progress report
I cut words. Maybe a thousand or so, I didn't count exactly; they were talky-not-showy words I would have cut later, so I might as well cut them now.

Then I made changes relating to the Law of Conservation of Characters (I don't know if that's a real law with a name, but it ought to be) so that instead of a younger brother and a sister and her husband and his brother who is the important one, the brother-in-law is now the younger brother. And the rest are neighbors or something, they might end up gone, I don't care at this point. It is hot outside and humid and I am tired and feeling pressured.

I also made some other changes, copy-editing types, so the brother-in-law would be the brother all the way through.

Then I made a list of new scenes that my critiquers had suggested or inspired; there are other changes they suggested I really liked, but those can wait until the draft is done, I think. I still need to write a better scene list for the last third of the book.

Due date is September 15th.