A New Start

Julia Childs once said that for thirty years she ate and then she cooked. Well, for more than thirty years I have read and now I write. It was only a couple of false starts until I discovered National Novel Writing Month. Now I am a two time National Novel Writing Month winner. This means that in thirty days in November for two years in a row I wrote a 50,000 word novel while neglecting friends, family, and other normal activities that got in the way of my daily word count. Now the really hard part is what happens next. Rewriting is even more daunting than 50,000 words in thirty days. I really don't even know were to start except that since it has been two years since I wrote the first novel, I decided to start by re-reading it. In conjunction with reading again, I am working my way through a very good writing book, The Mind of Your Story, by Lisa Lenard-Cook. I started reading this book once before and didn't get very far, but this time with a manuscript to work with at the same time, the book is making good sense and is actually helping.

That said, it does not mean I am making blazing fast progress. No, there are still too many books to read, a living to make, and occasional house work and social activities.

However, I decided to start this blog to keep myself motivated. There is nothing like putting a post into cyberspace and since writers write, I figure this is good practice as well as a place to think out loud as it were.
Not that anyone is going to read this. But who knows? If you do, and you too have dreamed about writing forever, then maybe this can motivate us both.

Story arcs and plot are on the table at the moment. Conflicts and questions are on my mind. It's a long shot, but maybe someday this effort will meet up with the reading public.