Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Hardcore...

I once heard a quote that went something like this, "A writer is someone who writes every day." If that's true, then I'm definitely a writer. Especially these days. Not only am I editing like crazy, I'm getting a lot done on my rough draft. I spent yesterday afternoon while the kids were napping doing research. Research is usually my least favorite part of writing, make that next to editing. But I have to get the details right. This time I'm doing a lot of location research since my next book is supposed to take place in South America. Sadly I can't actually go to South America to do my research so I'm stuck with Google maps and Wikipedia. Bummer.

I was so excited last night when the kids finally went to bed to settle down and get some writing done. My favorite part of writing is working on a rough draft. Basically, it's writing from scratch, coming up with things on the fly. I love watching a story come to life on the page. I like to close my eyes and imagine a scene, hear the voices in my head and then be able to put what I'm seeing into words. It's really awesome. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who's never written before. Earlier in the day yesterday I wrote about four pages, longhand. Last night over the course of two hours I wrote a dozen pages, also longhand. When I was finished my arm was really tired and I had ink smeared all over my hand, but it was so worth it. My brain was fried, but in a good way.

I think I also finally worked out the entire "big picture" of the three novels. Which is kind of huge, right? Trilogy here we come!

Ah, delusions of granduer...