At the library this afternoon I stumbled upon a copy of Writers Digest. It was one of those 'jumped off the shelf into my hand' things. The jist of the article which caught my attention was to just write. Make a dedicated decision to write fifteen minutes a day or three days a week. Just DO it. Well, folks, I have been writing pretty much daily for a few years and nothing to speak of has happened.
Our book club has been reading Ray Bradbury and his writing discipline is pretty much that -- writing every day, taking off on a word or a phrase and 'walla' he ends up with a short story in no time at all. And that short story is then transformed later on into a novel. Hmmmm. That hasn't happened to me yet. I have been playing at writing for too many years. I have about given up on any novel idea. Well, not entirely. There are nigglings in the back of my mind. But how to get them out on paper/screen. Don't know.
The article went on to discuss outlines and index card chapter headings that can be carried around and fleshed out at any given moment. Maybe. Maybe not. Novels are stories. I have to decide what the story is that I want to tell. IS there a story I want to tell. Maybe not.
The article went on further to say that some were using blogs as novel starters. Not only starters but just blogging daily and then collecting the blogs into a book. Hmmmm. The blogs I read or write are not the makings of a novel. My dad was a writer. Not a great fiction writer. Unpublished but for two short stories. He made his living writing ad copy and technical copy. I guess he was good at that. He made a living for us anyway. He would have loved blogging. So maybe I'll just continue to write my pages and write my blog and if anything happens, it happens.
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