A Few Words . . .

Yesterday I presented to my Writers group the first revision of Chapter 1 of my NaNoWriMo novel. Nora Mulligan, author of The Visitors' Gifts (which I purchased December 8, 2001) posted a detailed critique, and I am grateful to her for doing so. Her words pointed out the many small details regarding the 'Craft of Writing' learned early on in a writer's career but easily forgotten while in the 'heat of the moment' throes of composition.

I sincerely appreciate the time and effort Nora expended to help out a fellow writer.

. . .

John Berendt, author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil offered some advice to aspiring writers:

"Keep a diary, but don't just list all the things you did during the day. Pick one incident and write it up as a brief vignette. Give it color, include quotes and dialogue, shape it like a story with a beginning, middle and end -- as if it were a short story or an episode in a novel. It's great practice. Do this while figuring out what you want to write a book about. The book may even emerge from within this running diary."

John Berendt

I think that an aspiring writer might heed that advice, not only by keeping a diary, but also by writing those vignettes in a daily blog.

. . .

Okay. Now back to the serious work of authoring a clear, concise, and understandable novel.

__________

“Our poets get into print regularly with stuff so bizarre and unearthly that only Christian Scientists can understand it”.
--H.L. Mencken