Printed out the first 65 pages, but didn't read past the first page because the first page sucks. Really bad. The first page is the prologue/frame before the real story starts. It needs to be right, or it needs to be gone.

So I sat down to rewrite it, thinking, "Okay, what is the point here?"

Basically, I decided, the point of this page is to lay out the reason for the book. As I tried to fix it, I reminded myself that the end frame needs to come back around to this same point. I also realized that I need to come back to it in the middle, too--that I went off course while dabbling around in the middle because I didn't have this point in mind.

I also get off course in this particular middle spot because if I focus on theme, I lose story, and on top of that I already don't have a good grasp of characterization here because the MC's experiences are so far from my own. I'm wondering if maybe I just need to get the basic skeleton of theme down, and worry about the rest later. Getting it right may take help from outside readers who can tell me what they're missing or what they don't understand or what they don't find believable.

Anyway, so I worked this morning and fixed the first page (for today, anyway) and then moved to page 60 and started reworking from there. When I get tired of that, I can start reading the printout if I want to.