Snippets

I’ve been doing a lot more in-depth thinking about my writing lately-maybe too much, if that’s possible.  In the process I try to allow my ideas more time to marinate without the fear that I will forget them completely.  Should ideas be written down?  Sometimes I telegraph plot points with bullet point-type sentences, but I don’t write outlines.  One word is about as deep as it gets.  I’m not sure if this is the best method of writing; keeping the ideas crammed in my head until they go onto the paper.  It’s worked so far, but it also accounts for some strange dreams.

Groundhog Day

I've been struggling to write anything lately, although when I tell people I have "writer's block" I'm usually 50,000 words into a story.  Anyway, it was around this time (according to Microsoft Word, it was February 6th) that I began to write my first novel.  It's amazing to look back on a year's worth of work and see five completed novels, and a sixth one well underway.  My books are scattered across various states and, according to the reports, downloaded in various countries.  I am so thankful for family and friends in Wisconsin, Tennessee, and New Mexico, to name a few, for taking a chance on me.  I love you for reading and enjoying and appreciating me as an author.  I've said it before many times, but I had no clue when I started to write the first book that it would ever turn into anything at all.  I just wanted to write and finish a book, with the only criteria being the 50,000 word goal.  I always wind up surpassing my goal, which I am sure is both good and bad.  I learned in college that a five-page-paper means no more than five pages, and I have to imagine a publisher would feel the same way.  If I ever get a contract, I'll try to work on my plotting.  The oddity and discrepancy, at any rate, comes from the differing writing styles--my two stand-alone books feature one of the main characters in every scene, whereas the Windswept saga turns that on its ear, including multi-generational scenes that usually revolve around the main characters even if they are not featured.  That's a lot of exposition, I know, so I am tinkering with it as I go.

 The accompanying photo is of Groundhog Day snow.  When that sort of thing happens, a groundhog looking for its shadow becomes immaterial.