A beginning.

Okay.

16,062 words for the new story.

It's not a draft yet. The words are sort-of loosely hint around the story idea; I mostly wrote without thinking, without any kind of respect for the linear or the sensical.

I feel slightly giddy, having pushed my way through it. It's the longest thing I've ever written, outside of November.

I just thought about it, just now, that I've written three novels, the past three Novembers. I've never allowed myself to put it to myself in those terms; I just think about them as "the things that take up my time each November," and I've never thought of them as living breathing works that might one day have a life outside of my apartment.

One day, when I'm brave, I'll go back and read them.

But for now, I'm going to print out 36 pages and come up with a plan for knocking this into a series of events that might make me feel something, anything...

j.