Now that I've bitten the bullet and accepted that Evolutionary Intelligence Enkidu is going to be a duology (or possibly a longer series) and not a standalone novel, I'm closing in on draft zero. Currently just over 100,000 words with a couple of chapters left to go. I'm very pleased with progress so far. Though there will be plenty of revision before a final draft, I don't think there will be any gross structural reassembly, which is by far the worst part of rewriting. Honestly I enjoy low-level polish and mot-juste revisions....
Oh yeah, what is Evolutionary Intelligence Enkidu? It's a near-future military-aviation alien-invasion AI-romance novel. Tagline: "A plane and his boy."
For inspiration I cite the anime Sentou Yousei Yukikaze (Battle Fairy Yukikaze) for which I offer this AMV as a sample.