So, after all of the trimming I did (cutting out the scenes that were originally intended for Act III but are now relegated to some possible sequel or some other novel) and rewriting of the first chapter, my novel shrunk in size considerably. For a little while. Now, I'm back up to 79,000 words and growing. I'm filling holes that have required filling, and fleshing out some arcs in ways that have surprised me. Certain story elements are coming together in interesting ways that are solving problems that I've been dreading to face.

These next couple of weeks will be a bit topsy turvey for me (ie, I don't expect to make as much progress on the writing front), but I'll be hitting the ground running again in early April. My next big goal by mid-April, in addition to having another four new scenes written, is to polish Chapter 2. I'm expecting from that point on to manage polishing one chapter per week. At least, that's the plan.

In the meantime, I've also managed to put together two completely new short stories (one at 5,000 words, the other at 3,000 words), which is exciting. I'm preparing for a summer of intensive short story writing. My application to Clarion West went in last week, and I've already received confirmation that the materials arrived. The odds are that I'll hear from them by mid-April, one way or the other.

Not much else to report. I'll be writing another scene tomorrow, which wraps up a thread I've been working on for the last three weeks. Woo-hoo!