What a weekend. Finally moving to Boulder. Read a pretty good book on Writing Fantasy Literature that hit on some points about the Wanderer that have needed attention. First, that I've been focusing too much on plot, too little on letting the characters speak, mostly because I haven't been able to find a voice to tell the story with. Second, that the plot has too many oddities and too many characters that are bigger in scope than the hero.

So some serious revamps and shaking up is needed. Starting with Rossum. I hate to see him go. His story fits so wonderfully into the setting, the 50s, America post-Roswell, paranoid of Communism and invasion and wrapped up in born again Protestantism. But he's too big to be contained within The Wanderer's story. He's going to push Bobby right out of the picture, confuse the reader. Confuse me while he's at it. So I have to shelve him, pick up HIS story later on.

And with his removal, I've decided to change a few other things in the story, to give the characters more space to speak, more desires to strive for. Starting with how I get into this tale, with the voice I start off with. It's not Bobby's. I realize that now. I read more and know more about the ways of the fey and and mythical folk than he does and there's no way in hell I'd be able to pull off doing it from his perspective and still make it convincing. I just can't.

So with that in mind, I've decided to incorporate someone WITH Bobby from the very beginning of his adventures. A voice I can slip into. His little sister Susan, nicknamed 'Zuzu', a sort of book-gobbling tomboyish teenybopper through whose lens I can see Bobby and all the other characters easily. Gypsy at 13-14 years old in the Fifties. Craaaaazy, man but I think it might just work.

Through her, I can get away with knowing all the rules or at least some of them listed in fairy tales, et al, regarding the fey folk. She can act as the guide, narrator and advisor to Bobby all in one. Plus, act as the foil to his macho, chest-pounding shenanigans. She stows in the trunk or the backseat of the Beast when he races it and crosses over into Faerie. And is there as a participant in all the Faerie political intrigue with Tisandra, her father, Kurlos and Azaran.

Now... as for Bobby, the one thing that I've never been able to get a handle on is what exactly HE wants from this whole thing. What, in such a self-centered prick's life as his is, would he possibly have a desire to help Tisandra and drive her across America? And it dawned on me. The Pangs, the curse placed on him, wouldn't be a hex Kurlos would put on Bobby, but rather one Azaran would place on Bobby, to force him to escort Tisandra, utterly against his selfish will. And the Pangs wouldn't be beholden to HIM sleeping in the same town two nights in a row. But the Pangs would consume him if Tisandra slept in the same city two nights in a row, thus insuring that Bobby gets Tisandra to the preselected safehouse as fast as he can. It ties him to her, to her safety, forces him to protect her whether he likes it or not.

With this established, I have to show Bobby testing the Pangs, testing his luck with the curse. And that can be done during the time when he and Zuzu stay in Faerie and all the political chaos unfolds in front of them. Kurlos does his pin-the-regicide-on-the-outsider trick, imprisons Bobby for the murder and plans to have Tisandra killed. Azaran fixes the Beast, taken care of Zuzu while Bobby is imprisoned, then discovers Kurlos's plot and frees Bobby to help save Tisandra.

Bobby refuses to help and tells Azaran to send he and Zuzu home. When Azaran says no, not unless they help Tisandra, Bobby calls Azaran's bluff and takes Zuzu and the Beast to find their way home on their own. Only then does Azaran curse him with the Pangs.

Or maybe he promises Bobby he will hex the greaser, finding and placing it only after they've left into the wilds of the realm, utterly lost. Zuzu has to clumsily drive the Beast back when Bobby's Pangs nearly cripple him. That's when Azaran works on training Bobby in magick (Azaran knows his potential. That's why he needs Bobby) and that's when Tisandra's rescue begins.