While Lizzie (just over two weeks left 'til Mitch arrives!) and Drew napped today, I sat down and did some noodling about the novel-writing process and tried to get some drafting done on my current novel project. I've been having some trouble getting started for various reasons, but I not only got some good thinking done on the writing process (see my LiveJournal for more details on how I write a novel; I'd paste it here but the formatting is crazy and I'm lazy).

Once I had my brain in the writerly mode, I was able to do some jamming on the new novel, which is a young-adult fantasy novel set in Dubuque, Iowa (among other exotic locales). This is the Last of the Hand novel I've been working on off-and-on (mostly off) for the past fifteen years or so. I just wanted to chop it down to size, tweak it, add some new stuff, and see how it looked. It's one of my last few remaining unfinished projects, and I like to finish stuff.

So, I came up with yet another chapter one for this book! I kept picking and rearranging and fleshing out stuff, and just like that, chapter one is a rough draft. It opens much more quickly than previous versions, and it's fun, too. I'm really liking the voice of my protagonist, Kelley.

Here's a snippet:

Everyone in Dubuque was watching her that day in November. Or so she felt. She'd only been living there three months, but Kelley was already tired of the place. She'd been so much happier in Chicago, but Jeroan had messed up all of that, just like he was trying to do here lately. Which was why Kelley was out on streets on a cold Tuesday morning instead of sitting next to the dripping radiator in Mr. Mottet's Language Arts class right now. She had to track down her brother before he forced them all to move someplace worse than Dubuque. If that was possible.

No offense to people living in or from Dubuque -- I think it's a fine city. I just liked that little snippet too much to not share it! Forgive me! Later...