Slow Palace update

I'm still working through the spit-n-polish pass of The Slow Palace, after some false starts. Here's how that works: I went through all my little notebooks and made a list of all the bits of color and historical detail I'd wanted to include, but didn't. I take two or three printed chapters at a time to Diesel and read through them, making a marginal note when I encounter some infelicity or find a place where I can insert something from my list of bits. These are the printouts that adfamiliares read through; when I encounter her marginalia (in helpfully vivid red ink), I decide whether and how to incorporate her suggestion, and make a note on that as well. Then I bring my marked-up chapters home, make all the changes in one night, and do a final read-through for rhythm and clarity the next.

In this manner, I have polished up 21 of 36 chapters, and should sign off on the whole thing by the end of June (this includes a new scene I have to write and a chapter that needs some major work). The process is complicated slightly by the fact that adfamiliares accidentally put 16 of her marked-up chapters into the recycling, but through my own notes on our discussions and her willingness to re-read and reconstruct her criticisms that hurdle has proven less hurdlous than I'd feared.

Having another pair of eyes on my words has been invaluable, not least because it's reminded me to have pity.