Writing Can Be Hard

 Yesterday, I posted the first part of the first chapter of the follow-up to my novella Dada, titled Pop.  The titles are connected both by being names to call the male parental unit, as well as being art movements that were decades apart and only tangentially related.  Note that both meanings were crucial to the first novella, and they might still be important in the second one.  Originally, the major ideas for Pop were going to be included in the first book as a flash-forward second section.  I later decided to just write an entire second novella instead.  I moved some of the story beats into Dada, but I kept some others to be used in later chapters here.  However, the first scene remained almost exactly the same.  Chris, the main protagonist, and his brother Sam are getting ready for the day in front of a dressing mirror.  I even still have Sam going downtown for an interview, for the same purpose.  What that purpose is won't be revealed until Chapter 3, as well as a big surprise I hinted at throughout the first scene.  I have Chris keeping a few more secrets from Sam as well, but they won't be brought out for a few more chapters.  One secret won't be revealed until near the end of the book.  To prepare for Pop, I had to go back over the first book so that I could remember character names, relationships, and other important facts.  I am embarrassed to admit it, but I had forgotten Sam's name, it had been so long.  I had also forgotten that I had named Chris's high school friends similar to slang terms for the male anatomy.  Intentionally.  Of course, I had the teenage Sam point that out to Chris immediately.  I never got to have Chris acknowledge the fact though.  He really should have realized that his closest friends had nicknames so close to those terms, but they were never used. (The names in question are Jim, Will, Rick, and Pete.  You can guess what the slang terms are.) At least I finally updated the first two chapters to their second drafts, the ones I used for my first UK application.  I remember correcting a sentence while going over the book to begin writing this one.  I hope it wasn't in the example, or that might be a reason why I wasn't accepted.  Anyway, I don't want to give any spoilers away, but I can mention a few more things.  First, the novella starts out in New York, but most of it will take place in Lexington, Kentucky, the opposite of Dada.  Second, Chris will be reunited with his old friends, although he already has met with them a few times between the two books.  Third, the reason why the friends drifted apart involves secrets that they had been keeping from each other, and not just Chris's smugness.  I hate to admit it, since he is very loosely based on me,  but Chris is kind of a tool.  Finally, I finally bring Chris's mother into the picture.  While she is in the first book, she is only seen while she is on the phone with Chris or mentioned in flashbacks.  How to two react is an important scene, although I may wind up downplaying it, since I have bigger plans for the two in the third book.  I have yet come up with a title for that one yet.  There really isn't another art movement that can also be used as a term for "father" that I can think of.  Hopefully, I can come up with one when I finish with Pop, which could be sometime late next year.  One part of one chapter a week equates to about forty to fifty weeks, depending upon my other workload.  It's a start.