I managed to peel myself away from work all weekend; thanks Open Salon commentators for the encouragement. Instead of work, I went to a meet-up of the Boulder Writers in which we discussed Time as an element in writing: time period, time passing, time dilation, time travel. (!) Then I went home to work on my novel, getting to chapter seventeen of nineteen of the first draft. It is good progress considering I began in January. That said, in going back and reading the draft, I see that serious revisions are in order. Entire chapters are probably in need of disposal and replacement. There is an interesting pattern at work in which my protagonist needs to be nicer and the characters surrounding her need to be meaner. The cast, as they stand now, are just being too nice. I believe Barbara Kingsolver said the first draft is a work of construction and the seventh a work of art. It is a long road, but it's not Cormac McCarthy's road, so that's good. Also in the long road depa...