So it begins...

With scotch in hand, I bantered back and forth yesterday with my writing partner.  I wasn't sure how adding an extra person to the mix would play out, but that tactic has always proven effective in the bedroom so it seemed like a safe bet.  The process, heated.  The results speak for themselves as I will show you in a minute.

But what about the process of letting someone into that protected space that is your creativity?  At first, I approached it like I assume a marriage would be based on the razor sharp situational comedies of CBS.  That worked well for a while, but creativity - at least my creativity - comes from inner storms and unrest.  Before long, shouts, tears, foxhole embraces through an unceasing horror and promises that we would make it through to the other side.  When those clouds broke and I saw what I had written before me, I knew every step of the journey had been worth it

That is, of course, until my driver, The Register, found me doubled over the toilet inducing myself to vomit while a voice from Poison Control could be heard shouting through my cell "stay with me, dammit, don't close your eyes!"  Turns out in my bleary-eyed state, I accidentally poured myself a full three fingers of some cleaner from under my sink and in the ensuing hallucinations, embraced a somewhat tacky lamp as my writing partner.

Regardless, let me debut the embers from which my conflagration that is my novel will emerge, like a Phoenix rising from an Arizona...

King Rex toiled sweatily in the dank asteroid corridors of PC-1208, the dankest hardcore penal colony this side of heaven.  King Rex used to be a king, and now look at him, kingly was the last word I would use to describe him.  Every muscle tightened and throbbed as he worked the electro-pick-axe against the tunnel wall, and she noticed.  A piece of mineral rocket fuel fell.  King Rex grunted and sweated as he lifted the fallen rock into a nearby mining gravity cart.  She noticed the horse noises King Rex made as he did this as well.

(To be filled in later)

King Rex and Hotina Fox tore at each other passionately.  To say they made love would be an insult to all those middle-aged suburbanites that have their boring sex.  No, King Rex and Hotina Fox made beast, and after a few days of healing, they would have the scars to prove it.  Their beast-making was the best in the history of recorded time, Hotina loved that she made this man make the same horse noises as lifting a heavy rock.

"Hi, my name is Hotina Fox."

"And mine is King Rex, should we save the galaxy?"

So there you have it.  I figure I just need to fill in that little gap there and I've got the first chapter of my opus in the bag.  Many thanks to The Register for knowing CPR, Mandy from Poison Control, and the lamp in my upstairs bathroom shaped like a bottle of Tabasco sauce.  I couldn't have gotten this far without all of you.  A heart-felt thank you.