Took me a while to reply to this after last night, not because I was licking my wounds, but rather because Pete lit a fire in me.
With the chat completed, I spent 5 hours heavily rewriting Dara, and have continued to do so for another 6 hours today.
Pete, your words last night have been more help to me than any other thing in the last 10 years of writing. I don't know why, exactly, for you didn't really say anything I have not heard before, but simply seeing the process applied to my work just made something
click in my head. The draft I now have of the early chapters of Dara is far more streamlined, far more exciting and moves to engage the reader much more quickly.
I genuinely cannot thank you enough!
That being said (there is always a but!

), I am afraid we shall have to differ about Sonnet & Calhoone. Clearly, it was just not for you, and that is absolutely cool, but if I were to begin to take on board your criticism of it, and change it accordingly, I think it would lose all its current charm and disappear into being "yet another pulp fiction".
I look forward to future sessions like this and, if I can get it back into a "ready to show state", would be fascinated and grateful to see what you think of the new Dara!