I ended up cutting THREEFOLD BLIGHT down to 74904 words last night. That's 96 words over my goal!

From the draft that was already pretty tight after I'd cut 9,000 words, I chopped another 1,613 words.

Yeah. Take that, scaffolding. Take. That.

Last week, I finished going over a draft of THREEFOLD BLIGHT. The beginning didn't change too much, but I did major overhauls on the end, as I've mentioned. I combined a couple scenes, moved things around, and tried to make everything sharper and cleaner.

I cut about 9,000 words. The manuscript went from 86k to 77k. Part of this was the work I did as I mentioned above. Part of it was simply cleaning the prose. And then, starting last night, I've been having Bambi the iMac reading to me (again) and snipping words as I go. Scaffolding, typos, and stuff I thought was necessary but wasn't. I've cut another thousand words so far.

My goal is to get it down to 75k. (Aside from it being a nice wordcount for YA, it's a completely arbitrary goal. Mostly, I wanted to see if I could cut over 10k from a manuscript I already thought was pretty tightly written. It turns out I can.) I know I can cut another 500 words in the remaining third. I can probably cut more. This is after a draft in which I agonized over every sentence, chopping gleefully.

Things I've been cutting:

a little
a moment
a heartbeat
anyway
almost
mostly
seem
probably
really

I'd already gotten pretty good about not letting adverbs, extra "that"s, and "had"s into my first drafts, but the same can't be said for brief amounts of time or extra qualifiers. Darnit, don't let something SEEM like it's a fact. Let it be a fact!

I also took out descriptions that didn't add anything. (There was one I did a ton of research for, then spent about an hour figuring out the perfect way for these two sentences to appear. Yeah, they're gone now.) Even just a few redundant adjectives add up.

I cut explainy bits and let the reader figure it out. If there needed to be an explainy bit, I trimmed it down to its real purpose, rather than bury it in pointless descriptions and prose. Explain and move on.

I replaced things that took five words with things that took one word. Hazy near-darkness? Gloom, baby. That's gloom.

The draft is already so much stronger. The prose is tighter and easier to read, and I haven't even come close to sacrificing voice, rhythm, or tone.

--

One side effect I hadn't anticipated: for about thirty minutes after listening to the computer read, I thought I was losing my mind. All my thoughts were in the computer voice. Furthermore, I began feeling the computer was quietly snarking me, judging my writing powers while it read. It dragged out words like "stupid", giving the U an extra edge.

My computer is mocking me.

I have realized something.

You know after you haven't exercised in a while, then you do a bunch of push-ups and your arms are sore the next day? Or your legs after you've done a bunch of lunges? And, well, you hurt a little, but it's a good hurt, like you've done something worth the pain.

That's how I'm feeling about this revision. It sometimes takes me days to figure out how to proceed with the story, but once I get it, I feel really awesome. (And my brain hurts a little. In a good way.)

I'm learning so much from rewriting this ending. I knew it would be a lot of work before I set out to do it, but I didn't realize how much, really, or how many days I'd sigh and twiddle my thumbs, happy to have figured out that these paragraphs were in the wrong order. I mean, there are whole scenes in the wrong order! Whole scenes that weren't there that needed to be, and scenes could have been cut or combined.

In the last couple of days, in spite of adding new words to fill in transitions and clarify confusing things, I've lost close to 3,000 words. That's perfect, because I'm going to add as much pretty soon. At that point, I think this story will have all the right things in it, and the wrong things out of it.

Seriously, this revision is killing me. But it's a good killing.

I finished chapter thirteen last night -- finally! -- which involved a lot of brand new writing. Neither of the scenes is originial, so it will probably take a lot of revising to get them into shape, but it's done for now. The structure is back on track. Just four chapters to go. At least one will need heavy revisions, one mild-heavy revisions, and the last two should be decent if I can get them matching the rest.

This morning afternoon, I was excited to work on this. :)

--

Coming up with something to talk about every day was easier when I did metrics. Heh. For now, I've got ferrets breaking into drawers and things in here, the yawns, and this:



Burst Berries, Bend the Light, and Chocolate Roses. Jeff picked them out, and they arrived today. The ferrets have, of course, appropriated the envelope for their own amusement.

I've been slow about getting yarn skeined and photographed so it can go in the closet and join the others. These aren't my latest, but they're recent. (The latest is drying in a window, and the super latest is half plied on the wheel.)

amberdine, you'll recognize these, especially the traumatic chain plying event. Heh.

