Decent writing day today. I just checked and it looks like about 1000 words, all new, all propelling the story forward and feeling good enough that I wish I didn't have to stop and do other stuff. I looked around the ms and finally decided to go ahead and see if I could do anything with the father's humiliation, and was surprised to find as I worked on it that it became more about the MC's impulsiveness, anger, and immaturity than about the dad. The MC has a long way to go during the course of this book, because by the end I see him as controlled, closed-off, unable to trust, but fiercely, fiercely loyal and dedicated to duty. I also am starting to see the possibilities, waaaay down the road, of having him and his best friend (they will be mortal enemies by then) both be characters to root for. From here, for now, it sounds like fun to have a book where you sympathize with both sides and don't know who you want to win because both are flawed, both are sympathetic, both are annoyingly singleminded. It sounds like fun to write, anyway: two characters who hate each other, each with a backstory to die for, facing off. I have no idea how they would face off against each other, but today is one of those days where I hope I don't get in a car wreck and die on the way to tutoring because I want to be able to keep working on all this.