author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

I have been reminded that my deadline is January fifth. Whoo! Five whole more days! I can still make it at three and a half hours a day!

Tonight, I finished "the manuscript slog." Me and my bloody pen finally reached the last page of the print-out. From here on out, I get to actually rewrite. I don't know whether I'm looking forward to it or not. A little of both, I suppose. On the one hand I get to stop looking at how bad the first draft is and instead start actively fixing it. On the other hand... I have to fix it.

Hey, just a note here: Holly Lisle says that after the slog, your ratio of marked-up pages to clean pages should be about 2:1 or 3:1, right? I have to wonder - what kind of miraculous first draft is it where any page stays clean of marks? I think in this entire manuscript there are maybe 200 words, maximum, that can stand as they are. And that's counting words like "the," "and," or "well." And no, those 200 words are not all on the same page.

Ah well. Chalk it up as one more reason why NaNoWriMo isn't necessarily conducive to redeemable first drafts. At least, not without a lot of discipline.