Chapter One is finished! 6083 words. And the next chapter is already hammering at the door, yammering to be let out. This is a good. Although I'm still writing using the old roadmap for this novel, which called for somewhere between twelve and fourteen chapters, the very fact that this story is a creature with its own mind is making me think that when I finally reach the end, it's going to be twice that. So be it. It will be less painful to pare down a 300-plus page novel than one with half that material, and besides, with the genre I'm writing in (it's fantasy, but with a decidedly different take I hope - let's call it an anti-fantasy), 300 pages is a little on the light side anyway! I'm happy how the first chapter turned out. For a while I wasn't sure where it was going, and that maybe I'd gotten off the right track halfway through and was meandering hopelessly, but then I turned a corner and realized that all of those twists and turns had actually been leading somewhere, and that I only had to write the last paragraph to bring it to a close. It's funny how unpredictable fiction can be. I've been thinking about this particular story for years now, and yet how it's unfolding on paper rather than in my mind or in an outline has been thus far a complete and total surprise, especially when it came to end the chapter. I knew where I thought I'd wanted to take the narration, but then suddenly an opportunity presented itself that not only resolved this episode of the story, but did so in a whimsical and irreverent way that was consistent for my main character and which set the exact tone I wanted for the whole book. So I took it. One of the things that held been holding me back from taking a stab at writing this book was the belief that since I'd been letting the idea stew in my head for so long, actually getting it out into written form would be more of a chore than anything else. How wrong I was! Even the most tired idea kicking around the back of the brain gets a whole new life when it's forced from the place of forms out into the world of words - a lesson I wish I could impart backwards in time to my writer's-blocked self, as inspiration or at the very least consolation. But better to have learned said lesson now rather than ten more years down the road, I guess!