So, Honest Impulses has reached those two most blessed words: THE END. I'm struggling to figure out what to do next. I think I first mentioned Honest Impulses on March 13th, 2013, which makes it one of the shorter-lived WIPs in my collection, but certainly one of the most tortured. There are so many revisions and changes that made its way into the work, plotting out Shandy & Linia's character arcs, the way they intersected with Mertum, Gazelle, and Misuko's. There were last-minute revisions that I think made the story stronger (Cal had a much bigger part before I pushed him off to the side), and re-reading it I can see there's a lot of residue of earlier revisions, things that characters mention that are a bit out-of-place because the supporting backstory is no longer there.
On the other hand, there are plot lines missing that I'm definitely glad are missing. There's already one Conspiracy around Shandy; she doesn't need to get sucked into another one. The meeting between Shandy and a local priest was awkward and didn't do much that Shandy couldn't communicate by just talking to Linia. Shandy's religion is still a factor in her life, and I wanted it to be more present. Another scene that disappeared, and I regret it, is Linia's motorcycle ride out to the biohazard facility where they were growing Isabelle's new body. Again, it didn't forward the plot; the conversation she has with Jinny there got rolled into the conversation in Chapter 8.
And the picnic! Oy, The Picnic!. According to my document tracking, I re-wrote that entire scene from scratch eleven times. It's supposed to be the scene where Shandy's world comes apart, and it does, and it does so rather well. It sets up the scene, slowly breaks its way into Shandy's heart, and then at the end shatters her expectations in the worst possible way. It's some of my best work. But it's still not the best I could write.
All in all, I'm satisfied with the qualities of Honest Impulses as both a Journal Entry and as a novel. It was a good exercise in points-of-view, plot threading, and sustaining interest through the muddle-in-the-middle.
I hope someone else read and enjoyed it. It was too much fun.