Can't even

The Battersea Power Station would be wonderful for a chapter I want in the London Book. Except, the Battersea in 2012 -- before the current consortium moved in and actually started construction.

Similarly, Aldwych Tube Station is almost perfect. Except for some major details I'd have to change.

And sure, why not? The point is to have fun with history and place. You want a chase scene across Tower Bridge or a sword fight on the Tower Greens, despite the fact that in the real world the Beefeaters would break it up instantly and the rest of the book would be about how much fun jail is.

And I need to put in more action. I need to get more exciting with history. I need to cross that line and have archaeological mysteries and interesting discoveries that aren't, quite, legit and mainstream.

That's not a slippery slope, though. That's a greased ramp on a C130 in flight.

***

Editing is not going well. Sure, I'm seeing lots of stuff I could clean up, or at least try to do better. Just this morning I threw out the second paragraph of the entire book and rewrote it almost from scratch. It gets better, but the sentence structure and basic narrative voice in the first half is, well, horrible.

But it feels pointless. The response from all the beta readers has been, "Hmm." Not positive. No. And same indicators from clicks and page downloads.

On that evidence I'd say this was a failure. The idea for the book didn't pan out. There's no point in even thinking about a sequel.

So write something else? Well, if I missed so badly on this, then doesn't that mean my instincts suck? Maybe not, but there's that general depression and doubt that makes all the ideas and half-starts in my files look thin and trite. I don't feel as if I can write any of them.

A book -- any creative idea -- takes on a life of its own. By which I mean it has a sort of strange integrity about it. A sum greater than the original parts. There is a sense of what fits and what doesn't. And I've lost that sense. I no longer feel like I have grasp of this whole to which adjustments can be made. Instead all my ideas are floating as fragments no bigger than themselves.

But I'm reading another "archaeological thriller." And I've read others. And I know the form, and I know what is in it. And I have to believe that what I created looks similar.

And that there is a market for it.