So, I did that thing where you think about your idea and try to write down everything it makes you think of and stuff..I didn't get anything out of it. Besides feeling kind of nuts. Which I knew already.

Lots of writing exercises make me feel kind of nuts, like "If I have time to do this odd exercise, surely I have time to write something that I'm not going to stare at in bafflement."

Yes, this. I thought it would help, but...

I think with writing exercises, it's a good idea to try a bunch of them, and only keep using the ones which actually work. take creatign characters. Some writers can write great dialogue but have trouble with a cohesive backstyory and would beneifit from writing detailed bios of characters. Some writers can create worlds and bios till the cows come home, but the voices of all their characters sound very similar, and and an exercise like describing the same event in the first person voices of three different characters can help with that. They're just tools after all.

No forward progress last night. I didn't have much time and I went back into chapter 1 to clean a few things up. For one, I can't believe how many times I messed up it's and its. I understand why I make the mistake, typing 's is just reflexive when doing a possessive. But, wow, I just don't see them when I read over unless I'm very careful. That's going to be tough, I mentally fix things when I read and don't catch mistakes easily.

My wife also gave me some good tips from some of her research. Be on the watch for sentences that use 'was' since they can typically be written stronger. Also, and I already sort of knew this but got lazy a couple of times, be on the watch for when I tell what emotion a character is experiencing.

The chapter 2 revision is going to be a tough one. There is a lot of information to convey about the setting and backstory. The backstory I think I can break up a bit and push back parts to be conveyed in smaller chunks over time. The setting is tougher, I need to find a balance between excessive narrative and still getting enough across to give the reader a mental image.

When I do editing, I keep a list of all the consistent misuses and misspellings, then I use the Find tool to look for every one. If it's something that's always wrong, like the way I put "hte" for "the", I do Find and Replace.

That is a good idea. I should definitely search on "it's" when I get the first revision done. It will take time to go through all the legit ones, but worth it to catch 'em.

This is the aggravating part of revisions-- questioning what's really important. I'm so freakin' familiar with the story and the characters, I'm kind of losing sense of flow.

Oh well, I'ma just wing it and hope for the best.

Hey, Gud, I just wanted to say I read it and it's great. Busy day today, so I likely won't get to the detailed comments right away, but I didn't want to leave you hanging.

I really like the story, and I want to know what happens next! Which is good.

Thanks! Don't feel any need to hurry, I'll be chewing on chapter two of the first draft for a bit. I'm expecting that one to be hard.

Chapter three of the first draft will be more fun. I think chapter three is one of the better chapters of the first draft along with 5,8,9,11,12,15,16,17,18,24,28,30, and 31. 1,2,7,10,13,20,29 are the trouble makers. 30 and 31 will be a lot of work anyhow since it's the ending.