missing something, and I can't tell what. Maybe my style, my "voice" isn't acceptable. I don't know, but I wish I could figure it out.