May I just say, for the sake of keeping my spirits high, that things have been going marvelously!

I'm almost done reading ch11-30, I've had the spork notes churning around in my head, I've rescued all of the important scenes and moments from this part of the story, and I also found a way to remind myself what segments/quotes of writing I want to salvage. While-rereading I put together a messy outline similar to the one I used for the first arc, and it just needs to be re-organized. Still gotta decide which chapter signifies which transformation on the way to Christmas Eve.

Some of you know what happens at that time, some of you don't. Either way, I'm super stoked about getting to that point because it means I'll be very close to having enough rewritten to hand over the rest of the story to my "editors" for complete feedback. That is, assuming they want to give it. (cloudsinvenice, I look at you with the biggest puppy-dog eyes ever.) Having the first two arcs rewritten doesn't mean that the second two are perfect and won't be changed. To the contrary, changes WILL be made. The set-up for Winter Formal will change, the conversation she has with Giry afterward will be different, a hugely disturbing emotional event will be transplanted from somewhere far less appropriate, first draft's chapters 38 and 39 will be combined in some way, and chapter 40 will likely be transplanted somewhere earlier. But... those are all ideas I'll still have to think about if they work, so having it read as it is might be helpful.

Oh, is it just me, or is there something about LJ's entry writing screen that seems highly conductive to migraines? I'm not a huge migraine person, but I had two of them last week for the first time in months, and one of them started to happen while I was typing on this site. I don't usually have a problem with white backgrounds and black text...

ANYWAY, I hope to wrap up the most complicated part of plotting today and then spend the rest of the week reordering and maybe even just daydreaming about little details that can go in. I want to be creative this time and really flesh out what happens, have little things inspire bigger twists. I'm using something I somehow neglected to consider very much in the first draft: the power of misunderstandings and how they snow-ball. Now that I know Erik, I know how he might sneak real ideas into what Lily thinks is a game. It's immensely intriguing.

Auf wieder sehen!

-J