Editing

Up at 9:30 AM, started to edit. By 2:00 AM, had cut 49 pages out of Book Two, to go with 13 out of Book One. To do: Cut 37 pages out of Book Three, for total of 100. Have to be done with book sometime Sunday.

So yeah: That's what I've been doing. And it's not over.

Still Editing

...and man, I am waaay too old to edit all day and not go to sleep until 4:00 AM for almost three days in a row. I do it because I need to, but I seem to recall it once having been somewhat "enjoyable"--a grand adventure! Ain't that, anymore.

Still, Steve has been invaluable, especially so in dealing with Cal, who's sick (diarrhea, puking, crazy). And the great part about the process has been realizing that awful as my prose initially looked, it can be fixed. For example: Here's a handy partial list of things which--in the next book--probably only ever need to be mentioned once:

Chess is A) small, B) mean, C) gay, and D) has green eyes.
Rook is A) big, B) raspy-voiced, C) conflicted, D) scary, and E) knows a lot of Bible verses.
Morrow is A) bemused, B) scared, C) kinda squicked by Chess and D) kinda aroused by Chess, E) often at the same time.

See also: Chess's Ma was a whore, Mictlan-Xibalba is wet and Mayan-Aztec gods like to talk inside your head, all cryptic and amused-like, while showing you scenes of creepish sacrificial fetishism. Believe me, it's not like you're not gonna hear anything about any of the above anymore, but not to the incredible repetitive degree you have thus far. This...I swear!

(And fewer ellipses, too.;))