Update: a scalpel rather than an ax, so far

You know, the very easiest way to drop 10,000 words in a hurry is to realize a thirty-page chapter isn’t doing anything useful. Whoosh! Thunk! One swing of the ax takes care of that.

I’m exaggerating, but not a lot. I cut a chapter from Tarashana and one from Tasmakat, with just a bit of splicing to join the remaining chapters together. Nothing like that with Marag, which was much tighter. Nor from Rihasi.

More typical, lots and lots of delicate slicing with a scalpel rather than big swings of an ax. Lots of that with Hedesa. It’s slow, but not unsatisfying. I realized I never turned on music this past weekend, which means I was absorbed enough not to think of it. I’ve dropped from a high of 238,000 back to a less-insane 223,000. All at the level of sentences and occasionally paragraphs, while neatening up continuity along the way.

Sunday evening, I arrived at Ch 25, and having skimmed lightly through this chapter and the next one … I think … not a lot is happening in these chapters, and today I may be pulling out, if not an ax, maybe a hatchet.

This, by the way, is where I will rename the file, in case I’m like, Oops, shouldn’t have cut that scene. But I think I will be cutting these chapters A LOT. Like cutting half their length. Then possibly combining them. This would be fine. They are remarkably long chapters given nothing much is going on in them. We’ll see how much I decide is building relationships or in other ways doing something useful.

Chapter 27 will be different! Fun, important stuff happens there. Ch 28 is largely transition. Ch 29 is the final chapter, probably not counting a short epiloguish chapter that ties up this book and leads to the next. I haven’t written that part yet. I’m thinking short like five pages, but not sure, of course.

Three more days in April! Can I finish this draft, including primary revision, before May? I doubt it. But honestly, I’m getting close!

Meanwhile! Cool weather all weekend. I put out about a third of my baby plants, of which a squirrel immediately destroyed three seedings, dratted little nuisance. Good thing I have more, and I threw a lot of cayenne everywhere to discourage the varmints. It’s too muddy to plant the rest just yet. The remaining babies will have a harder time, as it’s supposed to get hot abruptly. But hopefully I’ll remember cayenne or cinnamon for the rest before the squirrels destroy any. They don’t eat the seedings, by the way. They nip them off at ground level and drop the corpse to wither, for absolutely no reason other than sheer peversity.

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