Done diddly-done done.

Two years ago, I got to write this:

1st draft
13th May, 2007, 17:15
Brisbane

It came in at 147,000 words and was the 5th book that I'd written (and the 2nd shortest). Last night I go to write this:

2nd draft
14th March, 2009, 02:48
Madrid

It now sits at 103,000 words, which is some serious abridging (I remember once thinking that 250,000 words was do-able, I'm glad I decided against it). By the end I was able to cut a chapter out entirely (since it was not related to the current story, but a detailed flashback), I cut a very minor subplot that had died in the first draft, and by the end there was a lot of hacking at frivilous stuff. 35 chapters have become 31.

I now need to go over it *again* to snazzy up the wording, give some of the dialogue more life, and hopefully that should keep me occupied until April. I figure that the story is tight, it just needs pizzaz.

I would like to say that I did a little victory dance, boogie or shimmy, but I didn't. I was still nitpicking for another 3 hours as I had to change a lot of inches and feet into centimetres and metres, and put a couple of reminders back in. I guess the 1st draft has an easily defineable ending.

But to celebrate, I have a pack of salted peanuts and a bottle of coke. Heart attack central.