The Real Ramona

The new job starts tomorrow. I'm nervous and excited -- not as bad as Jen was, but enough that I just want to get in there and get started so that this anticipation will be all over with. The anticipation is always the worst, which is why oral reports in high school always gave me acid stomach ... before I got up there and did really well on them. It's the same kind of thing. Jen had a great first night, and I'm sure I'll be fine, too.

I've also been doing a lot of writing. The Book had been laying fallow for some time before about March, for various reasons. I felt as though I'd lost my spark maybe, or that my drive to pursue my destiny was lacking. Maybe Calliope and I were taking a sabbatical from each other. Something was up. I just wasn't doing the work or even feeling the pull. Then, right around March, I got myself back into it. It may just be a coincidence that I met Jen around that same time, but who knows? The fires were lit once again.

Since I'd let it sit and collect dust for so long, it was impossible to just pick it up at the spot where I'd left it. I needed to reconnect with the characters and the story and the whole ball of wax. Plus, I'd learned a lot about the craft through writing my other blog, and through independant study. And, perhaps most importantly, there were a lot of things I needed to fix. So I started at the beginning again.

Chapter One. This serves mostly as a prologue to set up many of the themes and storylines I'm going to explore in later chapters. Its basic structure is fine, and it does all of what I need it to do, but I wanted to strip it down to it's bare bones, make it harsher and more nihilistic, and less of a pity party for the protagonist. I think I succeeded there.

Chapter Two. Emma's story. This chapter may be the one thing I'm most proud of. While there are still a few awkward bits, and there are a few things I want to research for the sake of authenticity, the music is there. There are parts of this chapter that are the best of my skills on display, and there are other parts where I'm just riding the lightning bolt and channeling the words directly from above. I am so happy with this chapter.

Chapter Three. Here's where it gets harder. Really, all I need this chapter to do is introduce Kelly to Alyssa at a party. The scenes between them have a pretty good music to them, and the conversation they have is something I'm happy with. It's the first part that sucks. The chapter takes way too long to get going, and dicks around when I just need to get Kelly up and out of the house. So I tackled that problem yesterday and today. I pulled those first three pages apart brick by brick by brick, and reassembled the pieces into a much leaner, tighter thing. And it's less whiny, too. I have to go back and look at it again tomorrow, and possibly tweak it a bit, but it is better than it was before I took a shovel to it.

It's going to be a book I'm proud of having written, no matter how much blood, sweat, tears, and agony I have to expend to get it there.

And welcome home, Calliope. I missed you.