Today is Memorial Day.  So, for today, no writing blogging.  Instead, today I want to honor and remember those who gave all their tomorrows for my today.
  My family doesn't have much of a military tradition.  I thought I would change that but for one reason or another, I didn't go past my second year of AFROTC at Iowa State.  I do have an uncle who served in the Army in the early 70's.  I have a cousin, Matt, who is a Marine.  (And I have a lot of respect for my bespectacled little cousin...probably not so little now).  So, we have no family dead.
  But over 4,000 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have died since September 11, 2001.  I especially want to remember and honor them.  Last night I finished E.B. Slege's 'With the Old Breed'.  I highly recommend it as a memoir of WW II. It was especially appropriate for this holiday.
  Thank you, all of you, our most honored, most missed dead.

  Well, not a bad night.  I got a little over six pages done in just over 2 hours.  So, yea for that.  The Eeblings did make a quick cameo but I didn't get nearly as far as I intended. 
  I also didn't get all the plot points added in that I'd intended.  I notice that a lot.  When the words are flowing, sometimes they don't flow the direction I intended.  They need to be 'nudged' back so the proper foreshadowing and story hooks are added.
  The dwarves showed up and dropped the age bomb on Jacob, unintentionally.  Now Jacob just had it hammered home that the 'girl' he's pining after is two hundred years old.  That's got to put a damper on things.
  I'm looking forward to tonight.  I really want to get the Sorcerer confrontation in.  Should be a good scene.  However, one thing that hasn't happened (and might need to be nudged in, as I mentioned above) is that Jacob is supposed to be starting on this trip WITH his best friend.  His friend is going to loose heart and turn back while Jacob continues on.  All well and good but the friend hasn't shown up.  When I sit down to write, other things happen instead of him being introduced.  I thing the contrast between Jacob and his best friend is useful, so I don't want to cut him out.  But I'm having a devil of a time fitting him in. 
  Oh well, I'll keep charging forward but the second draft is going to be a bear, I fear.

  Magic the Gathering night last night, so not much work done 'on paper'.  So I'm really looking forward to working tonight.
  One thing I'm doing in this next chapter to add some magic, wonder and world flavor is introducing a new magical creature.  I haven't decided what to call it; I'm going between 'Eebling' and 'Eeber'.  'Eebling' might be winning, though 'Eeber' sounds more correct. 
  An Eebling is a harmless nibbling magical creature.  It's the result of experimentation by a Sorcerer.  They're small, nocturnal ground creatures.  In my mind, they appear like a lemur, chinchilla, bat and chimpunk all mixed together.  They have big ears, big eyes, fur and sort of hop around on their hind legs or creep around on all fours.  They're very skittish and only appear when things are utterly peaceful.  That's their value.  If you see an 'Eebling', you know you're safe.  When startled or attacked, they teleport back to their underground lairs with a 'pop'.  They also say 'Eeb' a lot, like frogs but hopefully less annoyingly.
  Jacob and Isaac, like most teenaged boys, like to make noise to startle them and make them 'pop'.  Jael, on the other hand, has never seen anything quite like them.
  And, they say 'Eeb' a lot.

  More good progress last night, despite the brevity of the session.  I'm being nudged into getting involved in our church men's ministry.  I don't know if I'll have time for it and the novel writing, but I thought I'd try to do both.
  Jael had to confront her memories of fighting and falling.  It's my first flashback and hopefully it doesn't outstay it's welcome.  Rather than going into a tight third person narrative of what happened, I described what happened.  Half show and half tell.  We'll see if it works.
  Flashbacks in a tight third person can jar a reader out of time and space.  I didn't want to lose Jael's mood of regret, guilt and sorrow.  She is broken, in ways even she doesn't realize right now.  She really does need Jacob and for more than just someone to lean on and lend her life force. 
  Related to that, Jael got her spear back.  An Oskmey's spear is both a magical weapon and a symbol of her power and function.  There are some obvious Freudian symbolisms as well with Jacob climbing a tree to get her spear back for her.  I don't want to lay that on too heavily, but there is a certain significance to an Oskmey allowing someone to touch her spear.  Oy.  Just writing that down makes it sound much less subtle than I'm trying to be.  For once.

  Well I'm smack dab in the non-productive part of my week.  Yesterday was IM gaming day and tomorrow will be Magic The Gathering Gaming day.  Oy.
I really want to spend more time writing but other commitments keep creeping in.  At least the 'job commitment' gives me money.
  That doesn't mean I'm not working on the novel, though.  I spend a lot of time writing scenes in my mind and working in my pacing.  The upside of all this downtime is that when I do sit down and get serious, the words just flow.  That's a good feeling.
  My goal in this next chapter is to start injecting even more wonder in the world.  The protagonists are going outside their comfort zone, in more ways than one, but there will be compensations.  So while I'm not writing, I'll be working on that.  What new sights and experiences would make me or Jacob go, 'wow'.  What would fascinate Jael?

