Wrote the first chapter of "Lucifer's Forge," so the first draft of the book is now complete.

I had this vague notion of trying to duplicate the feeling I got when I read "Young Men and Fire" many years ago, but the book wasn't what I remembered it to be. It was much more matter of fact than I remembered.

The artistic part of the book was impossible to copy, because he layers the same event over and over again from different angles. He creates motifs that only work because of that layering. For instance, he calls the significant physical locations "Stations of the Cross" which is brilliant in concept and execution. Very emotive because he has laid the groundwork.

I've always wondered how to telegraph great emotion in a few words or images. The best example I've ever seen of that is the first few minutes of the Pixar movie, "Up." Hell, any movie that can get me to cry about characters that I've only known for a few minutes is pretty brilliant.

Anyway, I wrote the chapter using some of the events of the Mann Gulch fire, such as the foreman lighting his own fire and laying down in the ashes, who lived. The speed of the fire, the run for their lives. Trying to sketch their personalities in a few sentences so their deaths mean something.

Tough to do. Probably didn't pull it off, but it's still a better beginning than what I had before.