Dearest Squad,
I have rewritten this chapter (and the next) so many times over the past 3? 4? months that I’m tempted to post this side-by-side with the original Chapter 24 I gave Sarah back in December, just so you can see how different they are. (Princess Sarah is currently on hiatus until I can afford to bring her back. My sincerest apologies for all the balls that I know are being dropped in the meantime.)
While wrestling with these chapters over Christmas (while pet sitting in NC), I finally realized I was telling them in the wrong order. This chapter from Hawk’s POV needed to come first, for a million reasons. Eureka!
But…it was so much more than that. There was an emotional arc I wasn’t quite getting. I needed to tap into that core. I needed to wear these skins for a while and really become Hawk and Thursday after this extremely pivotal point in the story.
THIEFTESS has been revealing itself to me in layers. It was always going to take time to tell this story, and this has been frustrating the hell out of me. Trying to finish the book that has taken me the longest time to write after completing the two books that took the shortest time for me to write (2023)…this is part of my whole depression problem.
THIEFTESS is absolutely going to be a beautiful, quotable book, maybe even as beautiful and quotable as ENCHANTED (Enchanted took 5 years to draft). But do readers even care about gorgeous prose anymore? Do they want poetry, or would they prefer the story just to be told quickly and plainly so they can hurry up and move on to the next book?
I feel once again trapped in a prison of my own making. A beautiful prison, but a prison nonetheless.
And I know one more thing for absolute certain: Because of these layers, and the life that I continue to live as they reveal themselves to me, there is no way in hell this novel – or any of my books – could have been written by Generative AI.
Also…I love Nabi in this chapter. I mean, I love Nabi in general, but notice the ways in which she is quietly deprogramming our poor tortured hero throughout this whole scene… 🦋
Much love!
xox
Princess Alethea
CLICK HERE TO READ CHAPTER 24 OF THIEFTESS
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