Lite edit of City Of Valleys completed. Didn’t take as long as expected mainly because I resisted diving right back into it to do major rewrites. I wrote this in the 2001/02 – so it doesn’t have all the electronics we have now – cell phones get used some but not much else.
I wrote it in two chunks, as I have with my other two novels. There’s a gap of about a year between writing the two halves. It gave time for what was started to really brew and take shape. The first draft of Valleys ran over 250,000 words – I had lots to say about these guys.
This slightly revised 4th draft came about as a result of submitting it to an agent – she found the sex too explicit & too frequent – never mind the fact that sex doesn’t happen till about page 50. In that rewrite I made the sex less explicit – but not less frequent. I knew when I first wrote it that the sex was closer to porn than erotica anyway. I know my market. She wasn’t my market nor did she know my market. Such is life.
Doing this lite edit I saw places for some cuts but am leaving it as it. If I think there’s enough interest to push it to another level I’ll tighten it up. But for now this is it. I want to get back to Lazarus Kiss & do major work on that so I’ll then be free to finish off my coal miners in love project (Coal Dusters) and once that is out of the way I might tackle the Quarwolf Pack (as of 2023 -not tackled).
(note Jan 2023 – City of Valleys currently being posted here)
TOpoet 
Am enjoying this read. My attention seems to be better focussed with the separation of the stories and characters. Just want to keep reading…