I have done terrible with posting the past couple of weeks and have no real excuse – I check the site often, I consider topics to post and yet, no post. A week ago, I was granted an audience with Carolyn Turgeon (the author of Godmother.) Actually she was in town for some visiting and a book signing – the night was a little cluttered so I didn’t get to chat with her as I had hoped, but I was able to get her to autograph my book. She had an interesting crew of people with her and one woman was wonderful when talking to my niece and nephew.
I have not been working on my writing as well either. I pulled up some old stories of mine – 20+ years old stories – they are terrible in technique, but there are good stories there. So I may still work on them. I have been reading Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott and though I am still in the early stages of the book, I do like what she says about the first copy – she refers to it as the ‘shitty first draft,’ I believe and basically says to get it down – you can edit later. For me, I think that is why I like writing longhand as my first draft – I don’t question that it will have to be edited, I am just focused on getting my thoughts down before I forget them or they get ahead of me. But, I am not so good when I am writing at the computer. I think I expect to go immediately to my second draft, before even putting anything down.
I am also listening to Stephen King’s On Writing. I had tried to listen to it several months ago, but didn’t feel it was going any where. He is interesting to listen too and occasionally I was able to catch little pieces of knowledge, but it wasn’t enough. The first half of his book (I have since learned) is very autobiographical, the second half – pure knowledge. I am validated in King’s notes on writing. I believe he writes very similar to how I do (well, not when he was in his drug and alcohol stage – I have thus far, avoided those). I will highlight some of these points that I really like, in another post soon.
One of the main points he makes as does Anne Lamott – get it down on paper. Setting goals of writing daily – even if it is not all day, setting an attainable goal and working on it. You can’t do anything with your story, unless you have it down. Guess what I’m doing…
Writebrainit 