I just lost a subplot. It collapsed on me, and the worrying thing is, I think the book’s much better as a result. It was a section of the story that kind of grew in by accident- I was doing a major rewrite to try and get it to work, and I was hitting major problems. Serious, serious writing block, to the extent that I started losing all faith in the book, my abilities, and the last year that I’d spent trying to hammer this damn thing into shape. I knew what my brain was telling me- dump it- because I’d felt it about another subplot which just wasn’t working out. I think the main deciding factor was that the subplot only actually appeared directly four times in the first nine chapters, and didn’t actually impact on the main plot until right at the end. I’ll lose a couple of really nice sections, but I think it’ll also end up more focussed as a result. The main thing is- I’m not attempting to write a powerful literary novel about the future. I’m trying to write a fun romp, and anything which gets in the way of the fun romp-ness may need to go.

This may have a massive effect on the stuff I need to do. However, I’m going to see where this takes me.