POINTS TO PONDER

• While I am grateful for a day off work, it is a writer's nature to feel guilty when he's not writing and, since I write exclusively at work, I was a little agitated during last Monday's Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. I tried to recognize that it was normal, though, and forgive myself.
• I finished, spellchecked, and printed Chapter Two. 25 pages and counting.
• I'm already recognizing certain structural problems with the beginning of the book, like the fact that I'm starting Chapter Three and, so far, we've still only seen two characters (Drew and Ben). That's a problem. Not insurmountable, but problematic, nonetheless. I understand that this book is more of a mood piece--in theater we used to call them chamber pieces--but that doesn't excuse it being claustrophobic in terms of character.
  
• I just finished Twilight, Stephanie Meyer's YA sensation. While I give her props for great details, an unerring understanding of the history and lives of the characters, and a killer (literally) story, in terms of the structure, I'm surprised, quite frankly, that this book was ever published. About halfway through it just takes off in a completely new direction and follows this new tangent throughout the remainder of the book (maybe I shouldn't use the word "remainder" in a blog about my novel, hmmm.). The new direction was very tense and exciting but felt unrelated to what came before, as characters and story threads were dropped or ignored. I know that there are other variables--timing, social climate, luck, ,etc. But I'm still surprised an agent found this structural schizophrenia was acceptable.
• Another area that I'm operating on a ton of faith is this: School Spirit is the most "un-outlined" book I've ever written. I have a ton of background material, including a detailed treatment (what they use for screenplays), but there are still parts of the story that to quote an old colleague "have not yet been revealed to me."
• Got some good work done today, though--1,125 words in about 45 minutes.