Treats!

After spending two hours revising part of Chapter Fourteen, I gave myself a treat and ordered two DVDs: Casanova and Tristan and Isolde. Both are good movies, and better than I'd expected. Tristan and Isolde allowed Rufus Sewell to play a good guy, too -- bonus! As for Casanova, just ignore the "sunglasses" on the cover of the DVD. Honestly, why do they think they have to make it look "modern?" Oh, and there's a hot air balloon. As my daughter said, they should be banned from all "historical" movies -- unless, I suppose, the story's actually about a hot air balloonist. Because otherwise? GAH! And why???? The clip of the hot air balloon in the trailer for The Count of Monte Cristo was nearly enough to make us stay away.

Now back to Chapter Fourteen. Fortunately, I'm getting much better at estimating how much time inputting changes will take. I hope to be finished this "lean, mean" draft on Sunday. Lean, because I'll have cut anything remotely extraneous; "mean" because I'm ruthless. My motto at such times is, "If in doubt, cut it out." I may find upon subsequent reading that I've cut something that should really be there. In that case, back in it goes. Usually, however, what gets cut, stays cut. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do, whether it's to pick up the pace or to make room for something more important, like the reasons the heroine likes the hero, or vice versa. I've learned to be very, very clear about that.