It's very easy to see the influence of The Goblin Market on Bee Fly Crow as it's a story of girls who face terrible temptations and must decide on how to live their lives. When I began the novel, playing with drafts and ideas, while coming up with a solid story, I did not realize the influence, because I had looked to other sources, and low and behold, after reading through the proposal last week, I saw old influences. Perhaps that is what I write about, girls and boys facing challenges. The theme itself is about power. The premise (what the story proves, like a thesis statement) is what love can do for one's life. There is a deep realism to it, psychologically. I have paid a lot of attention to the psychology. Two things I want to address are: I began my new writing schedule and I changed to present tense for the entire book. It was divided. I do have some interesting structures in the narrative that I have planned with intent and care. Day 1 of the new schedule was a mess as I lost line 24 on my single page format, and I had to find it and reestablish it. Some of this was very silly but also due to the fact that I cut and paste a lot in the writing process. Why? Well, since I know the plot, I often write loose drafts out of order and later copy them in to revise and smooth out with the working draft. Somehow codes for lines and so forth were carried over. I did not realize, at first, that I had to highlight an entire chapter I was working on and then redo the paragraph format with no extra space. Three hours of time to discover something that would have taken a more computer savvy person thirty minutes. Oh, well. Today's work went well. I am changing past tense to present tense. Some places need complete rewrites. Some do not. I never thought in a million years that I would be writing present tense. If my team does not like it after the book is finished, I'll change it. I don't find it that complicated. But for now, I have made a decision. If one does not ever decide, the work suffers.
