Some of you were kind enough to tell me that you enjoyed the random chapter I posted of a book I am writing, which I keep abandoning and then looking at and then abandoning again. I doubt I will ever finish it, largely because I cannot decipher my own plot notes, which I wrote five years ago when the story arc was very clear in my mind, and when apparently I thought I would remember the exact plot details so well that I would need only these reminders, of which I cannot make any sense:
-- After her father makes the excuse, her brother tells her what kind of medicine Dr. Bramwell really practices.
-- The scene with the ring and the rose goes here.
-- She fires the maid, and hopes that Matthews won't learn the truth about the book.
. . . et cetera.
My advice to writers is this: Assume impending senility. Make detailed notes, lest you end up tearing out your hair in double fistfuls, wondering if you came up with the plot for the greatest novel of our time, and have subsequently forgotten it.
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Comments: 20
Al Turner, slap those babies together and publish them. I'm anxious to read your diary of thoughts.
Al, I have no doubt about that pandora's box; that's why I look forward to seeing that pin drop. (note the semicolon)
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976818856
Sandy, as usual, you are right, right, and right.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/113243/punctuation_when_the_text_contains.html
I could never write if I depended on notes. Where would I find them? No I sit down and write my story as it flows from me...without any notes...just as it comes.
But I do keep a cheap black note book. Whenever I see or hear something note worthy I jot it down. I've found that real life things are far more interesting and often more incredible than anything a writer coud think up.
I write notes in the dark with a flashlight. When I get up the next morning they hardly ever make sense.