Writing and Trees

I got some great feedback from the writer's meeting last week and want to get around to doing some editing work on that chapter. I knew it was long and rambling, but it turns out several of my fellow writers wanted more information about certain things, and they were right. I had tried to cram in some important plot elements without enough detail. I will probably have to flesh some things out more, tighten a few things up, and divide the chapter into two. Maybe I'm not as close to the end of the novel as I thought. On the other hand, I may find once I get the whole thing finished and can look at it that more things can go.I've written just a bit of the next chapter this morning, but am feeling rather distracted because a big silver maple (4 stories high or so) fell on my house in a storm last night. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any significant damage to the house, but we'll see when the tree service gets it off of the roof. If I turn my head to the left from where I am sitting right now, I can see out the french doors that open onto the front balcony. There are maple branches and leaves right up against the door and the trunk is leaning across the porch railing.Maybe this tree's time was up, but I will really miss it. I can't help feeling that Elma, the Dryad mother tree of my novel, would be disappointed in me for not taking better care of the tree. I'm also about to kill off a maple Dryad in this chapter. Hmm. It is a good thing I'm not superstitious. Of course, when I killed off another character earlier on, the next morning I woke up in so much pain I could not even roll over in bed! (A result of an earlier injury that acts up every so often.)Well, back to writing.