Farstrider

Well, it has been a while since I last wrote about my family's Close Encounter of the Thump Kind with a majestic white-tailed deer.   We have now heard from the insurance company and it did indeed cost us deerly.  The car's damage was more extensive than first thought - there was a lot of stuff smushed-in under that crumpled hood and the cost of repairs quickly escalated.  Too bad - I'll miss the Camry.

So, as the Beynon's adjust to life as a one car family (something that was going to happen soon, anyway), I have revisited my Loremaster manuscript with a new and critical eye.  As I read it,  I now see things I was too close to before.  Lots of little things that can be cut or tweeked.  The entire prologue is gone - I liked the prologue with its Mission Impossible raid, but I'm learning that prologues can be a kiss of death for a manuscript and really, Loremaster worked perfectly well without it.  Reading the manuscript, I could see that it was too Elf-y and Dwarf-y and Wizard-y and a little Monk-y.  These can be fixed.  The monks can become Zealots but still keep their nobility and religion.  The Wizards will become Scholars and Craftsmen and still weild thier magical might.  The Dwarves...well, them I can just do without - Gruff, ill-mannered humans can accomplish anything the Dwarves could have done but the Elves were going to be a problem.  One of the main characters happened to be an Elf...but no longer.  Now he's a Farstrider.

"What's a Farstrider?" you may ask.  Ask away, but I'm not telling - you'll just have to wait and see.  

But I will give you this much:

"Farstrider" will be the new title of the book.