And a little bit of shifting

Usually by the time I near the 100 page mark in a rough draft, I have to do some tweaking to the plot.  I do it again at about 300, too.  It's generally forward tweaking both times.  This time, though, I had to go backward and tweak.  I know, I know!  I've always maintained that when you're writing rough draft, you pencil in changes in the finished material in the margin and push forward, but we're talking chapters here, so I spent yesterday tweaking the first two chapters and writing a brand new third.  From here, I think I just need a quick run through the old third, fourth, and fifth to change them to four five, and six.  Writing chapter seven today would do my heart good.  It will be a long day, but it's do-able, and then I'd be back on track for my weekly page count.

Why the tweaking?  The pace was too slow, and I didn't like how it was taking forever to get to the real problem.  "Oh, it's this.  No, it's this!  Oh, look, this is the real problem."  It was making me tired, so I just jumped all the way back to the third chapter and put it all out on the table.  Instead of decreasing the tension, it increased it, and I'm much happier.

Snow is still dusting, but the roads are cold, and watching the dry bits of snow drift under the passing cars is mesmerizing.  Having a substance that can be in all three phases (gas, liquid, solid) within such a narrow temperature shift is very, very cool.  One of my favorite YA short stories when I was growing up was called A PAIL OF AIR.  I don't even remember who wrote it, but it's stuck with me.