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.

Plunging In.

I'm beginning to edit the novel, in spite of myself.

Finished Characters and Viewpoint today at work (it's been slow).

Dragging out the sewing kit for the plot holes. But in the meantime, I will try my hand at Chapter 1. It should ultimately be around 3000 words or so, heavy, heavy description. I'll try to see if I can make it halfway convincing.

I've never been on drugs of any kind, and my character wakes up hallucinating...

jules

It's Five-A-Em And I'm Wired.

I'm not even sleepy.

I have to go to work in four and a half hours, and I'm still having trouble getting to bed.

The neighbors put twinkly lights on the fire escape right outside my bedroom window. The lights have been flashing nonstop for three days now. A cat sleeps in my lap. I'm having trouble focusing on Scene and Structure.

A strange time to be posting, perhaps.

All kinds of questions are coming up about the novel. A tremendous amount of research still needs to be done, character sketching, map making. The question sprung foward at the moment is: Could my character do what I need him to do?

Could he?

He's mentally unstable, or he's not.

If he is, then he could have done all the actions that set up the story, but there's no way he'd make it through the ordeal that comprises the meat of the novel.

If he's not, he could get himself through the novel okay, but there's suddenly no twist at the end.

*sigh*

I'll try to sleep on it. Or meditate on it to the blinking of the lights outside my window.

j.