David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Editing hours: 8.8 | Since last entry: 1.7 | Percent complete: 8% Still writing new text: 660 new words, showing Vigor’s collapse and its aftermath and introducing Raptor. Total word count now over 123,000 — too long, too long. Should not be adding words! Should be cutting! But the opening chapters are stronger, I think. This is not the place to end the chapter, but it’s where I’m stopping for tonight. I briefly considered ending the chapter right at Vigor’s collapse, but that seemed too abrupt, and I wanted to fight my tendency to go “naturally the reader will know what to feel here, I don’t have to describe it” and really show Clarity’s feelings. At the moment she’s mostly pissed that nobody’s telling her what’s going on (she doesn’t yet know that they don’t know either) — I need to get more concern and fear in there. Emotion has always been my bugaboo. One more good night’s work on this chapter and I should be done with it, and then things should progress more quickly as I shift into editing and cutting mode. I hope. I really hope.