Another Monday and we're back to IM gaming again.  It's interesting to see how I write detail.  It all seems to be there in my mind but getting it out takes a bit of coaxing.  When I'm writing rapidly, like I did to get Angel Odyssey out on "paper", I see all the details in my mind but they don't go out through my fingers to the page.  That takes multiple passes.  There's a layering that seems to happen. 
  For example, in Chapter 2, there's a moment where Jael is castigating herself for bonding Jacob.  In my mind, I know how she looks, how she's clenching her fists and finally thumping her knuckles against the wall.  On the other side of the wall is Jacob, sleeping.  The punch is intended to punish herself (her hands aren't completely healed) but they're also a subtle frustration from the bond magic that she and Jacob are separated.  Jael isn't even aware of this latter reason for her punching the wall.  She only feels the first.  But both are there.  My task on the revisions, is to put all that stuff out there.  To get it onto the page without bogging the story down.
  It sounds like a lot of work and it is, but when it's done, those kind of grace notes are the details readers pick up on and remember.

  I did a brief copy-edit of chapter 2 of Angel Odyssey and posted it up for critique.  It's the first chapter from Jael's POV and I'm not as happy with it as I'd like.  I'm going to need to mull over what I don't like about it but part of it is that it feels too 'talky'.  There is one long paragraph of exposition that's delivered by Jael as a sort of 'take that' to Jacob's mother.  I don't think it fits.  I'll probably need to re-write it from scratch.  In fact, that's exactly what I should do in my voluminous spare time.  I should re-write it several times, trying for different moods and keep the one that clicks.  Sigh.  But I think I'll wait until I get my critiques back, I'm sure they will be far less complimentary this time.
  I finished the 'beginnings' portion of Nancy Kress's 'Beginnings, Middles and Ends'.  Still a great read.  She makes a number of good points about not only your/my first scene but also the second.  Naturally that pricked my ears up, considering the difficulties I'm feeling with Jael's first POV scene.  I wish I had the book in front of me now, it's quite quotable.  Basically, she said the second scene can: backfill and tell the story of what led to the first scene or it can move the story forward (or a third thing which I'm blanking on.  It's early for me, still.)  I tend to want to keep the plot going forward.  Forward Momentum!
  I'm going to be continuing my first revision this month.  Again, starting with a copy-edit pass first and then going back and fiddling with what doesn't work. 
  I'll keep you posted on how it's going.