3/26/05: Writing retreat, day 2

Editing hours: 27.7 | Since last entry: 4.6 | Percent complete: 44%

Today's retreat was incomplete; we did some grocery shopping and went to a movie (Robots, it was silly and fun) and cooked some stuff for tomorrow's Easter brunch. The editing felt a bit incomplete, too. I find myself extremely daunted by my large list of things-to-do. As I look at each item and read over the chapter, it becomes easier and easier to say "well, it's not perfect, but it would be too much work to change it."

I did make some changes. One biggie was right at the beginning of the day, when I woke up thinking about the Jason jealousy problem mentioned yesterday. I wound up cutting almost all of that scene, and what was left I turned around so that Flea was jealous of Jason. This solution leaves the tension between them but strengthens Jason as a character, and I'm surprised I didn't think of it before. It also cut about 300 words, which is a good thing.

Most of the rest of the changes I made today were small, sentence and paragraph level, mostly informational rather than emotional. I'm finding it very very hard to make substantial changes.

I think I'm getting ready to let go of this novel. I'm certainly heartily sick of editing. More tomorrow, though.