I still haven’t actually, quite, managed to start a rewrite on Popcorn that lasted for more than a day.  Every time I think I’ve had my Eureka moment I change my mind two days later when some part of the plotting equation proves to be so much sludge.

One part of the problem was that I wasn’t willing to overhaul the first chapter.  I wrote the first chapter at bootcamp.  And ‘bootcamp’ can be translated thus:  An atmosphere of charged creativity, two days of fabulous and funny OSC lecturs that preceded a walk at dusk in which my muse was courted.  An indulgence in pure writing and nothing but writing that went on for an entire day and was poured into the creation of Popcorn Potion, the short story.  Then there was the rush of having my fellow bootcampers like it–even though I’d gone out on a limb and written something playful and funny.  The short story inspired the novel and had a special significance as the first chapter of the novel.  There was no way I was going to nix it.

Except, that’s exactly what I need to do.

Popcorn Potion, the novel, has a girl protag who doesn’t think it odd at all that her best weapon is popcorn.  The demons come in vivid purples and the sniff-frogs would disgust the most hardened ten-year-old.  At it’s heart it’s an adventure story, and it needed a protag of maybe ten or thirteen who might have a tendency to leap and then look.  But, because of that sacrosanct first chapter, it had a sixteen-year-old grifter who wouldn’t trust you as far as she could spit her popcorn kernels.  She had some spunk but, as my fellow Codexians have helped me see, she wasn’t very likable.  Certainly not someone who we’d want to spend the whole novel with, and probably not the right gal to carry this story.

So, out with the first chapter.  Out with Emma the teen.  I’m tempted to take one friends suggestion and frame the first chapter on my wall, but I’d rather think of it as free in the creative netherworld.  Cutting it loose is actually extraordinarily liberating, as it leaves me free to write the novel the way the story dictates.  It also leaves me free to work out the kinks in my magic system . . . which may mean I have to invite Emma over for a brief visit so she can put me under the influence of popcorn and pick my brain.

That sounds like fun.

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