Here's Stardust and Party Mints.



--

I've been slogging through this section of THREEFOLD BLIGHT. It's taking much more work than anticipated, but it's coming out stronger (when it bothers to tell me what's going on). I like where it's heading, and the parallels that appear with earlier chapters now. I even sort of like the writing, but I'm sure that won't last when I reread it.

I think I've rearranged these scenes at least three times now. Pretty sure they'll stay where they are, since I've decided to leave a scene break here, switch POVs, and start up Sadie's bit again in the next chapter. (Quit your gasping. Every now and then I do write a second POV. It's not that unusual. ;P). This works out. It's far less fiddly than what I'd been afraid they were doing. Plus, earthquakes and fires and ambushes.

*bounce*

It took me a few days, but I finally managed to rewrite chapter twelve, the boring one with nothing going on.

I switched the scene order, chopped off a lot of exposition and redundancies, and combined the super boring scene with another scene from the next chapter -- not to make a super duper boring scene, but to condense the parts where Sadie discovered her magic and help them be more active. This time she made decisions, and there were consequences, and actual conflicts. External things happened, too. (Crazy!)

Yesterday I realized there was something off about Sadie and Changer's relationship. She's worried about something, and...that was it. Everything was fine. Except it shouldn't be. If she's worried about something, she's going to do what she can to protect her heart, even if it's unconscious. And Changer should pick up on that and react.

When I finished the chapter and read through it again last night, it was so much stronger. Tension, plot moving forward, and a touch of angst.

So much had changed in chapter twelve, and I practically gutted chapter thirteen for parts... I wasn't actually sure what happened next. I knew the end, because the climax and resolution are basically the same, but getting there? Two chapters had big question marks hanging over them.

After thinking about it way too hard this morning, I went to sleep. And woke up an hour and a half later with most of the answers. Why doesn't it surprise me that I'm still sacrificing sleep for this story?

Changing things like this is really hard for me. I try to get these big plot and structure issues right in the first draft, because this part feels like cutting off my arm to see if it grows back better than before.

So far, though, I like the results.

The moon was heavy and full, fleeing the sky-hole as it did every night. Then a tendril of nothing streaked from the smears of blue and yellow and brown, and a sliver of the moon vanished.

If this section was any slower, it'd be going backward.

I knew I had to redo things in the last quarter of this manuscript, having discovered far better motivation than, "Let's run off into the wilderness with no goal except not to get killed!" but I thought more would stay the same than is apparently going to happen. After all, they're still off in the wilderness, just now they have a goal. Er.

Apparently my idea of plot for this section was "Sadie discovers she can spin anything; Changer has a nightmare; Sadie does yet more spinning and it's spooky; bad guys FINALLY ARRIVE and plot happens."

Yeah, it's about as dull as it sounds, only with miles of exposition and pointless stage directing.

So I've ripped up these two chapters, reorganized a couple things, cut and consolidated things, and it's quite possible this will end up less boring than it currently is. The two chapters after this need lots of ripping and revising, too, because the setting is changing and problems that were in the background before are going to be more immediate. But those can sit tight while I deal with these two first. I can't hold that much overhaul in my brain at once.

I guess we'll see what happens when I'm done with this bulldozer.

Someday I'll have something cool to talk about again.

For now, I'm making decent progress on THREEFOLD BLIGHT again, and hanging out with various furry mammals here.

The other night I figured out how to make motivations in the end stronger, rather than an arbitrary, "Oh let's go off and do this and accidentally get into trouble." Yeah, it was that lame. I gave Sadie a reason to believe something might help save the world, and the person she promised to protect. They'll try that instead of wandering around pointlessly.

Last night I cleared up some antag motivations and made them stronger, and therefore scarier. Tonight's project is to get Sadie off on her own in a sharper way than before. More tension! More conflict!

Um, right after I give these poor, neglected ferrets a treat.

Tonight is Jeff's Saturday at work. He has to go in, but I don't think he has to work tomorrow night, which is a relief. Last weekend he had to work his Sunday (Saturday night), so tonight is putting him at a seven-day week.

I know that's hard to understand. This is why I never know what day it is unless I concentrate very hard. :)

I spent last night reading another manuscript for a friend, which I'll finish tonight. It appears that, if I pause to make comments and things, I can read about 65-70k a night. I wish I could read faster. :P There are so many things I'd like to catch up on.

