Today

Today is the first day of the rest of my book.

2 years is a little more of a hiatus than I had planned, but having divested myself of my soccer responsibilities last night, I'm free now to wield keyboard in anger again.  Well, not so much anger; more bemusement, really, as I try to remember where I was, and what I was trying to say.  If you're unaware of Going Back, have a quick look at the About page for a little more information.

At this point, the situation is:

• I have a third draft of a novel
• It's almost 150,000 words long
• I'm reasonably happy with large chunks of it
• Part 1, in particular, has a pleasing logic to it, and builds nicely to the kind of climax that parts of books are supposed to build to.
• Part 3 is also not too shabby, although there are flabby bits in it.  I like my ending (which is encouraging), and I think it resolves fairly well, although I'm aware that the point I was heading towards in my first concept isn't very well dealt with, and I need to restructure some critical bits in the last 20 pages or so, because a couple of my characters are a little wobbly in there, and maybe I'm trying too hard to tie things up too neatly.  It's not that kind of story...
• Part 2 is, I'm afraid, a mess.  Which is a shame, because it contains some of the best bits of writing in the whole thing, and some really pleasing character development.  It is, however, way (and I mean waaaaay) too long, and spends a large amount of time retelling the events of Part 1 from the POV of another character.  Which I'd still really like it to do, but perhaps not quite the way it does now.
• Part 2 also has a central implausibility, which I'd really like to keep, but I'm worried that it's there because I am in love with the last line of Part 1.