I just checked. When I got to this part of the story in the original manuscript, there was 54 pages less book, and still 173 pages to go before the end. Now I have more story to cover and still have all of that to work back in, in the sense where "all of that" once more means "scene after scene after scene will be completely rewritten in order to achieve the same end". Dismaying as that is, it's less dismaying than having to write totally new scenes, or at least I feel that way right now. I don't quite know why. And I'm afraid I've bunted on this last scene, but I'm not sure how to make it work without bunting, which probably means I'm going to have to do more revising when I'm done with this revision.

That's the really depressing part right now. That I know what I'm currently working on is essentially rough draft, and it's going to have to be gone through again and made to actually work, instead of being thrown against the wall like so much stucco. knappenp said he was sort of trying to not-remember how the story used to go, so he wouldn't be confused by how it went now. I said, "Now imagining that you *can't* not-remember how it used to go, because you have to be able to take what it used to do and turn it into what it does now."

He said, "That's why you're the famous writer and I'm the reader." :)

I'm starting to think I should probably stop, go back, and polish now, which means I'll probably have to before I get to the end, but I'd like to get through at least this next section before I have to do that. It'd be nice to see page 400 again. And I'm starting to be curious as to what the final pagecount on this thing is going to *be*...

I got a pile of cover flats for URBAN SHAMAN and THUNDERBIRD FALLS a couple days ago, with a note saying, "Look! New covers! Aren't they pretty?" They're not *different* covers, but if they're newly printed, that may mean the books have gone back to print. That would rock. I've emailed to ask. :)