Crossed 100K words on "The Scorching." (et al, Fires of Allah, Fires of the Djinn, Lucifer's Forge, Not by Water but by Fire, Terror by Fire, etc. etc...)

I've now read four firefighting books since the research stage started. I've added about 15K words to the original manuscript. About 5K of are two new chapters. The other 10K words are fleshing out the story with telling details.

I had about 10 books lined up to read, but I'm only going to do one more. I don't want to overload the story. This last research book, I only added a page worth of notes. I figure too much detail is as bad as too little.

Surprisingly, the best firefighting book wasn't "Young Men and Fire, "by Norman Maclean, like I expected, but instead the one I grabbed last. On the surface is looks like one of those Time/Life books, with big glossy pictures, but the writing is very active and evocative. Very impressive.  It's called "Fire Line," by Michael Thoele.

I looked him up, and this appears to be the only book he wrote. How does that happen? A writer that good?

So I'm going to read this book, try to pick up some technique and some details, and call the research done.

Then to sit down and do the final rewrite.

I don't know if I'll ever do a book like this again--spending more time on the rewrite than on the original story. Not much fun, but I think...I think...I'm making it better, if only incrementally.