I was thinking who I would cast if this was being made into a movie. I do that from time to time. I haven't got a bead on Shemhazai, yet. But I'm thinking Simon Pegg for Vikiel and Jim Parsons for Azazel. I know Parsons plays a wimpy brainiac in his current TV show, but I think he's got a great villain inside him, waiting to be set free.

Here's a question that bugged me as I wrote this chapter. I mention a donkey cart, but back in "the day" they called a donkey an ass. So would it have been more proper to call it an ass cart? That just didn't sound right.

This chapter finishes up the biblical-era prologue. Next week, we'll catch up with Alain and begin the main story.

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If you're one of my Facebook friends, you may have seen me posting status reports about this chapter reaching 7,200 words (or about 22 pages in a standard mass-market paperback). Yeah, I expected it to be shorter. I mean I'm only re-telling part of Genesis 19 and it's only around 1100 words. I do reference Genesis 14 (the war in which Lot was taken prisoner) and 17 (when God commanded Abraham to remove some excess skin), but I took 6.5 times as many words to tell the tale than the King James Version of the bible does.

Anyway, 7,200 words was too long, so I found a good break point and split it. You'll get approximately half today and the other half next Monday. I hope by the time we reach the conclusion of the tale of the destruction of Sodom next week, you'll feel it was worth the longer journey.

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The first chapter of a new novel. Been a long time since I wrote one of those.

Last time I started publishing a novel on my blog, I'd had 15 years to pick over the story, adjust, re-write lots of bits, and I came into the project with about 60% of the novel written, but just needing some tightening up.

This time around, I'm flying by the seat of my pants, creating a lot of it as I go. I've only plotted out the first few chapters and only have a general idea of where the end is and what happens. I'm more of a character-driven writer, though. I like to create characters who resonate with me, give them a destination, and then sort of see how they get me there. But without nearly as much writing in the can, two-chapters a week would be a bit tough. So for now, we'll have weekly installments on Mondays and I'll try to make sure they're relatively long.

The last thing I want to do is give some shouts out:

SHOUT 1: To Paramount Pictures and director J.J. Abrams whose new Star Trek movie rah-hocked. They have absolutely re-energized one of the best film franchises. J.J. Abrams should go to George Lucas's house and yell "Booyah! That's how ya do it, Bozo!" I loved it, wife loved it, you'll love it.

SHOUT 2: To Mr. Mike "Wit" Witmer, whose brilliant "Pinkerton" comic strip hits its landmark 400th strip today. Now that's some freakin' dedication, and all his many fans appreciate it.

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So, the first chapter will run on May 11th as promised, but I've changed the name from "Bloodmail" to "Sodom All Over Again".

See, the story started with this concept... "Alain and Marie return to America and settle in postwar Los Angeles where we have a fun Raymond Chandler style mystery with a supernatural twist." But where do you go from there? You have to have bad guys and you have to have them want something. You have to come up with some reasons for some people to get killed.

I rarely like to post the same thing on my blog that I post on my Facebook page and on my Twitter feed, but I really want this to become a famous quote about writing (and I want it credited to me in all the quote books): "If you don't murder someone in the first chapter of your novel, why bother writing it?"

So the guys starting to materialize as the bad guys were the nephilim, angels who descended to live among men, mated with mortal women, fathered giants. According to the book of Genesis, the great flood was, in most part, to cleanse the evil of these giants from the land.

Before we get to Alain, we're going to need some backstory on the major angelic players in this story: Azazel and Shemhazai. These are the leaders of the "screw humanity" and the "save humanity" camps among the 200 angels God allowed to descend and live as men. We're going to spend the first couple of weeks generating some backstory on them, because the Nephilim are going to play a big part in the big crisis Alain and Marie have to avert.

I'm building them an interesting cast of friends and allies, creating characters and building plot around them. Reading books on how to do fake psychic readings and stage mentalism because Creswell is going to be a wonderful foil for Alain after he's accused of murder... I mean, come on, I have to give him something to investigate, an innocence to proove.

This is real fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writing. I'm committed to delivering 3000-4000 words a week. Each 1,000 words is approximately 3 pages in a paperback book, so the equivalent of 9-12 pages a week. Maybe sometimes more, maybe less.

Sleeping pill is really kicking in. Not much to say. I'll hit deadline, but 3,000-4,000 words a week is the committment I'm making.