A New Chapter--Session 2

A month ago, in a post called "A New Chapter," I wrote about joining a writing group in which I'd be penning a chapter of a children's book. I had decided that new chapters in life are worth it, so I took on the challenge. I was excited, and I was scared.
 
Tonight, as I made my way to Session 2, mostly I was queasy. Over the last month, in the midst of a busy life, I had generated a chapter, but over the last month, I had also read other people's chapters--chapters that seemed to have far more details and more plot and more original ideas than mine. Was I really qualified to be in this group, and more immediately, would I get through the few hours of Session 2 without having a nervous breakdown or a fainting spell or both?
 
The fact that I am writing now fairly well confirms that I didn't have that nervous breakdown, and I'm reasonably certain that I was conscious the whole time--no fainting spells. And while I felt my head about to explode for most of the evening, I was far from alone. By the end, I was exhausted, but I was no longer queasy.
 
On the way to making a coherent book, each of us will have a lot of editing to do. As I learned when I was directing segments on One Life to Live, no amount of creativity makes up for parts (scenes then, chapters now) that don't fit together. So I will be adjusting along the way--seeing what works and what doesn't, and allowing my chapter to start becoming part of a whole. On One Life, where scenes for a single show were shot on a variety of days (and pickups from one show to another might be shot weeks apart), directors had to work within the layout of sets, and had to pick up character and prop positions from each other. There were certain "rules" of geography and history that had to be followed. Here, I will need to follow not just the emotions of my character, but the "rules" of the book as well. It might be awkward. But as a friend of mine put it, awkward often just means you're learning.
 
I figure I'll be doing a lot more learning in this next month. And, with any luck, I will walk into Session 3 with a stronger chapter--and without feeling quite so queasy.