Wrestling with my Problem Child

I have always struggled with Gaia's Hands as a story.  If you're having trouble keeping track, that was my first novel that emerged from a series of short stories which arose from a very strange dream that had nothing to do with the story. That's the way dreams work -- you dream of (*censored*) and all of a sudden you're writing a book about environmentalism and plant diversity and love and sentient beanstalks.

Being my first novel, it has its flaws, and I couldn't figure out how to fix them. Did it want to be a mystical story? A grounded story? I was trying for magical realism, but I ended up with a book at odds with itself. It had plenty of themes, but what was the plot, anyhow? Which plot was the plot?  Did the plot need to be longer? Did I need to talk out the segments I added in? What could I fill in that actually assisted the plot?

Then yesterday, I heard that Tor/Forge (a major science fiction publisher), is looking for novellas to publish. A novella is between 7500 and 40,000 words according to Wikipedia and between 20,000 and 40,000 words according to Tor. It is, as the name implies, a short novel.

Given that I had just edited out all the parts of the novel that weren't bare bones plot, the tug was clear -- Make Gaia's Hands into a novella. I've cut more out of the plot (there are a lot of subplots) and completely changed the ending -- and now I have to add some more flow and description and cranking up of the plot (and get back to 20,000 words).

I don't expect to get published. As I said, this manuscript is like the kid with the runny noise who you wish would quit crying. His own mum thinks he's precious; everyone else wishes the kid would quit whining. Time for me to take care of the kid.

Love, Lauren