OK, just over 65K. Bunch of stuff demon-wise. First, late last night,I was sitting staring at a bit of dialogue between my h/h that just didn't work anymore because of my recent series of changes and I decided I couldn't face deleting so much (which is wrong, wrong wrong!) so instead I decided to do a paper read to see what kind of mess I had. So, there I am, in bed with all 250 pages printed and in the binder, red pen at the ready, and I'm reading chapter one sentence one, and suddenly, I realize that other bit belonged in a new chapter 1 that would get my h/h together from page one (solving yet another issue, that of the disappearing hero). Well, I tried to keep reading but that chapter was just sooo wrong. So, of course, I got out of bed, turned the computer on again and took my dialogue bit and stuck it in a new chapter one and fixed it up a bit, and darned if I wasn't right!

Way better. Big sigh of relief. Had to redo chaps 2-3 a bit, nothing terrifically major. Am continuing the paper read, and some places pretty much rock, a couple of sags, but not bad. I know where to fix. Every now and then I get these horrible flashes of utter panic that I won't have enough time to make this good, and since I've never had to write this fast, in fact, I don't know. But if I finish by end of February or so, I can send off to my agent and maybe a couple of trusted readers and get feedback early enough to actually fix everything. I hope.