First, the good news. I e-mailed "Red's Tale," my counterstory for the CatsCurious Faery Taile Project, to the editor over the weekend. Last night I got an e-mail back from her. She may have a few comments for me, but described the story as "brilliant," so I think I'm okay. At 9000 words, I think this is the longest story I've written that isn't a novel. Looking forward to seeing what the artist comes up with for the covers. (That's right, this little project gets two covers: one for me, and one for ckastens).

That's the good news, and pretty much clears my writing desk of everything except getting The Mermaid's Madness done by my August 1 deadline.

This is where we start the swearing. I realized a little while back that the rewrite of this book still had serious problems. So I stepped back and did yet another outline. I've eliminated one character, completely changed a second, and given a third an actual role in the book. (Before, she stayed off the page twiddling her thumbs for 95% of the story.) Two of these changes should go a long way toward adding a sense of fun, which is something the book desperately needed.

I've also added more explosions* to the ending, changed the sequence of events in several places, and ... well, let's just say there are a lot of scribbles and scrawls on my original outline.

So now I have a choice. I can either rewrite the damn thing a third time, incorporating all of these new changes and elements, or I can finish the 75% completed rewrite I've already got, then go back and try to fix things up. I want to finish this rewrite, but I also know I'll do a much better job of cleaning up the first 3/4 of the book if I start from scratch. Again.

Sometimes I hate my process.

Looking at the calendar, if I do 1250 words every single day, including weekends, I should be able to completely rewrite the whole book by the deadline (79 days). Assuming no more plotbunny ambushes. Scary? A little bit. On the other hand, some parts I can almost copy and paste from the current draft. I'm not changing every single detail, after all. I can also ask my family to give me a few writing days -- my current record is 10,000 words in one day, when I was writing Goblin Quest. I know I can do this.

But I'm still stressing about it, and I'm still a bit scared. Wouldn't it be nice if we could get the story right on the very first attempt?

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*Figuratively speaking ... sort of.