Niagra falls, USA/Canada. I once dreamed I was on a boat such as this one ...
DEEP BREATH... TAKE PLUNGE..! I'M WRITING... I started without knowing it. Thinking I was taking notes I actually wrote out a whole chunk of dialogue. Only 500 words (bear in mind 1000 words is only 2.5 pages from an average novel in ordinarily spaced type ~ so it's not that much.) But it's a start, and remember this is my second draft. Draft 1 is already in the can and unpublishable, because it's amateurish throughout and as I said before, has a massive plot flaw that invalidates more than half of the book. This time round I'm concentrating on linking my scenes together a little better and weaving the background characters, who suddenly popped up and vanished in the first version, deeper into the story, which is very much one character's story. In a sense it's a fictionalized memoir, I suppose you could say.
The big plunge I take later today when I start my new chapter 2. (Chapter 1 can wait till the end...)I'M READING To Kill A Mockingbird ~ it's survived four house moves (most of my books never get left behind) and I know it's a classic but I hadn't realized how good it was. Maybe that will inspire me. I tried an old Jackie Collins the other day that had been sitting next to Harper Lee for almost as much time and couldn't stand the crass language. That went sailing across the room. Perhaps I'm getting old ...
That's great news!
ReplyDeleteAnd a classic picture of Niagara Falls with (one of the) Maid of the Mist(s)
Woohoo, fantastic news, Gleds. Good luck with it all...80,000 words is a book. That's what I'm aiming for...whether it happens or not is a different story.
ReplyDeleteI love "To Kill a Mocking Bird", it's one of my all time favourite books. As for Joan Collins...total rubbish, I'd rather read Mills & Boon!
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 11, spoken by the character Atticus
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My second daughter loved the book so much that for the last four years (she is now 19) has maintained that she will name her children Atticus and Scout. She really LOVED that book.
Great news - keep it up Gleds. :)
ReplyDeletegood to see that you have something to focus on.... and writing is so hard :-)
ReplyDeleteJeannie: aye ~ cheers!
ReplyDeletePnB: 80,000 words is the length, so I found when I dug it out yesterday, of my 1st draft. I don't wanna do v much longer than that. As short and sweet as possible, specially for the 1st one!
TnC: do you know what put me off it for a long time? That it's a set text in lots of British schools. Does ANYONE write a novel hoping school kids one day will have to study it like the Bible? I think not, unless they've got over-immersed-in-faux-literary-bourgeoisosity...
Akelamalu: cheers. I did another 500 words yesterday, again thinking I was writing "notes" but it was dialogue and narrative.
Sally: not THAT hard, c'mon!