Musings About Writing Another Novel

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Had Some Writing Time Today

 

Part of the art of writing is re-writing, of course.  So I started out my day as always, editing what I wrote the last couple days.  My style “editing” includes clarifying parts that weren’t very clear, fixing typos and spelling errors Word didn’t catch the first time around and often adding a few little things here and there to make the text sound more like real life. 

I didn’t get a full day’s work in today because we went to see a cute house on Lake Michigan this afternoon.  Well, maybe not actually “on” Lake Michigan, but right across the road with a view of the Lake between some hardwood trees. The place is plenty large enough, the price is right and we’re thinking about it. . . . 

Now we’re back home and have dinner in the belly so I’m back up in the loft ready to think about what I wrote earlier. 

What I wrote today was one good surprise situation I thought about adding while out walking the dog last night.  That scene is already about 1,700 words long and just (maybe) starting to wind down.  I suppose it will be over 2,000 words long before I move on.  I’m not sure about that, though.

I can honestly say that I do not know how long each scene will be because my characters have minds of their own.  They all think differently and each often wants to do things their own way.  So if I, as the writer, want to keep them all properly in character, I have to sit back and watch them do what they’re going to do in any situation.  I think that my job is to write about what they do, not direct them.

So, I’ll have to admit that not everything comes out my way.  They usually get results, just not always the way I might do things personally.

Anyway, I’m out of here and back at it!

Happy writing, folks. 

2 comments:

  1. glad to hear you've picked up pace again. it's nice to find time to write. you don't feel so guilty, eh?

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  2. Guilty? Moi? I'm retired so there is no real schedule for me. However, I do spend a lot of time every day reading and writing about politics and technology. I try to keep up with the medical research news, too.

    It's just lately that I've started spending hours at a time writing fiction. The goal is to have three or four novels posted on the Kindle system and then start advertising.

    This blog is a soft way of advertising, of course. But I won't be pushing anything here yet.

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