I've figured out what bothers me about a lot of my own writing, and that's that I usually jump right into stories without a clear picture in my head of what the story actually is.
Sometimes this approach works pretty well; I'm happy with how The Ship of the Unforgotten turned out, for instance. Sometimes stories just drag on forever though. That's starting to happen more and more with The Price of Entanglement, so today I sat down and put some pressure on the vague ideas I've got to crystallize them into something I can really focus on.
“A misguided attempt at bridging the gap between two people’s consciousnesses unearths knowledge long lost over time. Dolesham’s history is the key to saving both Jo’s future—and her past.”
I may end up refining and improving that as I go, but that feels like a pretty solid and interesting core to me. Tomorrow I should be able to move on with that at the center of my efforts.