Revision -- uggh

I haven't worked up the courage yet to start drafting the conclusion yet. (Mainly because I don't have confidence in the material I just finished. It feels like it will have to be radically different and therefore set up a different kind of conclusion.)

In the meantime, I'm doing some patch up work on the rest of it. I have my main file that most everything is typed into, and then I have another file where I drafted my new opening. (e.g. about 30 pages.) I started copying and pasting and cutting to put the new opening in place and take out the parts of my original opening that no longer work. That leaves a lot of jagged seams, which I spent some time trying to smooth over, but I can see it's going to be a lot of work. And not the most glamorous work, either. I'm not looking forward to it.

So, my main file, which has everything that I possibly could be using to create a first draft and from which I have cut out stuff I know won't be included, now is at 59,000 words and 250 pages. That, plus about 10,000 words of scrap material, all of it typed in and with some light editing, in the last 15 weeks approximately. Not bad. Not great. Not my goal. I really want to have an ending that I can believe in drafted before Christmas.