So tonight I'll finish this manuscript, write a crit, and collapse in a puddle of sleepiness, and get started on THREEFOLD BLIGHT again tomorrow (or the night after -- Sunday night, which will be Monday for us -- since Jeff might actually want to spend time with me. Crazy, I know.). I'm looking forward to working on it again.

I've been enjoying being back in that world, fixing things, making things stronger. There's a bit of work I need to do around the middle; I'd like to make the tension stronger and more immediate, rather than simply "someone's out to get you, Sadie!" and letting her run off. In the first draft, I had someone else make a decision for her. In the next one, I had her make the decision and the others agree with her. Now, I think I want to change it to her making the decision without the others...because she's got a broken ankle and it probably actually *is* unwise for her to go off by herself, but if she does this, then it will a) split up the pursuers, and b) let her travel faster. (She's gonna steal a horse, not walk the whole way on a broken ankle. ;)

There are a few other things, but I think they'll all be pretty enjoyable to work on. I'm not sure how to do a couple, yet, but reading mss for friends has given me a nice break to think about things. Hopefully I'll know what to do when I get there. :)

Now I'd better wash dishes or else they'll start breeding.

Something glorious happened yesterday. One of those things I didn't want to talk about?

It's been resolved.

I can't express how relieved I am, and how my life is suddenly 10000% better.

--

It took me a while to regain focus after that last night. I managed to take care of a lot of things that didn't require extended concentration and eventually made it through chapter five of THREEFOLD BLIGHT.

Toward the end of it, I told b_twin_1, "I know why this chapter is so hard to get through. It sucks!" And I only meant it half-jokingly. I still think it needs to be a lot more exciting. (This is the chapter, if you remember, I made from two scenes taken from the surrounding chapters.)

Fortunately, the chapter is only 3,000 words long. It got shorter after I had Bambi read to me and I chopped out all the fluff. So even if it really does suck, it sucks short, and it isn't nearly as terrible as I originally thought when you actually just read it, rather than sit and pick at it. (Like a scab.) I have room to add cool things (though I don't want to add too much of anything anywhere), and I can still think about combining the two scenes it contains into a super less-sucky scene. (I'll have to think about the mechanics of that, because the take place in two different settings, and that actually is important. Otherwise I'd move one.)

I'll leave it for now and make a note to see about making it better on the next pass through.

And even though it needs to be better than it is? It still contains a couple of lines I really love: Maybe he wasn't actually a person, but a piece of magic that only existed when he was summoned in times of need or vague curiosity. -and- ...he wrapped her foot and stuck it in a splint. She couldn't move it even if she wanted to try, but now she knew how a hound on a leash felt, or a hawk on a tether.

Because I know there are a couple people, at least, who want to ask, but won't. ( Personal )

--

I'm working on THREEFOLD BLIGHT. I've thoroughly revised the first few chapters by first going through crits for typos and obviously bad sentences, and making notes of bigger things to fix (explain X better), then going through more slowly to fix all that, and make sure the sentences on the page actually make sense. Then I have Bambi the iMac read the chapter to me while I read along and fix yet more typos, awkward sentences, and tighten prose.

Bambi the iMac doesn't have the greatest reading voice (for one, I've been using a male voice, and Bambi the iMac is a girl), but it does help me get a better idea of what's actually on the page. (Five words where one would do. *cough*) Yes, I could read it out loud myself...and get caught up in the story and emotions while I read, and completely miss the point of hearing it out loud. The computer voice is dry and emotionless; there are only words here.

I've been enjoying the process of revising this story. It isn't easy, because I was mostly okay with what was already on the page. But mostly okay isn't good enough. It has to be better.

This is such a pleasant little story. I love it so much.

--

I'm not satisfied with the end of this blurb, but poking at it more isn't going to help. A better end (a shorter end!) will come eventually. ( Click. )

It's a messy morning of word death in this manuscript. First person present is still a pain in the behind (alas, Imogene will narrate in nothing else), but apparently I've learned a few things since I worked on this last year.

No paragraph is safe. I wield the delete key of death.

--

1a. I check the way before standing and creeping across. It's empty, which doesn't feel right, but I urge the look-away spell to course stronger over me, and slip to stand next to the door.

1b. The courtyard is empty when I creep across. That doesn't feel right, but I urge my look-away spell stronger and pause next to the door.

--

2a. There are five distinct voices and shades of anger leaking from the room. The smoky smell clots in my nose and makes breathing difficult, but I search the bushes for Aiden and signal the number to him. He nods and positions himself so his crossbow is balanced on his knee, poisoned bolt aimed.

