A little each day

The novel is going well. Each day I sit down and open a log file. Sue Grafton wrote an article suggesting that. It works to get the writing mind set as to what I'm going to write on that day. She wrote it was good protection against writer's block. Log sounded so dull that I labeled mine Graftonite. After that I open a page on the chapter I'm working on. I never work on the same chapter for more than one day before going on to the next one. My plan is when I get to the last chapter to go back to chapter one and keep rotating through the chapters in order. Will it work? I have no idea, but so far it seems to work great.

Novel

Into a good daily writing habit now. It certainly makes writing easier. Not posting to blogs as much but the main reason for me to write a blog was to write. Now the novel has taken over.

After getting to know my main characters by putting them in various situations and seeing what happens, I am better able to see them and to answer questions about them. I have tried to fill out a page of questions about my characters when I had a story idea in mind but no characters formed although their function already in mind. It didn't work. But after writing a page or so about them and how they reacted in a given situation, I start to know them, to feel them, and to see them in my mind's eye.

After writing several possible scenes, the story idea took a more concrete form in my mind. I was able to make a list of thirty chapters that would get the story told. So each day I write as much as comfortable on one chapter. The next day, I take up the next chapter. Eventually I will come back to chapter one and link it up with chapter two. It seems to work so far. I expect that the final version of this story will be greatly different from this first one.

Tin House

After five and a half months Tin House has sent its rejection -- partial page xeroxed form letter.

Confrontation The Literary Magazine

Confrontation

The literary magazine of Long Island University has sent me a rejection. They have a full page form letter and enclosed subscription information. They beat their target response of three months by a month.

Getting a little discouraged on rejections, but it hasn't slowed my writing. Still writing daily. Working on a novel.

I will get this story and another story sent out again.