Yesterday afternoon, during a small, relatively burst of energy in the midst of Cold and Cough Mode, I sat down with the most recent four or five chapters I've revised of Judith. Since I'd worked on several of those pages when I was coming down with the snurle, I wanted to double check for typos, word choice and more. In other words, I was in a downward, fine tuning focus.
Big surprise. Instead, I found myself reading those chapters as a whole. They form part of the novel's final arc as events build to the crisis, Judith's confrontation with the general Holofernes. At this later part of the novel, the chapters have grown shorter in reflection of the brisker, rising action. I have worked on them chapter by chapter and scene by scene. I did take notice of elements in need of finer tuning.
But I also had the opportunity, perhaps because fever had cooked and cleared out my brain, of recognizing how those chapters lead into each other. Today I will take all my feverishly scribbled notes and start making sure the chapters form a sturdy unit. I'm pretty excited and revived.