Ten Months

Draft is done.

81.6 thousand words. Almost dead on.

That's more by accident than not. The original plan said I'd spend about 60% of the page count in Athens and I hated that I had to spend so much time on a side quest. Then I realized I was going to fall short and added more incident to the detour. At that point I was sure I was going to end up with too little of Athens, especially as I had no real ideas other than "go to some museums."

Well, the riot sub-plot got me 4K, Markos when I added him into the museum scene gained me 2K, and I ended up with 30K after she returned from the detour to Germany. So that means just slightly over half the text takes place in around Athens, which was kind of the point of this plot; that I could write a bunch of stuff about a place I'd actually visited recently.

So now for edit.

The first edit is large-scale tweaks. There are scenes I didn't like and need to be reworked, bits that didn't work, and misplaced emphasis in several places.

Example of the latter; don't talk about Nazi's until at least Munich. I know. She's in an Indiana Jones hat being chased through a woods by crazy Germans and there's even been swastikas (on a pot sherd, actually) and she's from Burbank. How could she not think about Nazi's? But I'm going to walk around it and point the camera in other directions because I don't want it to be one of the first things I say about the German people.

That's the first big one.

It cascades down in that what she realizes on the DB to Munich will be different. This is when she makes the distinct connection to cross-national racists, but even then I want to keep that a bit on the back burner. I hate the Dorian theory and part of the reason I hate it is the racist underpinnings of so much hyperdiffusionist but it is an easy target that makes it look too much like a polemic.

Plus, here and in the big Vash confrontation at Oktoberfest, I really have to sort out just how far I'm going into the social media pressure cooker.

The drndl scene is probably shifting into dialog with the dresser lady becoming more of a speaking role and interesting character. Possibly she's going to take over some of the "I learned from Robert" facts she got off-stage, and on-stage them.

The final gimmick in the Vash confrontation either isn't clever enough or needs to be told better. So that's a scene that's going to need some re-thinking.

Outis is going to "appear" in the Oktoberfest scene and that's a whole little sub-scene I have to write. Yeah, and at some point I have to decide if I'm going to allow a running gag about him being named "nobody." I tried it a few times in the final chapters but it can get confusing quite quickly and probably wears out its welcome as well. (No, it isn't his name. I'd say at this point that outside of Vash not a single male bad guy actually gets his real name. Penny had to name them all.)

The first night in Verona should probably be unpacked and made into a proper scene, complete with her finding out which door out of "Signori" and "Signore" that she's supposed to use. Really, all of Verona could be expanded into fuller scenes. And I'm not entirely happy with the "Wherefore art thou" scene, either.

The end of the Venice Chase gets expanded into a proper scene with a bunch of Venetians arguing. And an annoying kid translating when he can be bothered.

The "Sheep" scene just before the ferry probably gets deleted. It isn't working for me as it is and I want to try a different way of handling that business. Or maybe I can reach into the "Sheep" scene and twist it to be more about pigs and sorceresses? Yeah, it is a scene doing two things; showing Penny abusing her power for good, and riffing on the Odyssey.

The ferry chapter gets completely reworked. The stomach flu becomes only a nuisance, she talks about the aristeai in the "reading the llliad" scene because it is too late to set it up in the conclusion of the fight with Enceladus on Spider Island, there's a bunch more running around and, like I said, the "Sheep" thing may happen there if I can figure it out. That's going to take a few days to plot out.

Back in Athens, the third scene at the National Museum of Archaeology, the "Why did you stop with the Romans?" scene with Markos, is rebuilt so we can do the lightning tour of Greek history with the visual aids provided by the museum. And I really have to work in the reconstructed costumes that are on special display right then.

The speech needs work. I knew it would need work. Writing an inspiring speech is not an easy task.

She needs to do something a lot more clever to deal with Outis at the climax. It isn't working right now. Also Diana isn't anywhere near as dangerous feeling as she should be.

And that's the big ones! After that is cleaning up dialog to give more distinct character voices. And run the whole damn thing through Grammarly. Or whatever the Grammar checker I finally decided to buy is.

Or maybe I'll take a short break first and work on the cover art.