Well, I’m at 13,500 words, which is a bit behind, but not altogether undo-able. However, as you can imagine, the effort that’s going in to getting to 50,000 words doesn’t give me much time or head space to write in ye olde bjournal (okay ‘blog’ if you must). So, I thought maybe an occasional excerpt would entertain you masses and appease my guilty conscience.

Waiver and warning: This is first draft, unedited, and I’m at the point where I feel all my writing is lousy. I do not need anyone to point that out for me.

Start of excerpt:

“Doric, Ionian, or Corinthian?” Stephanie wondered in a vague, academic way as she walked past the columns of a cheaply done Classic Revival façade and into the administration office of Regis Foods for the first time. She noted for herself that it was probably one of the first and last times she would probably ever apply the knowledge she acquired in her art history class and that overly long section on columns.

Stephanie reviewed some of the key terms she had had to learn to correctly identify types of columns: base, capital, shaft, volute, lintel, entablature, triglyph, metope, caryatid, atlante, frieze, architrave, entasis and cornice. She was amazed that she could remember even that much. Why was it that experts had to make things so complicated? Essentially a column was just an architectural invention to hold up the building, but we had to break that down into so many different parts and types; and thus, another specialty was born. The combination of form with function was what caused it, Stephanie supposed. There were no fourteen classifications and pieces of flying buttresses. They just were what they were. But because artists had taken to making works of art out of columns, they then had to be dismantled, academically speaking, classified, defined, catalogued. To what end? Stephanie wondered. So that we could discuss different eras of art? So that academics could have careers out of discussing more and more minute aspects of art and architecture?

She saved herself from getting a failing grade at column classification by dismissing their efforts with a quick “What a derivate neoclassical effort” and instead focused on figuring out exactly where she was supposed to report. She had entered one door only to be met by nothing. Well, nothing except a closed solid door, a closed glass door, and an open staircase. It all looked rather uninviting. There were no people, signs, or even Oracles (which frankly, would have been welcome). After first weighing her options, Stephanie briefly went back out the door and checked the wall where she had come in. It did have a brass plaque marked “Office.” So, all indications were that she was at least close to being in the right place. She opted for the glass door. As she opened it, she was met with a blast of hot, steamy, air. She wended her way through a hallway to another foyer. Ah! This one had a reception desk and a person! Although there was no air of the Oracle about her, which was disappointing.

“Hi, I’m supposed to report to Maverick Ramsay. Do you know where I could find him?”