I can’t believe nine days have flown by so quickly. And where am I up to?

I’ve edited the grand total of one chapter.

I’ll happily admit that my focus has been skewed over the past week and a bit. There’s been a lot of “life” going on and the usual bug-a-bears of getting home from work late, cooking late, being tired and the draw of the television and a couch in front of the heater too much to refuse.

But there is another reason for the slow pace.

I went back to the very beginning and editing closely revealed holes that need to be patched and painted over. Tired phrases, showing instead of telling, lack of visceral detail in key moments – and that’s only in the first chapter.

When I started I zoomed through chapter one and two, thinking I was on a roll. “Hey, this won’t be so bad.” But then I stumbled as the road became less smooth. Avalanches rained down, earthquakes tore the earth beneath my feet. Did I really know what I was doing?

Yes, and no.

I downloaded Margie Lawson’s lectures on Empowering Characters’ Emotions and have gone through one and a half of the lectures so far. I did the two assignments and they were a revelation. And they weren’t even the easiest exercises in the package but what they did do was make me slow down and look at what I’d written.

I was disheartened but then excited. I could annihilate those phrases I’d disliked from the beginning but left in out of laziness. I could polish the text the way it was meant to shine. And now, just now in fact, I’ve got to the end of the first chapter and it’s much better for the time spent on it. There’s at least one more pass to do before I feel ready to move on but it’s worth it.

I wonder if I can maintain that enthusiasm with chapter two.

I highly doubt I’ll reach the end of June with a polished and completed manuscript but it shouldn’t be too far off. And dammit, I’ll give it a good try.

Target: 2815/90,000