2b. Five voices leak from the room. The smoky reek of their anger makes breathing difficult as I search the bushes for Aiden and signal the number. He nods, balances his crossbow on his knee, and aims the poison bolt.

--

3a. I try the knob, but it's locked. No time to run back and get Aiden's lockpicks: someone will have heard that. Instead, I lower myself to sit on my heels and press my shoulder against the wall, waiting as the voices inside stop. Someone inside is afraid; the sour stink of urine grows stronger when the lock clicks and someone takes hold of the knob.

3b. The knob sticks: locked. The voices inside quiet, leaving me no time to fetch Aiden's lockpicks. Instead I crouch, press my shoulder to the wall, and wait as the sour stink of fear grows stronger inside. The lock clicks and the door cracks open.

--

Not perfect, but better.

Dear Brain,

The reason you were confused about where the flashlight was in this scene is because there is no flashlight in this scene. She put it down in the last scene and never picked it up again. Remember?

Remember?

Yeah. Now just remember to take the flashlight out of the end of this scene where you added it before, thinking it should be there. No. Flashlight. (And the next scene, too, I think. Which, yes, means Angela has to run home in the dark.)

Clever as ever,
Jodi

Well, I finished all my crit-shaped things this afternoon, read slush, and dithered on the partials sitting in my inbox. If I was a good person, I'd have read them today.

Instead I pulled out UNWATER. I'd already sneaked in the first scene of chapter one, so I started in the second scene and went to the end of chapter three this evening. I've already been through the beginning a couple times while writing the first draft, so other than clarifying sentences, fixing line of direction problems, and adding some information, I didn't have to do much. Just glared at it until I decided yep, that's okay, and move on to the next bit.

The next few chapters should go the same, though at some point I need to insert a necessary piece of information. I'd been saving it for a special big reveal moment in the first draft, but ... that moment never came. And then I realized things would be much more sinister looking if I added it earlier. So, soonish, Angela will learn some skeeeeevy things the Ministry has been doing. Skeevier than the things she already knows about.

I wish I had the brain to do it now. I have time for at least another scene, but not the brain. (Stupid brain.)

The part that made my heart flutter when first writing it? Still does even after my brain has been thoroughly scrubbed with weeks and other stories. I'm going to take that as a good sign and continue onward. (Tomorrow. Brain. Nom.)

--

Remember the vampire story? Apparently I'll have an antag POV. She arrived yesterday, and I told her to have some tea and settle in while I revise UNWATER. Vampires are next.

Vampires need to provide a title, too, so I can have a tag for them.

( Clicky for antag. )

I finally got through Harpy.

I also have 13k of words I've earned for Unwater. I have a friend's ms to read this weekend, and partials to read next week. And a full I should get back to before someone else snatches him up.

At some point I will spend some of my Unwater words. (I have a list so I can keep track.)

This is draft 5.0 of Harpy. I will work on 5.1 soonish, and then finish the YA version, which won't take nearly as long. (Please, commas, don't let it take as long.) I wonder how I shall reward myself for getting through 5.1 and the YA draft. Since they will be quicker, perhaps a thousand Unwater words per chapter, rather than scene.

I cannot express how relieved I am that this is done. I like this book, but it isn't my favorite. I don't think it's even ever been the current favorite. That people like it so much never fails to boggle me (though I'm glad they do...), and working on it has always been a test of my powers of focus. But now I have squeezed out more worldbuilding, setting, character, and hopefully destroyed 95% of the bad prose. (I sent it to two friends who will no doubt inform me of all the typos and editing artifacts.)

It's a better book, if nothing else.

*thanks em-dashes and semicolons while in a thankful mood*

1. Trailer with giant bales of hay is still out there. Was cute the first day. Was cute the second day. Pushing it by the third day. Six days is not funny anymore.

Mister hay trailer person, please fix your tire and go away.

2. Obama is speaking at JMU (in Harrisonburg, by where I live). I had to go by JMU to get to the grocery store today.

Traffic. Is. Nuts.

It's not as bad as it could be, but seriously, there are cops everywhere. Not even just by JMU.

3. I ordered an external hard drive for Bambi the iMac to use for Time Machine. It came FexEx today. Hurrah! Right?

I opened the rather large box to find the smaller box with my hard drive in there, an invoice, a tiny catalogue...and that was it. Notice something missing? Like, say, padding for my expensive hard drive???

