Well, that’s an exaggeration. But yes, I did another even more objective analysis of the first draft and thought many thoughts. There was a lot of “What the hell was I thinking?” and even more “This all has to be gutted and done over,” but still a fair amount of “I can keep this if I whittle it down to a paragraph.”
Strangely, parts that I thought were bizarre (winging tortillas off the church roof) fit in perfectly now that I can stand back and look at the themes that emerged. In fact, the tortillas show up at the very end, that’s how important they are.
I am willing to bet I rewrite the whole thing. That’s what I’m doing now with the first chapter.