My knees are drier ...

And the pyramids are a faint haze in the distance …

Yes, I was in denial. EXTINCTION SPECIES had finally had the big professional developmental edit—and it left me gutted. After 12+ full self-edits (don’t do the math on that), it was still rough, still not working on so many levels.

As I have mentioned before, I have potential; I have grand stories, and the occasional good line, paragraph, or even chapter gets produced. But …

As 2025 wound down, I decided I should get back to EXTINCTION SPECIES. I wasn’t going to give up on it. As my editor said, the strong points were the “pacing, plot, and structure.” Okay. Good. An excellent base.

So, I thought about it some more … okay, for a couple of months. The question I was struggling with was: how best to use (and keep) that strong base and fix the problems? I was in denial for months, but on January 19, 2026, I decided it had to be torn apart and put back together. The point of view is going to change, and a lot is going to be cut. From over 100K to about 92K at the time of the developmental edit, it will end up, at a guess, around 75K.

Yes, I am going to rewrite it. 

I have entered the complete manuscript into Plottr as a reference, as I re-plot it in Plottr. While preserving (hopefully) the good parts of the “base.”

Wish me luck.

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