Wednesday, November 26, 2008

We may yet, Mr. Frodo


Phew!

I was beginning to get worried. Days trickled by, and I was busy preparing for Thanksgiving, and adjusting to my new dayjob, and battling an oncoming cold, and... not writing.

All year I've been re-writing, expanding, fixing, adding, polishing, but not really exploring new territory. Even when I veered off in a new direction, the old, familiar path was there to look back on.

But with the end of chapter 15, I was out of the woods. Chapter 16 forms the frozen outskirts of an open landscape, ready for me to fill it with thorny palisades and single arrows and rosy stables and buried secrets and surprising conclusions. I've been looking forward to this! I should be chomping at the bit!

But I just couldn't get anything done. There was work to go to, you see, and turkeys to brine and headaches to nurse, and all sorts of excuses. But yesterday, the first, shaky little paragraph appeared on my screen, all the more precious for being hasty, since I only had a short hour before I needed to be at the shop. 300 ramshackle, wonderful words.

What a relief! We may get there yet, Mr. Frodo. We may.

3 comments:

Li:ne said...

you may be at number 16, but I am at lovely 1.1. Coming with me in my bag, keeping me company on the long ride home.

:)

Laini Taylor said...

Oh, I love that line. I've joked about naming a child Samwise -- it's a good name, isn't it? I had a cat named Pippin as a child, but it's Samwise who's in my heart :-)

Yay for new territory! I imagine your book as a magical landscape -- go forth into the unknown!

(And Happy Thanksgiving!)

tone almhjell said...

That's funny - I had a parakeet named Pippin. Or, until discovered she was a girl, and then we made it Pippi. Her mate was Munti, which is the Norwegian version of Merry.

But I love Sam, too. If I could choose one friend from that world, it would be him, and never mind the lack of fireworks, pretty swords, and contacts among the ents.