So I went through all of my third first reader’s notes yesterday.

It took about eight hours give or take. I ate dinner at my desk to save time and had a couple cups of coffee to power through it.

Tonight I am going to drink Guinness, play minecraft, and have one more day above the roses before tomorrow I do something drastic.

Tomorrow I roll the counter back from 109,000 to 0. And I start again.

Well, perhaps I am being a bit dramatic. I am not starting from scratch or anything. But the changes have to be drastic. 13 chapters require complete rewrites, 3 of those require such drastic changes that there is literally nothing of value in the words I have on the page other than a reminder to myself on how not to do it. Nearly all the rest require pretty heavy modification but can at least pull from the existing text.

So tomorrow, book 1 goes back to “0” and we try again. Lessons learned. But by the end of tomorrow, expect that number to be high. And expect it to grow pretty quick.

I’ll be back around 110,000 before you know it.

Actually, this is a great opportunity for some drastic changes. At least one whole character is being axed completely. I’m rather glad to see him go, to be honest. Character voices and dialogue can be overhauled for both consistency but also dialect, something I’ve wanted to add for quite a while.

I’m excited. This break is going to be busy. This month is going to be busy. But it’ll get done. And it’ll be better for the effort.

Tonight, though, tonight I enjoy a little bit of stupid fun before I go back to the hard work.