Much celebrations and rejoicing. Or there would be if it wasn't so late. I've finished the second draft of my YA novel. Well, I have to type in the changes, which will take a day or two, but in essence, this draft is done. There will be one more draft, I think, to smooth out the writing, but the hardest bits are done.

This draft was what I would call a "patching" draft: sticking patches on the holes that everyone pointed out, where I agreed with them. The most difficult was the end of the climax to the story. Everyone who critiqued it said that it was not concrete enough, but I really didn't agree. See, I didn't want it to be that concrete. The "magic" in the story is fairly metaphorical, and a too concrete ending would undermine that, I think. It's kind of like someone saying "great story, can you put a sword fight at the end?" Answer: no. There are no swords in the story. So I've gone for a compromise. I've firmed up some details while not writing a detailed "explanation" of how the whole thing is resolved. Another part of this issue is that, in my opinion, the climax and resolution were over by that point, whereas my critiquers thought that they were not. Well, I'll see how it looks when I've got the draft typed in and see whether I've gone far enough to satisfy the criticisms without going too far to satisfy me. Who said writing was easy?

The nice thing about this though, other than that I'm finished with the draft, is that I still think it's a damned good book. It's possibly the best thing I've written, and I'm proud of it.