In vino --procrastination.

Well, since I consider this last rewrite to be work, it's maybe not surprising that I did the procrastination thing big time yesterday.  Big time.  Found every excuse in the book not to get started.

Finally, around 9:00 PM,  I started reading, drinking wine as I went along.

Three things became apparent.

1.) It is work.
2.) Wine doesn't help.
3.) It is completely and utterly necessary.

Along with finding tick-tacky errors I found one lulu of a time discrepancy.  It was an easy fix, but it was the kind of thing that would totally throw a reader.

I only got about 40 pages of a 285 book in.   I had earlier read the last 6 chapters backward, so I decided that counts too.  So I've done about 80 pages of the book.

I just have to put my head down and keep going.

I read it out loud pretending that I was in a library standing in front of an audience. It helps to realize how it might sound to other people.

I have noticed one other problem.  On a regular basis there is a dramatic moment, but I don't play them up.  Now, I don't like melodrama, but I do think I might be missing some bets -- just a slower leadup, a bigger bang, and then a short aftermath would make those moments more effective.

Something I wouldn't have noticed before being finished and reading the narrative flow of it.

Much of the book flows very well, and there are a few slightly rougher spots.  But overall, the first part of the book is deeper and more textured and developed.  Hard to believe I could ever have thought the first versions of this book were ready for prime time.

The word flow is due to the book having been gone over so many times, I think.

I'm not going to be able to finish it today, I think.  Which pushes it to Friday or Saturday.  These deadlines are self-imposed but helpful to getting things done.  But I have to remember they are arbitrary.  A couple of extra days won't hurt, but an incompletely vetted book certainly would.

So another couple of days of reading out loud to myself, and it should be done.