The perfect 1st Chapter.

Of course, it's not perfect. In a month I'll probably hate it. But when I finished it yesterday, I thought it was perfect. Good characters, setting, action, a denouncement that's a killer, some nice phrasing, a perfect pace.

Even though when I'm in the midst of a book I often wonder what I'll be writing next, and sometimes even think I know what I'm going to be writing next, I find that I don't really know until the moment arrives.

I've been taking a few days off to let myself gain some perspective on The Darkness You Fear, and I hadn't really intended to write anything (after all, I just finished the first draft yesterday, for goodness sake) but it suddenly became quite clear what I wanted to write.

I wanted to reproduce the feeling I had when I wrote Tuskers by writing another "Creature" book. Not only that, but I have an editor who has expressed an interest.

So I started thinking about how I would go about it.

It was unexpectedly warm yesterday, so I drove out to the Badlands and walked my circuit and by the time I returned, I had the entire chapter written in my mind.

And I got 90% of the story in my head down on paper, which is pretty good.

I read it to Linda and she was really wowed. I mean, I can tell when she really likes something.

"You have such a way of creating believable and likable characters --- and then killing them."

"Why thank you," I said.

There's a book here, I can feel it. I'm just going to have fun with it. I wouldn't mind another 30 chapters written that way...