I'm exhausted. I finished proofing - making yet more cuts (I've cut three entire pages out of this go-through - doesn't seem like that much, but every one of the cuts helps and makes everything smoother. But the most interesting thing was getting to the final scene of the book. As I read it I realized that the emotion I wanted to put there was just a little too much, and it made one of the characters seem weird for not reacting more to it. It seemed too long and repetitive, too. So, I'd had an idea when I was originally writing it and I went back to that for one paragraph and boy did that help, then I cut stuff and rewrote the final three pages, using some of the same dialogue, writing some new dialogue and cutting out the stuff that didn't work. It's much quicker and simpler now.
After I'd run all the other changes by Muse Margaret, all of which she absolutely loved, I read her the ending as I had it, then read her the new version and she instantly liked it better. We both liked the original, but both of us felt better about this calmer version, where the character is more in control of her situation. So, I entered all those fixes and I am DONE. I got new copies to the proofers.
