More on more April 30, 2009

In my last post I noted that I seem to have found more in my story than I had initially realized was there. It really does take the story to “the next level” and makes it a much deeper work, but I wish I could at least get the first draft finished before any more [...]

A different route to the same end April 29, 2009

Some of my best thoughts seem to come when I don’t want to be thinking about them. I was reading a book the other evening when I found my thoughts swirling around some small plot problems in my novel The Sleep of Reason. Almost in a flash I came upon an altogether new way to [...]

If it returns, keep it April 28, 2009

A friend of mine once told me that the way to tell if you have a good idea is if it keeps coming back even after you’ve dismissed it. If that’s true, then I have a good idea.
I had made some notes (back in the days when I kept a hand-written journal more frequently) about [...]

A Room of One’s Own April 27, 2009

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that a woman who wished to be a writer needed a room of her own and a sufficient income to be free to do so. (Her essay, born of a series of lectures she gave, asked whether a woman could write works comparable to Shakespeare, but I have to ask if [...]

Chapter 16 is underway April 26, 2009

I’ve made some good progress on Chapter 16, having set down about two thousand first-draft words. This and Chapter 15 are transitional chapters, bringing the newest character into full focus, and then it’s back to the plot and the end game.
It’s actually Chapter 15 that needs attention. I don’t feel good about that. My character [...]

Strunk and White April 25, 2009

Show me a guy who invariably says “six persons”
and I will show you a fathead.
Patricia T. O’Conner
Did you see the gentle evisceration of the esteemed The Elements of Style over at the New York Times today? It’s the fiftieth birthday of this venerable book, and modern critics are ready to put the book back on [...]

Chapter 15 is completed April 19, 2009

Somewhere within me I found the gumption to get Chapter 15 of The Sleep of Reason finished in first draft. It currently cools at just under 5,000 words.
I’m not sure what to think of this chapter. While it takes necessary steps in the development of the plot, it really is a divergence from the storyline [...]

The Art Thief April 19, 2009

I recently had the opportunity to listen to an unabridged audio recording of The Art Thief, a novel written by Noah Charney. I was delighted with the tale, a mystery without a murder involving the high intrigue of the vast subculture of fine art theft. In the world of crime, this is considered the most [...]

Weird, and getting weirder April 14, 2009

In my novel The Sleep of Reason, my character will have a similar outcome to his adventures as a certain historical (and probably mythical) figure. I had known this from the start and even gave a hint of it in about the third paragraph of the opening page of the story. It’s the kind of [...]

Sleepy notes April 11, 2009

My notes file for The Sleep of Reason has swollen to more than 35,000 words. That’s half a novel, just in notes! I’d like to think it’s all pure gold, but some of it is quite old and may not be pertinent to the direction the novel has taken over the past year. Much of [...]