Worried it became damaged during transport, I opted not to open the hard drive and test it yet, but to call the company and ask if they could assure me they'd replace it (with no fees on my part! I didn't do this!) if it didn't work. I looked at the invoice...no phone number. ARGH. There was a help site. I went to that, filled out the form, and they flashed a message that said a confirmation email would appear in five minutes. Fast forward five minutes, no confirmation email. Twenty minutes. Still no confirmation.

I tried again, using a different email address. Several hours later, no response to either message. I'd worry less, except their website says you only have 14 days to return things, and that's from the day they shipped it, not when you received it. Since they sent it FedEx ground...well, I'm in a bit of a hurry.

If I don't have an email tomorrow, I'm calling Amazon (I ordered it through Amazon, but a dealer got my money - I'm not sure how it works), and I'm asking them to fix it. I assume they'll want to, since they trusted this company. And since I'm in such a cross mood...I hope someone tells me I can try my hard drive without worrying I'm going to risk having to buy another one because of their stupid error.

I hope I'm not feeling this cross tomorrow, but comma help them if I am. You don't mess with what's supposed to be my backup drive. Writers iz nutz, and backups...they're important.

4. Several very odd things in the slush today. Very odd behavior from people. I will have full reports of the oddness on Saturday.

5. In good news (or at least less grumpy news), I got quite a bit of work on DELUGE done, and I'm feeling really good about the book. It's UF(ish), therefore commercial, but it's still got stuff I love about secondworld fantasy. It was hard to write, really hard, and even reading through it, I don't recognize some of the elements as being from my story. I remember writing them, so I must have done it.

(I also remember desperately trying to avoid writing some of them, and dragging the hard scenes out of my head word. by. painful. word. The people who read the book said they're the strongest scenes in the book, though, so and I hope they're right. I don't want to have to rip those scenes up and try again. Very emotionally taxing. I'll fix what I need to, but whitepaper those bits. *shudder*. *SHUDDER.*)

Why do I repeat myself and use a lot of unnecessary and extra words to describe a little and unimportant thing, not to mention why do I repeat myself?

*shoveling out the suck*

(Begin to rewrite a paragraph. Get stuck on a stupid sentence. Phone call/important email/attention needed elsewhere NOW. Fight way back into story. Discover it hasn't improved during absence. Whimper and stare. Flash of brilliance! Repeat with next paragraph.)

1. I'm having spaghetti for lunch. Everyone come over!

2. robinmckinleys has a forum now. Go visit! Blogmom stands by to register new people. (I have been called a knitting virus already! *sniff*)

3. This happened last night.


4. And this happened on Monday.


5. This also happened on Monday.


6. Still working on Harpy/YA Harpy. Because I'm insane, I'm keeping both versions running at the moment. It's making me crazier, but seems necessary to my ultimate happiness.

Also working on Deluge here and there when I get new comments. It, you know, gets things better, and when I really go through it again, I'll get to do that thing: "Oh, hey, it's not so bad after all!" and "Look, here are a handful of edits I don't have to do! I've already done them! Surprise!"

7. How did I miss Facing The Giants? A cool Christian movie! Gasp! Apparently they've done another one -- Fireproof -- which is in theaters still, so I'm looking forward to that. It has long seemed to me that Christian movies let God solve everything...miracle after miracle, and the people don't have to do anything. No conflict, no stakes...

I liked Facing the Giants because there were impossible odds, and God did open the door for miracles, but the people are the ones who said yeah, let's make this happen. And then they did. (The other one I liked a lot was The Second Chance, because it didn't try to hide the gritty reality of the world -- gangs, people getting killed, used, hurt, and still they manage to show compassion.)

I'm so pleased. *grin*

8. Do you know how hard it is not to let Harriet (of Harpy) say things like "Oh comma!" or "For the love of apostrophes!"? I'm finding it pretty tough.

Although, adult!Harriet might actually swear to punctuation. Her job is mentioned, though the plot takes her away from it. She's a copyeditor.

Yeah, I bet she would swear to punctuation. Holy em-dashes, Batman!

9. I broke a glass yesterday, and again today. I swear, if I was working in a restaurant, I'd be fired already. :P

Enough people have said Harpy should be a YA that I'd be a moron not to listen. And I don't disagree. I mean, I like it the way it is, with Harriet as an adult, but I can see the reasoning behind making it YA. (It has a lot of YA themes -- wanting to be normal, parent issues -- and thanks to the way she was raised, Harriet is pretty emotionally immature.) It's just been the how to do it and still keep it the story I want to tell that's been eluding me.

