A Passage from NaNoWriMo 07

I'm about 9 000 words in right now, and I really enjoyed this. It's a retelling of some stuff from the first book (which is over on Books & Papers if you want to read it). Oh, and don't worry, most of the novel isn't quite this sap-saturated...

"The night was perfect, the stars were perfect, the ring was perfect, the air was perfect, and (as always) Sophronia was perfect. The waves crashing below us provided a soothing, rhythmic background of soft sounds while the fireworks exploding above us illuminated the most beautiful eyes God himself has ever sought to make as I descended to one knee and removed the ring from my pocket. I told Sophronia how much I truly loved her, how I had always loved her, and how I always would love her. I asked her to marry me.
"She said no.
"She left that place with me on that hill and disappeared back into her palatial life, a life which I somehow had always known could not be ours together. I, I remained there on the crest of that hill, and — though not moving — descended into the deep, dark gloom that captures the night and makes it frightening and cold and alone. I remained there — on one knee — as the world melted away into a horrific melodrama of the grandest of possible failures in my grandest of possible adventures. I remained there — still holding the ring up — as though the stars themselves would accept my love and swoop down and recall me to the heavens above, the archetypical Greek, a tormented lover whose tragic failings had merited him a constellation of his own."
I paused here. I always must pause here.

"Eventually, though, eventually I released the ring, letting it drop back into the soil from which its gold and its jewels had been wrought, hoping that the next discoverer of that ring would have better fortune with his love than I had had with mine."

plj