I've been moving along I'm in chapter 22 of my cutting and minor editing run as I collect a bit more feedback. I'm starting to think I'm not going to make any more significant changes to the story, so I'm think the set run of revisions will be to finish this sucker off.

I've also started working on a short that's sort of test balloon for my next book project. I think I'll call the short "Discipline" and the book will be "The Shores of Night".

Writing a short is turning out to be difficult for me, I keep wanting to add complications to the plot and wanting to expand a couple of the characters.

You guys that said not to throw out my old Novel Bits were right(although I threw out a few) But I am working on that project again now.

Excellent!

I don't know...someday it might be, but I'm trying not to get too hyped...it has sat on my hard drive for two years already. And I've already done that thing, at least twice, where I tell all my friends I wrote The Best Thing Ever, get all excited, spend imaginary money, and end up with it bound by Kinko's and mocking me in my closet. So, maybe it's better if I don't say too much this time.

Well, I hope it goes well.

I'm now revising again and trying to make decisions on what to keep and what to not. It feels like I'll end up with a single book of around 140,000 words or two books of around 70,000 words. In other words, too big or too small.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Gothic Charm School book being released!

(I had a faint, silly hope that my agent would call me yesterday with an offer from HarperCollins for the second GCS book, but no. Still no word. Still waiting.)

Did you make your advance back, Jilli?

Happy GCS anniversary, Jilli!

I have a gameplan now for the rest of Dead Mountain's cutting. It'll get me to 125,000 words if I can carry it out. From there I'm going to count on getting 5% more from more tightening. I'll have to make several cuts that I think will hurt the story, but I don't think there's enough dead wood to avoid it.

Instead of cutting into two pieces? I really don't think it makes sense to make cuts you know will hurt the story when you don't have a publisher or agent. And who knows, once you get a publisher or agent maybe they can find a way to help you avoid the cuts. Or find a way to make cuts that don't hurt the story. Why put extra effort into making your story worse? Do you really think lowering the quality to reduce your word count will improve your chances of getting an agent?