An unexpected (but in hindsight predictable) benefit is that while going through old material and consolidating it, I've clarified a few things on character backgrounds and motivations, especially on my supporting characters. This feels helpful; hopefully it improves the next drafts/revisions I do.

At any rate -- I'm enjoying Kaner's Godkiller. I'm not far enough along to know where it's going, but the ride is enjoyable.

If you have recommendations on similar books (especially spec fiction), please let me know.

It all seems so much more... immediate... lately than it did when I started imagining this story.

It could be a kid rebelling against their parents. Plebians against the elite. A society against itself. A society against the world. A world against the gods.

In part, it's because I'm not just thinking (or not entirely thinking) about gods. I keep going back to power structures in general, and what happens when they fall out of balance and one side or the other rejects the relationship entirely.

As an agnostic, I feel like I have been spending more time lately thinking about people abandoning gods and gods abandoning people than is probably good for me. It ended up as one of the central themes of what I am writing, which both feels exceptionally odd and, also, exceptionally right.

The answer, of course, is to shove the chapter in a drawer for six months and come back to it later.

Hopefully I'll have enough distance to better understand the feedback they were trying to give (or not give). Or enough distance to be my own critic. Or both.

One hopes.

To be clear: I appreciate the feedback I received, even if it wasn't what I expected. It was also not the areas I thought would get highlighted, which was interesting.

My issue is that I know how to interpret feedback from a cutthroat workshop.

I don't know how to interpret (relative) silence.