In hindsight...

So, I just recently got my Createspace copy of my NaNo novel and flipping through it and thinking back on it, there are many things I both like and dislike about it. (For the interested, Glass and Salt can be found in all its unedited NaNotastic glory here.)

Things I like:

- I like the narrative structure. I have three different kinds of narration: a main 1st person narrator (Chevy), a secondary 3rd person narrator (Ian) and a sort of interlude narration that is fashioned after simplistic fairy-tale type storytelling. I like the way it works. I might be using something similar for my hedgehog project (yay for blatantly stealing from myself!).

- I like Chevy's voice. It's like my homage to Mal from Firefly. I didn't mean it to be, but as I read it, I am reminded of our favorite space western captain.













(Because we all know our favorite pirate captain is Barbossa.)

- I like the ending. It comes out of nowhere, involves the death of innocent zombies and really resolves none of Chevy and Mel's problems I'd been hinting at as if they were important. I have no real basis in my love for it. I love it anyway. 

Things I don't like:

- I don't like how I kept forgetting that Chevy was claustrophobic. I mean, for real, you would think that would come up a few more times. But it doesn't. Because I forgot about it.

- I don't like how angsty it got, with a lot of coming and going without doing anything. It's like I couldn't bring myself to actually make something happen (I think that's why I like the ending, because I finally bit the bullet, stopped trying to make the characters resolve their differences when they clearly weren't interested in doing so and instead just proceeded to eliminate the problems by lopping their heads off - literally in some cases). 

- I don't like that I forgot to align the right edges of the text in my printed copy. Oh well. Each year, the Createspace copy gets a bit better-looking. Next year (if they do it again next year), it will be that much more awesome.