Thirty-six pages. This thing is coming together nicely.

See? See what this is? I know, I know, text on a page. But for real, this is serious. This is the first page of the new novel. And there are 23 more like it! Well, not as blurry and not exactly the same text--that would make it pretty damned boring.

But yeah, it's pretty cool, although Blogger won't let me upload a high enough resolution image for you to read. So if you can't read it, here's the first line: "It was a beautiful day when Christina Elizabeth Jackson almost died."

If that doesn't make you want to read on, I don't know what will. Not that I have delusions of grandeur or anything. Or that it's any more than a first draft; but the first draft cometh on, and it's a beautiful thing. And I'm so happy, I can't even put it into words.

So, things plod away in Monkeyland. The kids grow, the leaves change, they fall to the ground--the kids and the leaves. I try to write, I can't. . .

Which pretty much nails this post on the head. Here I am, at my coffee house of choice, time on my hands, and I can't seem to get my head around writing. Maybe it's because the last book I finished was so good, whether it was memoir or not. Maybe it's because the latest Bipolar Fun has put a slew of new medications in the works. Maybe it's because I actually had a really good day for the first time in a while. Who knows. I'm friggin' blocked.

I was working on a book about a girl named Christine, this crazy academic girl who has a near death experience at the age of 21--right after she graduates from college--and decides that she's been living the wrong sort of life. So she goes out, gets a job in a bar, and aims for an Oscar Wilde experience and ends up having far less, with misguided attempts at love, art, and life in general. She is buoyed in this experience by her conviction that Someone or Something has chosen her for this life, an idea not held by her best friend or her parents. Christina does eventually find true love with the nurse's assistant who helped care for her in the hospital--after several false starts, of course.

I imagined this book to be a classic comedy, Shakespearian in scope. In retrospect, I think I may have been a wee bit misguided and possibly manic. But I have the outline, and I have the first 15 or so pages, even though they're the classic example of a shitty first draft. However, this is not enough for the supposed creative genius in me, who thinks that I need to get it done, and get it done yesterday, so I can edit it down to something manageable.

But it's not happening. So pray for me, or send me good thoughts, or a unicorn or something. Because I need it, and need it soon. Ah, forget it, just send me patience. Patience would be better. Maybe a patient unicorn.

Whatever you choose to do, I have nothing but thanks.