Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Trying to Finish This Book

Day two of my vacation... Man, this feels good. I wish I could take off a whole year.

I'm trying to get to at least 90,000 words on my novel, I'm at 32,918. I guess I got alot of work ahead of me.

I've read a few biographies about writers and all of them talked about how they sat at their computers everyday for 8 to 10 hours until they could put something on the blank screen, even if it was only one line.



Well I work a little differently. While I'm reading, listening to music, watching TV and sometimes sleeping, I'm thinking of things my characters could be doing Arguing about money or another woman. Screwing each other's brains out or screwing up some project they are working on. Then I'll grab paper and pen and write down my thoughts. Usually it's dialogue, which helps the story move faster than big, long paragraphs of scenery description.

Once I've written done what I figure is at least half a chapter, then I'll sit down at my computer and begin to write. I always end up adding to what I wrote when I type it out. That's probably why they stress doing so many re-writes.

I probably won't reach 90,000 before I return to work next week but I'm going to give it the old college try and get as close as possible...as close as government work.

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