Category: Writing the first book

It’s Time to Start

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I’m not sure I’m good enough to write this story, but I am good enough to try.

See that stack of notecards? That’s the book. Also in this picture are earplugs, my crappy reading glasses that give me a headache, a referral card for an endodontist, some magic elixir, a corrector pen, a mood ring, and my lucky fake succulent, among other junk. I think that’s about right.

desk

This week as I finalized and outline and uttered every curse word I know while maneuvering through the heavenly hellscape that is Scrivener, I alternated between panic, despair, and occasional breaks-in-the-cloud rays of optimism.

My goals are: (more…)

Go Tell It on the Mountain of Post-Its

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Every piece of writing advice ever swirled around my head this past week. Every story and article and essay I’ve read. Every movie and show I’ve watched. Every song, every conversation, every moment.

It’s terrible.

Maybe this is all a sign that I’m ready to stop getting ready and start getting started. (more…)

The Real Dealth, Bad Hair Weeks, and MIB

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I do most of my prewriting by hand, and much of my work this week involved exploring the concept of “death” – which I keep adding the letter “l” to and writing as dealth. I looked up “dealth” and learned it is an obsolete word meaning “a share dealt out.”

Obsolete words are such a romantic thing, reinforcing the idea of language being a living thing. The word “obsolete” itself was the first vocabulary word-of-the-day (we called them “Super Words”) we had back in sixth grade. Tip of the hat to Mrs. Proctor, and no, I don’t remember what the other 179 words were.

Which is all just to say that I fell down a few rabbit holes this week.

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