You know, I think I spoke too soon when I dashed my first draft down as a “piece of crap.”  It’s not so bad when I get through to the good parts.  It’s just going to take some serious editing.  I had only read through the first quarter of the story when I said those things, and of course it was pretty  weak then, because I didn’t yet have a plot figured out.  I just read through the first half (and remember, it is a story in two symetrical halves) and feel a lot better about things, like maybe it wasn’t a waste of a month.  Phew, as they say.