Update on Daughters of Men.

Right now I'm thinking Daughters of Men will be a combination of

Lancelot/Guinevere/Arthur and Tristan/Isolde/Mark and Wings of A Dove moral treachery kind of thing where two noble men love one woman. Adultery, etc.

But it's also got that Queen Esther --representation of her people/savior of her people kind of thng.

Plus the Guinevere and Isolde trapped in love versus power kinda thing.)

There's also that Wings of the Dove moral treachery thing happening because Siddhart is betraying Woden and thinks Medusa is using her telepathy to protect him.

So then. One woman -- my queen Esther figure-- has all these men loving her. And one of them, the Medusa character, is unloved. So we have Medusa as Medea/Clytemnestra/Antigone (and all those angry Greek women) as savior of her own people and rejected lover. Female Anger.-- Working out this strong rejected grief-stricken-til-she-loses-her-mind kind of woman


Then there is the lone human guy in all this mess. And regular human male doesn't mean much in this particular world.

These are the two daughters of men in the story and I want them to go to town.

The other problem is that this novel is full of prophecy. I had this idea of how prophecies can be misunderstood and misinterpreted. But then, I wrote Wind Follower. I really explored that issue a lot in WF...and did a great job at if, if I do say so myself. So why repeat myself? I don't want people thinking I'm a one-note writer. So I want to get rid of the prophecy business.

But some of those prophecies matter -- because there is "looking for a savior" issue that's really big in the story.

Daughters of Men is over seven years and I started it when I was just learning how to write novels. It looks as if I have to re-read the thing and diagram the chapters.

Robert Fleming, author of Fever in the Blood gave me the following advice:

Go slow and be methodical.

Try to fit the chapters into the larger scheme so that they can have
greater momentum and clarity.

Build it like a piece of music.

Let God work his magic through me...as he did with Wind Follower.

Don't let fear rule me or my work.

Read the whole piece and remove and retool the weak segments.

Believe in the story or suffer the sophomore curse.

Make a list of the themes.

Accentuate those points but keep in mind that tension and suspense rules.

Find the underpinning of the book.


So here i am wading through a mess and committing myself to simply tossing out what doesn't work. The thing is over 600 pages...and very episodic. Plot points all over the place instead of tight scenes leading to other tight scenes. It seems the best thing to do is to begin again because these many scenes are useless.

Plus i have to figure out how the needy eroticism of the novel will work with my Christianity. The book seems to be want to be about male sexual need. Will see. A Christian erotic novel? The last Christian erotic novel I hear of was Marian in Ecstasy.

And the eroticism was aimed at Jesus.

Oh well, will see what happens with DOM. Must however get out of Wind Follower mode. That book is done and published. Move on, Carole