A Pledge before the Calendar Scurries Away

I will not write much now, for my pledge is to have two more chapters complete by 11:59 PM this Monday, 31 December 2007. I did something similar to this last year, and, well, it worked, so why not do it again?
One of these chapters, the one for Part II, is almost done. I think I might be forced to call it "Tarot and Tea Leaves". As for the second, the one for Part I, I have absolutely no idea what to write about!
So now I must write away.

The Clockmaker's Clocks

There are days when I think that I have let things get very confused in my novel--that Mark is too much a reflection of myself. There are other days when I deny it because I hate to admit that it is true. I hate to admit that my writing means that much too me--that it is the ultimate reflection of myself. But it is, and I know that. Mark is my doppleganger; he is me laid to words. Therefore, it is fitting that his beliefs should match mine.

The times he had tried to convert—to Atheism, to Agnosticism, to Deism, to the Truth—to the ever-changing Doctrine of Doubt.

Sounds remarkably like me speaking. But apparently, I am a...

What spirituality is for you? Deist You are, in fact, a Deist. You believe in a clockmaker God who created the universe and initiated the natural equilibrium, but not a "personal god."

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

And I think Mark is, too.

Why I Fight

Sometimes I wonder why I write. I have a few stock answers stored up. I love it. I live to write. I do it to escape from the world; it is my Second Life and even my Second Second Life. It is everything I want.
But then I remember that writing isn't about the stagnant--it's about fighting either for or against something. Thus, the question shouldn't be "Why do I write?" but "Why do I fight?" And most days, I try to hide from the answer to that question because... because examining the answer means accepting terrible truths.
This morning I decided to watch JFK's "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" speech for the hundredth time, and there was a comment from this usasucks1 character. I found it offensive enough to check his profile, and this is what I found. I immediately sent him a simple message pleading, "Why?" God, I wish I knew why seeing this broke me up inside, but it did. I look at this, and I want to fight it--this person and all others like him.
Yet, other days, I do not think that it is that simple. I think about the things that I write, and sometimes I wonder if they do not speak for themselves.

"God, Ralph, I want America to live so much,” he cried. “I want her to live so much that I do not know how to save her!"

It seems so clear when I read this quote. I read it, I reflect on it, and I think that maybe Ellsworth Toohey was right about it.

Book Stats: Why Can't I Abandon My Firstborn's Corpse?

Pages: 193. Words: 58,355. Chapters: 12. Prologue? Not yet. Epilogue? Yes, it's quite nice. Favorite Passage: The part where Ralph looks at the stars.

I include this tonight only because I finally finished the "last" new chapter, or the first Cabinet meeting. This is the new chapter four, and it has inherited the name that the original chapter nine (now chapter eleven) once possessed. I am aware that that makes no sense, so I will diagram (* denotes a chapter started after 24 February 2007):

Part One: This Earthly World
I. San Francisco
II. The Sieve
III. Color
IV. The Kitchen Cabinet*
V. Hong Kong
VI. Catalyst
Part Two: The Lost Frontier
VII. Secession
VIII. Dualism
IX. The Trinity
X. Sandbox*
XI. The Loneliest Job
XII. The Roundness of History

I can only spend so long on this third of the triptych. Sooner or later I must move on to the second installment, the Calmness of Martyrs. The trouble is, I think I am going to have some trouble leaving Mark behind. That's what they don't tell you when you become an author--how terribly difficult it is to kill off your main character. It's like murdering your firstborn and leaving the corpse to rot on the side of the dirt road.