Working, working, working. I've got everything loosely sketched out through chapter 5, but I guess it's about time to read it over and see if it's very far off the mark. Not looking forward to that. I've looked at the first two chapters so much that I can't even get a fresh read on them by plying my usual tricks to squeeze just one more read out of a tired ms. But I need that fresh read in order check the flow and buildup on everything that follows.

Hmm, maybe I won't read it tomorrow, but will see what I can come up with for chapter 6, which is going to require a lot of new writing. All I've been doing for ages is shuffling pieces of dialog and interactions around and tying them together in different ways. It might be nice to write some larger new portions.

I do wonder if this story is taking too long to get started. Part of the problem is that I'm not sure what "get started" means for this ms. If I think about it in terms of three acts (which I don't seriously want to do; that kind of thinking has not been super helpful to my process in the past) I suppose I know where the end of act 1 comes, because the story will shift to another "problem." Hmm, I think I'm concerned that the change will be too sudden and the bottom will fall out of the story and all momentum will be lost. Well, at least now I know I'm concerned. I'll have to wait and see how it pans out, I guess. I'm a long way from that part, because very soon I'll have to set the whole thing aside. I'll be extremely lucky if I can get a decent first draft through chapter 6 before I have to quit.