So I’ve been confused about this manuscript I’m working on, because it appears to be missing Vital Story Bits that I quite liked. I thought I’d perhaps somehow edited them out, for reasons I couldn’t understand, at a time I couldn’t remember, but, y’know, they weren’t there so I had to have done something with them, right? And then I went and looked for them in other files and found them, so that was good, I could at least put them back in, right? Yay and all that.

Except the manuscript was also shorter, by several thousand words, than I’d *thought* it had been, and it has gradually dawned on me that I somehow ended up doing my revisions not on the latest version of the manuscript (which was, y’know, essentially 20 years old itself), but the *original* version of it.

Which explains a lot. And is a pain in the ass, because I’ve already done significant work on the Original Manuscript, making going to the Already Revised Manuscript to continue ill-advised. Instead I’m trying to retrofit the Already Revised Manuscript into the Newly Revised Original Manuscript, which so far is working okay in the “this is a real pain in the ass” sense.

Anyway, I got through seven chapters today, which is massive. Several of them which involved a lot of fiddly detail work and some of which was figuring out how exactly to drop the Already Revised Manuscript chapters into place in the Newly Revised Original Manuscript and then massaging it all so it fits and reads better. I gained 3500 words today by doing that, and only wrote about 500 new ones.

I stopped when I got to the chapter where the first note I’d left, before anything else in the chapter, said, “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS”, and when I leave notes like that to myself, 8pm with 8 hours of editing behind me already is not the time I want to start that.

For Reasons, the book has undergone a title change, too, so from here on out the Heartstrike Trilogy will be ATLANTIS FALLEN, PROMETHEUS BOUND* and AVALON RISING.

*probably

Having gotten MAGIC & MANNERS practically sorted*, I’m going to spend the next five days attempting a Revision Blitz on IMMORTAL BELOVED, which is a 20 year old book undergoing a major revamp to make it new and shiny. I’ve done the first redraft already but that’s left a lot of muck hanging about in it, and most of it is, of course, the *harder* muck to clean up. Because why would I do the hard stuff first and leave the easy stuff for the second round. :)

(Actually, why *would* I? Because revisions almost never get done in the first pass, especially if it’s something I haven’t looked at for a while. *Seeing* that there’s a problem is often as much as I can manage in the first go, like I’m mentally prepping for the work. It’d be great if I could just tackle it all at once, but when there’s two thirds of a book left and I don’t know what horrors lie ahead, getting through the *easy* stuff is enough of a job. If I started with the hard stuff I’d probably give up in despair. :))

Anyway, so I’m hoping to push through the hard stuff in the next few days, leaving myself with probably one more pass to clean up the final comparatively easy but titchy stuff that’s left dangling. If I’m truly amazing I’ll get all of that done in the next five days, which would be Major Goal level activity.

I started two short stories on Friday, both “Origins” stories for the Old Races Short Story Project, so the goal is to finish one of those NEXT week and do a big stompy revision pass on REDEEMER the last ten days of the month.

And then because there’s no rest for the wicked, it’ll be another short story followed by a revision of BEWITCHING BENEDICT, the straight-up Regency romance that I hope will charm your socks off late this summer. :)

I think I’m repeating myself telling you my plans, but I’m trying really really hard to keep what I’m trying to do fixed in my head so that it feels like I’m accomplishing something instead of just frantically spinning my wheels. The Thinks To Do List is just *so* massive. o.o

*ahahahah :}