Well, I actually followed through with my own mandate to myself today and finished up the fourth chapter of my beloved Paradise today. I probably started at about 2:00pm and by 5:30pm I had written a solid seven pages of content and brought the lengthy chapter to a close at about fourteen pages (with 1.5 line spacing). Now, by the time I considered the first full draft of the chapter "finished," I think I honestly felt like my brain was just going to be set to "Gone Fishing" status for the rest of the day. Eventually, though, after I fed it some of the healing powers of the almighty beer, a good shower, and a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats it did, in fact, decide to come around and perform its purposes again. So, joy to the world and such.

Now, about this fourth chapter: I think it's one of the better ones thus far. I still introduce a new character and a couple completely new environments, but as I begin to settle into writing the various characters, the story begins to come out more naturally. Up until now, I've have been jumping all over the place in terms of scenes and themes and exploring characters in their own terms, but I think this is really the chapter where the story actually begins to come into its own. The third chapter gave indications of story, but I don't think it really succeeded in its goal (a heavy rewrite is in for it a bit further down the line).

In a general sense, I'm really starting to enjoy the work that's being done on the thing in a general sense. I can't say that I really know what the "main" storyline of the novel is going to be yet, but with each chapter I get an increasingly better idea of the kind of direction that I'm going in; for instance, in Chapter 4, there are a number of opportunities setup that I can use to jump into the "main" plot or just develop some threads into smaller subplots. I mean, to be honest (and I've given this example a number of times), when I started this project I had the goal of making the main killer some psychotic serial killer who was simply housing the described world in the depths of his brain as he enacts violence against people in the real-world or... Something. Either way, this is the kind of dynamic storytelling that should get me a job writing for LOST. Yeah, sorry, that was a low blow.

Anyway, time for a snippet from Chapter 4:

Adam put his hand on her shoulder, and rubbed it a bit, then withdrew it. "I know the feeling."

"I'd hope you don't, actually. The day I found out about this place by some random black guy in the archetypical government suit, I was thrilled. My fiance and I had just split up the day before... And, well, the idea of getting away from everything was so perfect. It was like a sign. Or something," she let out a seemingly bitter laugh.

"The whole situation seemed that way for a lot of people," Adam said. It was true, too, even if it wasn't a sentiment he shared.

"Maybe," she said. She said it in such a way that Adam felt that she was thinking about whether or not to say what she wanted to. She started to speak a moment later, but apparently thought better of it.

"What's up?" Adam prodded.

"I'm still not sure that I even feel bad about what happened, Adam," she said quietly; looking up to him as they still stood facing each other where she had stopped walking earlier. "And I'm scared about what that means."

As I've said before, I'm not a big fan of the idea of "snippets," but they're still put into the announcement of every finished chapter due solely to popular demand that they be put into the announcement of every finished chapter.

I figure I'm eventually going to get to a certain point of completion in the novel where I should probably start taking down every chapter and start working on keeping it private until I, say, find a publisher or something. If that's what I end up doing. I probably won't, if solely due to the fact that I'm kind of lame and shy… Yeah. Anyway, for now, I need all the feedback and comments that I can possibly get. Hence the near-unnecessary amount of blogvertising that I do for each chapter.

Anyhoo, thanks to all those who read this and figure out a way to get in contact with me (via e-mail or just via entry comments) to provide some feedback. I figure the fifth chapter will take at least three or so weeks to reach completion... And that's a conservative estimate.

sound the horn, address the city