No writing on Fri. or Sat.--overdid on Thurs. night and Fri. morning and had to crash. Must do better at pacing myself.

By yesterday I had lost track of what I was doing and where I was, so did a readthrough of the first few chapters, trying to smooth them out and get a sense of how to move on. What I see is that by this point (around chapter five or six?) I'm perhaps branching out too much, trying to insert too many things and make too many points at once. I think what I need to shoot for is revealing one thing at a time, and not letting everything mush together. I need to pick out what is important and present it clearly to the reader. Then move on to the next thing. It's just hard because you can certainly insert little things so that they add up--but there's a tipping point at which your "little things that add up" make the chapter fuzzy and without a clear point.

School has started, so that complicates everything as far as getting decent-sized blocks of writing time.