I think the only thing wrong with COYOTE DREAMS is that is not...clear enough. I know what I'm trying to do, and I know what legends I'm drawing on, but I don't think quite enough of that made it onto the page. I've got about a hundred pages left to go through at this point, and I'm pretty sure I still need to write one more chapter between the current penultimate chapter and the final one. I suspect, if I can figure out how to do it, that'll take care of a lot of the confusion. I think the rest is just deepening details.

The whole thing reminds me a little of eolas16 asking me, a while ago, why it was that I used a lot of very specific Celtic mythology in URBAN SHAMAN, but then went so generically Native American/New Agey in THUNDERBIRD FALLS. That bothered me for weeks, until I came across my research notes for THUNDERBIRD. By that time I could no longer remember, without the notes, that I hadn't always known the stuff I'd used for the story background in TF. I did every bit as much research and based the main plot thread in THUNDERBIRD on actual specific stories and characters as I did with SHAMAN (and then went hog wild stretching mythologies to fit my own story, just like I did with US). It's just that he was generically familiar, I think, with the thunderbird and other elements used in the book, but didn't know the specific stories I was riffing off, whereas he was more familiar with the Celtic mythology I borrowed from and could recognize very clearly where I'd taken things from. I'm finding my editor having a similar problem in COYOTE: I've got some really specific stuff based on really specific Navajo characters and events, and she's trying to make them tie to a part of the story they don't tie to, because I haven't backed them up sufficiently so they stand on their own. Obviously, I thought I had, so taking care of that should help strengthen the story a fair bit.

It's a little tricksy to do from a first person POV, when my POV character also doesn't recognize the story elements, and it's actively *hard* to do when I've done enough research that I forget what I'm writing isn't common knowledge. I may have to give Jo a little more information earlier on to make it work.

I need to do something about dinner, and then finish reading this book. I think the real editing will happen tomorrow and Sunday (and if I'm very lucky it'll be *done* Sunday). I donno. I like it. The book, I mean. That's quite wonderful, given that the last 3 books I've worked on I've had whirly eyes about and have fallen asleep doing edits. I've been too close to them--HEART OF STONE I've just read Too. Many. Times and revised Too. Much, and HOUSE OF CARDS came too close on the heels of HoS to have room to have a feeling for it. And I've read TQB a *lot* while I've been writing it, so trying to edit it is exhausting. (I have 2 weeks off from it, basically, before I have to spend 3 very intense days working on edits, and oh *lord* how I hope that'll be enough time to divorce myself from it to some degree.) But I haven't looked at COYOTE since the end of February, and 6 months is enough time away from to be glad to get back to Jo and Gary and Morrison. :)