Pen, Spoon & Dagger

How long does it take to discover if you're no good at something?  Three days into the 30-day NaNoWriMo challenge I discovered an interesting fact about myself:  I'm not cut out to be a speed writer.Twenty-two days have done nothing except substantiate that fact. This should come as no surprise to those who know me.  I'm your typical, garden variety Virgo:  shy. reliable, practical, intelligent and analytical.  Oh, and did I mention fussy, overcritical, perfectionist and a worrier?  These are not the traits of a successful NaNo marathon writer. I understand the principles of the NaNo. Obviously you have to get something down on the page -- anything -- before you can try and revise it into something polished and publishable. As a journalist I learned to just put a piece of paper in the typewriter (yes, I'm that old) and start typing.  Eventually the "good" stuff would start flowing and you could strike out the bad beginning.   But the wh...

Total word count: 8,477 (including deletions) I had a kind of epiphany this weekend – bad pun since it was Easter weekend – but it was the other kind of epiphany, the “EUREKA” kind. I’m reading Chris Roerden’s book, Don’t Murder your Mystery .  I’ve picked it up several times before, reading bits and pieces, but never cover to cover.  This time I’m really reading it, word by word, digesting the advice, seeing how I can apply the Find &Fix Clues at the end of each chapter to my own writing. My “eureka” (the first of many, I"m sure) came when I read what she had to say about descriptive passages, using an economy of words to describe people and places, and, most of all, avoiding information dumps.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.  I looked at my first MS and (I’m blushing, here) I am guilty of dump after dump. I was particularly taken with Roerden’s idea of “timed release,” of selecting one key feature or attribute for the character’s first action, and saving...

I've set myself a quota of 1,000 words per day -- wishful thinking -- but it's something to aim for. Most days, I'll be lucky to 500 words down on the page, and I expect most of those will be revised or deleted down the road. But at least I'll be writing. Big drum roll: yesterday I wrote Chapter 1, Scene 1, a total of 1,249 words. About fifty percent of them have a chance of surviving the editing process. When I was a journalist, many, many years and careers ago, I learned not to obsess about getting it right the first time, especially the opening paragraph. Just start typing and let it flow. You can always go back and make it pretty. And it's a lot easier today with word processors than when I started with an IBM Selectric and a big bottle of White-out. Chapter One opens with: "Help! I need help. Please!" I'm sure I can do better, but for now, I'm going to work with that. Believe me, it's a vast improvement over my first attem...