Bam! Current draft finished. Total word count: 119,110. I stared in the middle of August and it looked promising. Then, in October, it just crashed. I could not, for the life of me, make all the pieces work together. I realized that it had too many moving parts, so to say. Too many subplots, too many POVs, too many themes, and too much going on to fit into the framework of the story. I felt like I was watering down everything in order to fit it all in.
I decided to take a new approach and keep a little "tighter" scope of events. Conflicts became more personal and I got the chance to explore certain things a lot more intimately. Overall I think it worked out well. It's still really rough but it finally ::works:: this time around. So I'll pat myself on the back and take off the rest of the afternoon.
Of course, I'll be back bright and early tomorrow morning, brainstorming for the next installment.