Done with draft 8 or 9 or whatever.,..

I'm done with inputting the red pen changes to NWFO and feel a bit numb. It's down to 143,200 words from nearly 146,000. Cleaner. Sharper. Almost there. But I've got this niggling feeling I should do one last read-through to make sure before I send it off for proofing and editing. Crap. I don't know if I can face it, again.

I doubt I'll make my July 31st plan for publishing. And volume three, Home Not Home, won't be out by the end of the year. It's going to need at least as much work as this one did, and I'm only on draft 3 of it. There's much to add. Much to work out, still. So I'm not going to sweat it.

Something that happened mainly in this latest draft was changing locations and events. Like putting a conversation between Brendan and Jeremy at a shooting range instead of a pool, where it almost seems like Jeremy is upset with Brendan because Everett is obsessed with him. Jeremy was his second choice because he resembles Brendan.

And adding in an actual interview Brendan has with the FBI and a British agent gives a bit more heft to his belief he cannot return to Derry except through subterfuge. The British are still looking for him to interrogate about that bombing 8 years earlier. It's as if someone keeps stirring the pot to keep them thinking about him, even though most Catholics believe he's dead.

I also worked out a better way for him to find his motorcycle key years after he was kidnapped and brutalized in a playground. He's gone searching for the location and recalls the basic directions he was taken. He finally comes to a spot that seems right but he's leery because of the playground.

There's a knothole in one of the oak trees close by that's child-height and holds a number of things--cars molded from plastic, crayons, marbles, and the key. A child found it and is keeping it as part of their treasure. That way, he knows this is the place and it sends him careening into an attitude of Fuck everybody.