That's right, it was today: Day one, chapter one, page one, line one, take one.

I love a good kickoff.

The writing was extremely workaday. The sentences clunked a bit, shuffling forward in stop-start fashion. But those were my characters on that page, picking up the pieces after Book One, and deciding where and how they will start this sequel.

I planted some nice little tension bombs, I pushed my main character into confrontation, I threw in a surprise, and oh, I revenged myself on my own worst-ever piano teacher.

All in a day's work.

Rather amazed that the terror monsters didn't line up for this morning's drafting session. Maybe part of what kept fear at bay was that I focused on telling my own self a story.

Isn't that what we are really doing, when we make anything at all? Don't we make the art we want to see, and write the books we want to read?

While I hope to goodness that this story entertains other people someday, it starts by entertaining and delighting me. (Though it feels a little self-serving to scribble a sentence that makes me snicker, or to slam-dunk an image that makes me grin at my pens and desk and window, as if they're all applauding.)

And so yes, there is plenty to fix after day one. But there will always be plenty to fix.

So I had a little dance party of one, and I might even have clapped and shouted a bit. Celebrating good beginnings, first days, the first ten pages written, and the realization that:

Before it can be the book a reader can't put down, it has to be the story that I can't put down. The story that grips and energizes me, first of all.

Which means I'm in for a load of fun over the next six weeks. Hard work, and deep crazy fun.