March 5, 2023

Daily Diary, Day 915: This has been such a productive day! No walk, because 2 hours of deep cleaning, and I did have one scheduled phone call, but all the rest of the day was spent editing and I ended up essentially deleting 3 whole chapters.

Wasn't quite as easy as that, but there is a theme that I had decided needed to be moved and developed in the 5th book that comes after this one (which will conclude this particular series) and today was when I pulled that thread out of several chapters, rewove some material back into other chapters, and in a few places was able to delete whole scenes. So now I have completed editing through chapter 19, but the next chapter is currently chapter 23. This of course means reworking all the chapter titles from this point on, but that's easy.

I also was careful to plop all the main deleted scenes in a folder to look at as I start on that next book. Probably won't be able to use as written, but it will make sure I haven't lost the detail when I get to that point.

I think this will definitely help with pacing, make the messy middle less muddled, and even now the ms which was 143,000 words when I started this process is now 118,000 words! Who knows, maybe I will get it down to 100,000 words, which would be much more reasonable.

Anyway, have a pretty free day tomorrow, so let’s see how well that day goes, then Tuesday is pretty packed, but I may need a break by then.

Last night, more Star Trek, and another episode of the Death in Paradise spin off set in England. And I am almost done with the Vera audiobook I am listening to. In fact, time to go and soak my eye and listen.

Here's another bloom from my walk yesterday. So lovely.