Wishing everyone a happy and productive
month of August! It’s American
Adventures Month, and if that doesn’t
give us something to write about, we could always revisit or begin journaling.
Perhaps write an article, an essay or a trailer for the last good movie you
watched – or your next bestseller? You
could also sharpen your writing skills with any of the many great resources
offered by the Insecure Writers Support Group, founded by Alex Cavanaugh, right here and
right now on this first Wednesday of the month, when IWSG
members convene through blogging, Facebook, and Twitter to talk about whatever
is on our writing minds and agendas. See what we’re all talking about here.
What’s on my
writing mind? Well,
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| Photo by: Phil Reeder |
For years
along a winding two-lane road stood a weathered wooden sign with the word
“Serendipity” crudely etched between its jagged edges. How so? I fleetingly wondered, until summer’s
lushness moldered in a bitter winter’s mire
and a ramshackle house appeared. Much like the candy bar I’d tucked behind the
horseradish where no one else would find it, the barely-discernible tire tracks
that led to the crumbling house constantly beckoned my return. Then life, as it so often does, intervened.
So now,
years later, having unearthed the prefacing manuscript to the sequel; sketchily
entitled “Serendipity,” I wonder if the
story still breathes with the energy I poured into it so long ago. I have the
drive, but what if the path has grown over? Only one way to find out, right? Can’t
wait to tell you how it goes! There you
have the current scope of my journey, how’s yours?
As to the
Optional IWSG Question of the Month, ‘What are your
pet peeves when reading/writing/editing?’ I recently read a
novel by two authors who, at one point repeated (nearly exactly) the same
paragraph from one page to the next. Not sure who was at fault, but I think I’d
speak to the editor. That being said, and speaking from experience, the job of
an editor seems much like tightrope walking between grammatically correct and
creative expression. Either way, words are in precarious balance, and this is
where insecurity seeps into the spaces between each word I write when revisions
come into play. Will there be anything left of my story? Or dare I commit
(writing without revising) “the literary equivalent of waltzing, gaily out of
the house in your underwear” ~ Patricia
Fuller. Somehow the old drawing
board doesn’t seem as daunting after all ;-)
Fun fact:
Mickey
Spillane ordered 50,000 copies of his 1952 novel Kiss
Me, Deadly to be destroyed when the comma was left out of the
title.
Happy Writing, Reading & Editing!
