@n o s t r a d a m u s location_city
Ladies and ladies. I have scrapped draft 1 (kinda, I will be keeping passages I like that have already been written). Draft 2 has now been fully outlined and is a much more streamlined version of the original. 23 chapters have been reduced down to just 12, with a greater emphasis on worldbuilding elements that were getting bogged down by complicated side plots which have now been removed. It's possible I've overcorrected and have cut too much, but that's what draft 3 is for. I've also tried to focus more on character development in this draft as it was getting pushed to the side in the original.
I've set a strict schedule of 1 chapter per week with a 1 week break between act 1+2 and act 2+3, and plan to have this draft finished in time for the easter long weekend to be edited then. This draft is also written in manuscript formatting to save me time I was spending changing it manually chapter by chapter before printing each to have a physical copy to make editing annotations on before.
I have finished chapter 1 already, it's largely the original chapters 1+2 combined into one but does have some editing and a new opening to shift it more in the direction of the new draft.
31/12/24 (WC 0 - 8672) Total: 8672 (excluding chapter names and gap notations, which I believe were included in the WCs in the original draft)