The progress I made last week on the second draft of my book has come to a halt. I’ve finished rewriting the first four chapters: A Son’s Victory, Deep Breaths, Diet Coke, Anyone?, and Old Friends & New Lives. And when I’m done with this move (we are currently moving out of the corporate apartment and into our own little place), I will start the revising process once again. I think I’m going to make myself do a half-hour a day. It’s a little goal but once I start writing I usually don’t stop at the half-hour mark. But I set the small goal because I can’t get myself to do it some days. And I’m not usually a procrastinator.

Food for thought: I’m still deciding if I should put the narrator’s name at the beginning of the chapter. If I had three 1st-person narrators, it would make perfect sense (especially for a commercial novel). I’m not trying to confuse anyone here. But I have two 1st-person narrators and a 3rd person omniscient narrator. Obviously, I’m not going to put “3rd-person omniscient” at the beginning of a chapter. That would look dumb.

I say all this because I got some great feedback from an agent (a friend of a friend at Mahalo). He thought the novel was a good story but worried about the challenge of changing narrative voice so often. I’ll be honest: I can’t figure out another way to tell this story. Without the different voices, you can’t get all the story lines. There are so many characters and connections. Without 3rd-person narrator, I can’t link it all together. Without Kylie, you miss out on the main character’s thought process. Without Ben, you miss out on the anecdotes and laughter.