No, really. It's fairly unpleasant.

I keep writing and rewriting chapters 17 and 18, and I haven't even started on 19 (although, frankly, I'm not worried about that one at all; it's the "and they all lived happily ever after" chapter, even though they don't, really, because I have to admit that I need enough ends still loose and waving that I can write a sequel, if indeed I ever sell the first book).

It's a process, as I've mentioned before, akin to rechewing your food, only not as nice.

Was it folly to attempt an 80,000-word opus? Hell's bells, I've been gnawing on this monstrosity for over a decade! If that isn't enough real-time scope to work on a big project, God help me. I suppose it's good training just to try and sustain a narrative, including a couple of subplots, for nearly 20 chapters. (It was going to be 20, not 19, but several plot points ended up collapsing into, well, fewer plot points, and rather than force-feed the narrative to yield some hideous mutant fois gras, I decided to let the story be slightly leaner. Healthier for everyone, I think.)

Goodness, it's not even 11 p.m. yet, but I'm raving like the sleep-deprived. Perhaps I should, in fact, attempt some sleep. (I suppose it was too much to hope that I could sustain my Clarion schedule of four hours of sleep a night. Ah, those were heady days, heady days!)