Slash and Burn

That's what it feels like I'm doing at the moment. Everything that isn't absolutely essential to Flynn and Sara's story -- especially the bits that are not specifically about Flynn and Sara are biting the dust.

Today I cut about 6000 words. They were nice words, too. Enjoyable words. In a 75K story they'd have had a place.

In Flynn and Sara's story they are in a new file that I should be calling "the cannibalization file" because it's where I go to grab bits and stick them back in the manuscript as I need them.

But it truly amazes me how the spine of the story was there (thank you, Twyla Tharp) but I had so many characters and had done so much layering of other stuff that the sharp focus of the book got lost. I think it's back. And the spine is sharper than ever.

I'm not quite halfway through the revisions. At least halfway through what is here. Now I need to start adding in some of the new stuff as well. I mean the "new" new stuff -- not the new stuff which is just old stuff revised.

Oddly I'm getting an idea for a new book, too -- and it's not about any of the guys we've discussed. Hmmm.