Well the confrontation scene went well.  A good mix of drama, danger and a little humor thanks to Jacob's semi-bloodthirsty big brother.  Now the main characters are away from the farm and starting their journey.
  The journey would be farther along if I hadn't gotten sick on Saturday.  Rabble.  I spent Saturday and Sunday with the wife instead of writing.  That may have been a mistake, but time will tell.
  I'm looking forward to showing the little details of the Dragon Rider lands.  I'm also looking forward the conversations between Jacob and Jael that will come up.  But most of all, I'm looking forward to Balt showing up.  Only two chapters to go, I'm guessing!
  Finally, some of the hired hands who tried to get their hands on Jael will be making an appearance later.  Should be good times

  Not a bad day's work.  I got five pages done in about two hours.  If I'm in the groove, that seems to be about right.  Keeping my browser closed except for research helps.
  My initial plan was to start the chapter with the big confrontation, the villages coming to take the female protagonist away.  I changed that decision.  Now the chapter starts a bit slower, its Jacob's last day in his home as a boy.  I, like him, wanted to linger a little.  So I wrote about the roast pig they'd cooked, I wrote about the boots and clothes his father bought for him.  I wrote up to the confrontation...and stopped.
  Frankly, I was tired.  This next scene is going to be a big one.  After that, the story begins in earnest.  Yep.  44 pages into it and NOW the plot is ready to begin.  Sob.  Honestly, I don't know if this is the right path.  With a teenaged protagonist, this book may well end up in YA.  But I'm not writing it like a YA novel.  I'm writing it like Epic Fantasy, which has more world-building, flavor and a slower pace, in general.  You want a sense of immersion in Epic Fantasy, or at least I do.
  In the end, I'm writing this book they way I'd want to read it.  Hopefully other people agree with that decision.  If not, well, it's a first draft.  It may grow or be pruned in subsequent drafts.  Either way, I'm going to get this story told and have fun doing it.

  Well, it was another Wednesday yesterday, so another night spent playing Magic the Gathering instead of writing.  Which is a shame, in a sense, as I'm anxious to get back in the 'Throne of Writing' (tm) and get the next chapter started.
  The next chapter is the 'off we go' scene and the confrontation with the men who want to basically capture and keep the female protagonist for themselves.
  I find myself mentally writing scenes even when I'm not in front of the laptop at home.  Sometimes I email myself these snippets to cut and paste into the novel.  Sometimes the snippets don't hold up and don't make the cut, so to speak.  But it feels useful to sneak in as much writing work as I can as work allows. 
  I may even try all-out writing during my lunch break.
  Ooof.  I can't wait to get home and get writing.

I had a good, productive night, six and half pages done in a little over two and half hours.  But a strange thing happened.  I had outlined what needed to happen in this chapter and the next but I got to the end of one scene and my mind just said, 'ok, I'm done for now'.
  It wasn't writer's block.  I still WANTED to write but something in my mind wanted to break.  So I went downstairs, talking to the wife, cracked a Pepsi (which I'm limiting to just one can and that only during the 9-10 pm window for the sugar/caffeine boost) and went back upstairs to the 'Throne of Writing' (tm).
  Nothing.  Nothing came.  I ended up playing Master of Orion for an hour instead.
  Now, I'm not sure what, if anything, to do about this.  I feel like I should have pushed past it, that pushing past that 'wall' is what a professional writer would have done.  On the other hand, the remaining scene or scenes left in the chapter are very important.  This is the last time we see the male protagonist's parents until the end of the novel.  This is where they express their worries, overheard by the female protagonists.  This is the first time the stakes of the journey are raised; Jacob's father has mortgaged his life's work, his farm, to equip his son and  buy for him a/the magic sword.  This is the scene where Jacob's mother makes the female protagonist swear several oathes; some of which will be kept and some broken.  So it's an important scene.
  But as soon as I 'walked away' from the story, my mind started spinning up again.  I think my subconscious wanted time to digest and craft what was to come.  I don't know if that's all bad.  It doesn't help my page count, but it might help the story.  At least, I hope it helps the story.
  I don't know what the right answer is.  To push on and fix problems in subsequent drafts, or wait for the 'groove' to come back?  I know I can't only write when I'm 'feeling' like it.  But at the same time, it seems like I should listen to my subconscious.  It's a lot smarter than I am.

Well I did do some writing yesterday but it wasn't on my novel.    Still, it was an interesting story snippet for my gaming hobby.  The snippet was focused on sound and what a character heard and not what they saw.  (the character wasn't physically present in the room and was listing to a recording, more or less.)  It was an interesting exercise.  I might revisit it again.
  Something Charles De Lint said on Saturday was to stop a day's writing at an 'unnatural breaking point'.  He suggested stopping in the middle of a sentence or paragraph.  I'm not sure that works for me but it bears experimenting with.
  I prefer to end at the end of a chapter (ideally) or the end of scene.  That gives my mind the freedom to think ahead.  I can think about what comes next, how I want to write it, what needs to be said or accomplished.  If I stop halfway through a scene, I have a hard time getting back into that headspace.
  Every single writer needs to find what works for them.  There are a thousand tips and tricks.  Not all of them work for every person.  The important thing is to experiment.  Find what works for you, what you like and discard the rest.  Personally, I'm really looking forward to getting back into the 'Throne of Writing' (Tm) and starting the next chapter.  The plot is flowing!