Also, this state of heightened imagination is awesome. I missed it a lot during December.

The editing is definitely the biggest project; big enough for me to dread it if I look at it as a whole. However, the separate bits of the project might just be doable. So that is what I’ll be doing, going step by step and looking out of snags.
The most important thing about editing, for me, is to realize that editing is not a punishment for bad writing. Editing is a brand new thing to do on the basis of the existing project. Of course, it is sort of horrible to look at my own writing and realize that 1) it is very rubbishy 2) I was actually very happy with it as I wrote it, but well. I guess that at least one thing will happen during editing: I will figure out the main shortcomings of my writing and probably work on fixing them.

So my solution is to have a little writing experiment.
Namely, I marked down all the scenes that I want to write, and that I have sort of promised to write.
Like “x meets y” and “z tries to eliminate x” etc..
They are in no special order. I will try not to kill any x’es before y’s meet them, but whatever; these scenes will have to be shuffled around anyway since there will be no particular order in them. I’ll just write whichever looks best to me at the point.
That should give me the necessary 13 K words, and some shape of the possible endings. And a lot of headache in the edits, too.

But now, cookies and cakes and everything else my family expects from me on Sunday.

I also posted Newil excerpt on NaNoWriMo site, but for those of you for whom the site is lagging, here it goes (and forgive my mangled English, this is a first draft). Also, if you, for some unfathomable reason, want to pass this around, please don’t (the first draft excuse again).

I am giving a wave and a nod to a lot of people and influences in here. It seems that when I’m typing fast, I’m just grabbing a handful of images from the nearby basket of memories and impressions without much consideration about whether it really fits.

Il breathed deeply, and the air wheezed down his throat and into his lungs. He then waved a hand, and Gabriel stood back, immersing himself in the darkness of the house, watching Newil still, watching Il as a puppy watches a big, grown pitbull growling down on him. He was afraid, and loving, and devoted still.
Il beckoned Newil closer, so that he had to sit by his father’s bead and lean down to hear what he was about to say. Il was speaking not through his mouth, but through a small hole in his neck, just above the larynx. The sound was quiet; a shadow of a whisper.
“Newil. My son.” Il’s voice lacked all expression due to the surgery that had been done on him. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I’m sure you did,” Newil said, quietly, involuntarily tuning his own voice down to suit Il’s whisper.
“No.”
Newil drew back and looked at his father. He could read little into his wrinkled old face, his watery blue eyes. But he knew that this was wrong.
“I heard a voice,” he whispered. “A voice at the back of my head, just like mine. It told me to come.”
“Oh.” Il closed his eyes. He breathed slowly, but somehow this didn’t feel like breathing of a tired old man. He wasn’t asleep and he wasn’t even tired now. “I see,” he finally said, and opened his eyes. They looked very calm and clear now. “Killed your sister, didn’t you.”
“The voice said so,” Newil said. “But I don’t know how…”
“This is what I tried to protect you from,” Il said, and managed to smile, not only with his mouth, but even, a little, with his eyes. “The knowledge.”
“What knowledge?”
“See, I wanted your brothers to carry the load,” Il said. “Gabriel and Mike, they’re born for this. You… you’re a boy.”
“It said that Gabriel and Mike…” Newil stopped.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. It said they… effed things up.” Newil blushed. He never swore. Never in his life. He wondered why was his voice, at the back of his head, swearing so easily.
“Ahh.” Il considered Newil for a while again. “You are a funny boy. But you did kill your sister. That should count for something.”
“I never even knew my sisters,” Newil said, more forcefully than he’d wished to.
“That was a thing I hoped to change,” Il said. Then he sighed. It was a long sound that amounted to whistling. “And I can’t tell what happens when I’m dead,” he said.
“You don’t have to die, father,” Newil said. He took Il’s hand in his, just like he did when he was just a boy. “You are immortal. By all parameters, you shouldn’t die.”
“You’re thinking with your heart again,” Il said, and Newil, as always, couldn’t figure out whether it was a kind or a rebuking remark.
“I know,” Newil said, and sunk back in his chair. “I’m sorry.”
“Now, boy,” Il said. “I am sorry. I had forgotten how frail and weak the flesh is.” He smiled again, and this time, the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I should backtrack, but I’ve run out of sacrifices, I guess, and out of time. So kiss me.”
Newil looked at him, and for a brief moment—a moment that made him feel like a vain jerk that he really was, wasn’t he—he felt repulsed by this old man, and by his face and his skin and his bed that smelled—Newil was suddenly very aware of this—of piss and of damp, stale clothes, and of flesh that’s churned in its own juices, and it didn’t smell of death at all, it just smelled of age.
“Kiss me, kid,” Il said. Newil couldn’t determine whether it was said kindly or angrily, and it didn’t matter anyway. It was Il’s wish, and Newil would obey. “Kiss your dying father.” And Il reached out suddenly, grabbed Newil by the back of his skull—Newil could feel some of his hair being pulled out of the loose, complex braid he’d woven that morning—and pulled his son to his lips.
And Newil kissed Il. He kissed him on the lips that weren’t breathing any more, and hadn’t been breathing for a long, long time. And still he felt something more than the dry, crackled skin, something more than the smell of skin that’s turning to dust by a second. He felt something he would describe only as a breath, moving from Il’s mouth to his, between his slightly parted lips. It’s my first kiss, he thought frantically and with horror.
It’s my last breath, Il thought, Il thought inside of Newil’s skull as he died. And then Il did what passed for him as laughter; a ragged breath that tore out of his throat and touched Newil’s chest, touched, and passed away, and was gone.
I’m kissing a dead man, Newil thought, and then the world snapped out of its hinges.

Today, I’ll do my best to be a decent mom, cook something tasty for my family etc.
And figure out some little details about NaNo writing technique. I’ll get to that.