lagilman | And here endeth FiMyDaNoMo

Although not really, because the book's not due until Monday. So I have two more days to give it a final submission-draft readthrough. *whew*

The interesting thing with this revision pass is that when I finished Draft Zero I - bluntly - thought the book sucked. It had lots of great set-pieces and funny lines and character gems, but overall, the plot felt like a bunch of wires and cords thrown in a drawer, and I had no idea how I was going to untangle them and then wind them all into a neat strand.

And then I started the revision pass, an about 1/3 of the way through I realized "oh...it was just the first chunk where I wasn't quite sure where I was going that was making me all nervous." Once I got past that, everything was pretty much laid out and just waiting for me to plug everything in.

(yes, it seems that I am using a Christmas lights metaphor here. It's almost December, what do you expect?)

And now... well, if we're going to continue that metaphor, the strands are untangled and draped just-so, to the point where I can see how nicely everything will ~~look~~ read, and all I need to do is get down and plug that last cord in and... then see if it lights up, or if one burnt-out bulb somewhere in the middle stops it all dead.

I think I'll wait until tomorrow for that, though.

I will say that the last half, once I had everything sorted? Filled me with a readerly glee. I'm hoping that's a good sign, and not proof I've lost all ability to judge...

And now, if you'll excuse me, there's a slab of red meat grilling with my name on it.