It takes a certain type of genius to remain reticent on the internet

Or that's what I tell myself in my own relentlessly sardonic optimism. I really need some writing friends, and I don't even know how to go about making them. This is the goddamned internet. All remaining traces of social anxiety should be irrelevant, right? Not so. I suppose that's because writing is intently personal, or I've always thought so, so it's a bit of a silly way to hope to connect with others.

Against my better judgment, I commenced the next chapter last night. I finally couldn't help it. This story is like my booze, when I don't have booze. Even when I do have booze, this story is like my other booze. Actually, when I do have booze it is by far the best pastime to write, because if I don't have the writing to distract me I will begin to belt out showtunes after dark. I'm sure my neighbors prefer it when I write.

This chapter is going to present a lot of problems. It's one of those things where you have a broad, sweeping scene, both in terms of visuals and emotions. I don't mean a battle scene, and I tend to avoid such things anyway (my violence is more one-on-one, personal, and grotesque)--I mean a scene that is quietly anguished, bittersweet, despairing. I mean all the things that a moment of film and music might imply, but which pages and pages worth of words may fall short of. In such instances, long-windedness is usually my downfall, because I want so badly to explain the unwordable. I'm only one page in and already I can see that I'm rambling. Hell, I'm rambling now.

On the plus side--and this is one reason I need to keep the rambling minimal and streamline these opening vignettes--the chapter is supposed to gear up with random, weird cameos of Iarwain Ben-Adar and Fangorn.