It's been in my head all summer long, just stewing back there, and finally last week, enough things came together. I think I know how to do it. And, you know, keep it the story I want to tell. Because if it's not a story I want to tell, there's no point in trying to make it work.

In the original story, Harriet was 27 years old. (For those just tuning in, she's also one-quarter harpy. She has enormous wings and a horrible time keeping her socks intact -- they get lots of harpy toenail holes. This is a very anti-romantic look at wings on people.) She'd been living on her own for many years, succeeding in what her aunt told her she couldn't do: live a normal life. She was kind of jaded, mostly lonely, but she had things she earned for herself. Her house, job, car that breaks down. Normal things she never thought she'd have.

She had something to lose.

Of course, I took it away from her. Then she had something to fight for, something she wanted back.

But as a YA, Harriet has to be younger. One friend suggested community college against her aunt's wishes, another suggested online classes. College is young enough for YA (I hope!) and old enough she can do stuff on her own.

Then I got thinking about it more...and there's a huge difference here. Not just age. Adult!Harriet has had time to get used to her normal and pleasantly dull life. Teenage!Harriet has not. She doesn't have stuff she's earned on her own, the same things to lose, or the same things to fight for. And furthermore, she's been confined to her aunt's farm most of her life, so she shouldn't be quite so used to the real world. She'll be pretty wide-eyed about it.

Not only is Harriet's situation changed, her whole outlook is different. She hasn't had time to become the Harriet I already know.

So I've spent this evening trying to get to know teenage!Harriet, find out what's important to her, how she'll react to certain situations, and a billion other things.

The other day I was thinking about revising as being the same as trying to move a river, and asakiyume agreed. She said, "I think about all that water and all the creatures in it and the way it carves itself through the land around it, and then I try to imagine all that somewhere else, and how you have to carry not only the water, but the fish and the water plants and the water birds, and how you have to fill in the place where the river used to be, and make sure where you set the river down that there are no towns or rare phoenix nests or something--it's a huge undertaking."

Yes. Changing Harriet's age and (now lack of) occupation was just the beginning -- moving the water. Figuring out her attitude as a younger person is trying to grasp all the slick water plants that have grown there. Seeing where younger Harriet takes the story is going to be watching out for those rare phoenix nests.

This revision just went from daunting to terrifying.

ETA: And I think this means I can't keep my precious first paragraphs. I loffed them so much, and they explained so much right up front.

( First paragraphs - to prove they existed )

There are three things I need to make sure I get right during the first draft: Plot, structure, and character development. If I can get those right, revisions aren't too painful.

Things don't always going according to plan.

When I wrote SHADOW OF VENGEANCE, it had a huge structural problem. Huge. Enormous. You know how usually when you get critiques from people, a few will say one thing, a few will say another thing, and other people just don't mention it? Not in this case. Everyone mentioned the structure problem, even if it was, "I was super bored during this part. The exciting stuff was already finished."

And since when I write first drafts, they get carved into my brain like that, I really have to work at fixing those problems. It's like trying to redirect a river.

When I went back to fix this problem in SoV, I changed a few things here and there, and then said, "That's it!" and put it away. Then I came back to it and realized there was still the same problem. I nudged a few more things toward betterness. "That's it!" And wandered off to do something else.

As a result, SoV has gone through many, many drafts and changes, and the story is only recognizable because the premise hasn't changed. The first chapter has gone through many incarnations, the middle grew a lot, and the ending is nothing like the original ending. (The book started out at 80k. Then became 95k, then 105k, then 115k. Now it's 130k. Shh. It's better now.)

Sometimes the different drafts get confused in my head. Moving a river and all.

SoV was the second book I finished. Fortunately, I've learned a few things since then, and since revising it fifty million times. Enough to be aware of what I need to have right in order to be less crazy. Obviously this hasn't made everything sunshine and roses here; more than a few books waiting on revisions are still looking very daunting, just because I know what needs to be done, and I'm not sure I'm good enough to do it yet.

I finished revising DELUGE tonight. (96k.) Fortunately, its structure problems were minimal, mostly sagging around the middle. So between official drafts, I cut a couple thousand words of sag and sneaked in a little bit of excitement, then promptly let myself forget I did that. When I got back to the once-saggy part, I was surprised to find it was much better! Less saggy. There were a couple things that needed tucking in and chopping off, but woo, nudged closer to betterness.

After several drafts of nudging and secret revisions, I think this might actually be a good book.

Still hard, but...maybe good.