Cutting half my words takes balls, I think.

So far I've cut SOMETIMES A DRAGON by 50%.  At that rate, I'll have about 35K words left.  I'm thinking, I need at least 50K words for an online book.

I might be able to stretch it by 5K by being more verbose.  I might be able to put maybe 5K back in.

But it probably still necessitates that I do some fresh writing.  I have one idea--the "Lady" that the main villain is  mooning over never really makes an appearance -- so I can add a past experience, and bring in some sort of conclusion toward the end.

But first, I'll get this draft down and see what it is.  I often end up at a higher word count than I think I will.  I'm thinking that I probably won't be cutting quite as much from here on...

I figure most of the cutting is in these first 100 pages.  As usual, most of the structural problems are toward the beginning.

Linda did a lot of cutting in the first 50 pages when she did a rewrite.  I thought she cut through the Gordian Knot pretty well, so I followed her blueprint.   If I do say so myself, I think it takes a certain maturity to be able to let go of up to half of my precious words.

I'm really liking it so far -- I'm in that Honeymoon phase that seems to be a necessity while you're actively writing.  The time for doubts is when you're done.