Because I now have decided to change the timing of two major events. Darn it. If I was an outliner this wouldn’t happen. (I expect other annoying things would happen instead.)
I’m going to reserve this one thing that I have happening in about Chapter Three and Four, push it way up to about Chapter Six and Seven (roughly). That’ll sort of combine with my earlier decision to combine a couple early chapters and zap some pages. I’m at 70,000 words more or less and I can see I have too much length for where I am, and anyway it will just make more sense to do it the way I now have in mind, but it’s going to be a nuisance.
Although for me, big huge plot revisions are not as difficult as little fiddly building-characterization revisions.
Plus I skipped over one scene — nothing wrong with it, actually it should be sort of fun to write, but I skipped it for various reasons. Guess if I go back and start revisions, it’ll be a good time to fill that in. I mean, I have people referring to events that haven’t been written yet, might be best to make all that stuff happen.
Also! By some miracle, it occurred to me how I could change upcoming scenes to streamline the story and build tension more smoothly before I wrote those scenes. That’s certainly different.
Losing a bunch of pages won’t bother me too much at this point, I think, because I have enough written now that losing some won’t make me feel too much like I’m going backwards. Plus I can see I’m going to way overshoot my 120,000 word limit, which it’s okay with me if I overshoot a bit, but please not too much, okay? Big cuts are such a hassle, not to mention all the extra time it takes to write a lot of extra pages you’re not going to keep anyway.
Plus rereading everything I have as I revise should let me see if stuff is running smoothly from the front to the back, which will be nice.
So . . . that’s the plan. As of today. As always, subject to me changing my mind at a moment’s notice.