Also, do give yourself some breathing room. You keep turning it around, once you're down with one phase, and heading right into the next, and I'm not sure you can have much objectivity that way. I know I don't, but if I let something sit for a few weeks and then go back to it, I can read and make decisions with a much fresher eye.

That makes sense, but I'm obsessive.

I know everyone is waiting as breathless as a rock for my writing update, but I had to work late last night so no progress.

A bit of progress this weekend, but it was busy, so not a lot. I'm thinking about giving beta exchange person 2 a break, it's the same points over and over again (too much telling, reads like an outline instead of a story, not enough description of setting and positioning of characters) so I'm starting to feel like I'm wasting her time. Anyhow, it's helped me look for certain things. My wife has some starkly different opinions and dings me for different things. Then there's other feedback as well. Synthesizing feedback will be interesting.

I'm going to be cutting and smoothing for awhile once I've got this first cut and change finished. I need to know what my word count will be to decide which ideas to use for the other couple of cuts I want to do.

Who has two thumbs and just got asked to "commit an act of monthly journalism."? This gal. I've gotta say I love the way my name looks next to "and I'm a reporter for..." Although, much like Simon, I feel like a reporter whether I'm reporting or not. Maybe there's a line you cross once you ever say "sexy" about things like football stadiums and public utilities...journalism-sexy being more about capturing the imagination than wet panties.

Excellent.

I've gotta say I love the way my name looks next to "and I'm a reporter for..."

Nice one!

Sexy!

Which one? Although I probably shouldn't brag till my source gets back to me. Which she hasn't, which gives me plenty of ways to continue being the Johnny Drama of the media world.

I just sent the final (I hope!) version of the proposal for Gothic Charm School 2 to my agent. Everyone cross your fingers that (1) my agent doesn't think I need to do any more tweaks, and (2) that HarperCollins says "Why yes, let's publish another book by that nice Goth girl".

Good luck Jilli!

I'm about to close up the hole left by my first major plot cut. Good bye Park District, Church Archives, Diane, Jon, and the collapsing tunnel.

Then I'm taking a break from new content and working on cutting out wordiness, repetition, and unnecessary narrative.