Commitment

I’m committed now to blogging on a regular basis. Really. I am. Uh huh. Not going to make a liar out of myself, no sir. Although I guess it would help if I thought anyone was actually reading this. Sounds like there’s an echo in here.

Speaking of which, did you know that a duck’s quack doesn’t echo and no one knows why?

So anyway, I finished a round of rewriting for my historical erotica novel, tentatively titled “The Bridge at Daybreak.” While it always feels good to finish rewrites, there’s also always a nagging voice wondering how the book could still be better.

Lately with the intention of sharpening my focus, I’ve been reading books about plotting and pre-writing. I’ve always been something of a la-dee-dah writer—writing when the mood strikes me, when a scene or character pops into my head, following the story without much idea of where it’s going.

I think that technique is no longer going to work for me. It leads to my stories being kind of unwieldy and flabby. I dislike both unwieldiness and flab. I have a degree in Library and Information Studies—we love cataloguing and organizing and classifying. Doesn’t mean I always put those ideas into practice (although I did organize my daughter’s clothes according to type—onesies, dresses, long onesies, pants—and label the drawers accordingly. I do so love my label maker.]

So I’m going to start imposing more structure on my writing in the hopes that I won’t find myself halfway through a book thinking, “Now what?” I know some writers like discovering where the story and character takes them—I’m one of those who wants to know all that in advance. Other writers can make me think, “Now what?” when I’m reading their books. When I’m writing, I want to think, “Now this.”