All Hell Breaks Loose (For At Least a Paragraph)

So I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had read a book written by a friend of mine (actually a manuscript written by an acquaintance, but I like to put positive spin on things). So I e-mailed and told him how much I liked it, and he advised me to keep the number of combatants down in my combats scenes, because in his climactic battle, he had 16 major characters (heroes and villains) as well as hundreds of agents, and it was hard to control.

Well, I needed to hear this advice, because the major conflict I'd been putting off since November was a biggie: 6 heroes vs. 6 opponents, and something like 5 civilians in the mix. So off I went, reenergized, writing my build-up scenes, cranking up the tension, getting everything set to explode...

And now I have 6 heroes vs. 18 (that's right, EIGHTEEN) opponents, plus seven named civilians and several hundred bystanders. Yeah, I have a sort-of-plan to get through this, but it's still going to be hard.

See, this is why self-help books never really help me, because I swear, somewhere in the loop between the words and my brain and my eventual actions, things get horribly mixed-up. My daughter does the same thing ("Did you hear what I said?" "Yes, you said don't cut the dog's hair" "Did you do what I said?" "Yes" "Then who cut the dog's hair?" "I did"), and until this moment, I never understood where she got it from. It's like that "Home Movies" episode where Brendon made a video to teach his little sister not to put marbles in her nose; everyone who saw the video ended up doing exactly that.

Anyway, today I'm starting the fight (I actually wrote the first punch yesterday, but it's not really a fight until somebody punches back). It's still overwhelming, but I'm determined to write at least a paragraph of frantic super-violence today, work on it some more when I'm off Thursday, and hopefully finish it up over the weekend.