Tonight I sat down and finished going through Chapter Six with a pencil. I cut two and a half pages involving the "leaf subplot" that I'm trying to remove, but I don't know if this is just going to screw everything up in the end.

I don't think I have the hang of "edit for content first before doing any line editing, because what you fine-tune might not even be there later". I want to make it all better, while doing the content at the same time -- multi-tasking. Hey, maybe I can do it this way.

I'm going to be rewriting one page to make the characters active rather than reactive, and I've changed some of their attitudes towards the little things to make Saera (I hope) more likeable.

Dialogue has been chopped so interjections that don't really add anything don't slow it down.

At some point I'm going to have to make reference to the two horses they just casually left behind at the stables.

It looks to me like this draft will be the "cutting and clarification draft", where the next one will be the "deepen (add) and line-edit draft".
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I hate maths, but I love using numbers to predict when a project is going to be finished. If I do a chapter a week from now, this draft would be finished about halfway through December. That means I really want to be doing more like 3 chapters a week, so I have time to go through that next draft and read it a few times before releasing it around Christmas.

I can't wait for that moment when I transfer the book to a .mobi file and read it in that other form -- the form in which it will be read by others.

Is this rushing it? I don't know, but I need to get it out there.

I need to get it out there.
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UPDATE: I've now edited the digital document, and have trimmed the chapter of an estimated 1,000 words after taking into account the few paragraphs and the  transition that I still have to write.

Hi!

I've been very busy lately with Uni assessments, but I've come back to revisions now and am currently halfway through Chapter Six. I'd love to release the book around Christmas time, but I can't be sure if that's going to happen.

To make up for the words I'm cutting with these revisions, I'm considering how I can work in this love interest subplot that was originally going to be in the book, but I cut it short. Anything that can add to the length and depth at the same time would be much appreciated.

In Other Life News
Apart from studying (an Advanced Diploma of Music), I've released a single called "That Silence" on iTunes for 99c and Bandcamp for 20c. I'm currently writing and recording an EP.

I've been building my Twitter followers for my music @RyanLeeSulMusic. I'm working up a setlist of covers and original songs that I'll use for gigs and busking.

I've moved out of home, now renting a place with two housemates that's a 20 minute tram ride to Uni.

Being about 10 months since I've had a French class (after finishing Year 12), I've been thinking lately that I really don't want to forget what I know. So I bought a self-published Kindle book called Andéhir: la prophétie, the first of two French fantasy books for 11 - 13-year-olds. I don't understand every word, but I do understand what's happening in each scene, the general flow of action, and most of what's being said between the characters. A friend made the point that even if I don't understand all of it, reading it is probably helping me avoid forgetting what I already know. Now if only I could use a French-English dictionary within my Kindle app!