Completed a major edit of Chapter 2 last night. I can't believe how much it was improved by simply reordering some of the paragraphs and deleting some extraneous information. It's much more focused now and has a tighter, cleaner read.
This chapter took me by surprise. I had wanted to have Claire introduce us to her hopes for the future, but she never got around to it. Instead, the focus of the chapter became her concern for those around her. Chapter 2 is Claire's compassion (and a healthy dose of the history of The Deck and MarLo's academic career). And I guess it's a good thing that I have so much leftover material that didn't make it into this chapter, because I really hadn't put much thought into what I'm going to have Claire thinking and doing next. Her life is fairly dull for the time being, so I've tried to remedy the lull by having her focus on her friends and co-workers who have more active lives.
I'm excited to get started on David's chapter tonight because I have decided that his Mom will drop in for a visit. She's ostensibly working on a freelance science article and needs to interview one of the professors, but I suspect she really just misses her son. I have a lovely conversation between them planned that exposes the reader to David's emotional blindness. I wasn't
going to explain away his style of relating to the world, but I've come to see that it's necessary. And his mother is the perfect tool for me to use for this exposition.
But the most exciting thing is that I now have a completed pair of chapters to upload, which means (JOY) I can FINALLY invite my panel of first readers to the Google Group. It's taken much longer than I thought, but I'm not fussed about my writing pace. This is a marathon, not a sprint. As long as the quality is there in abundance, then I can take as long as I want to write the book...so long as I have it completed before I turn 30, because that's the goal! But there's no real danger of Project Reach stretch out for that long. I'm still working on some self-discipline issues, but I've made a pretty impressive commitment so far and I don't intend on relenting.
Reach Readers have OFFICIALLY been sent invitations now! I'm so excited, I'm sure I'll never get to sleep. Maybe I'll pick up some of the Henry James I recently bought at a library book sale.
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