Monday night after work I am going to start my novel. Over this weekend I’ll skate in Long Island, and on Sunday night watch the much talked about football playoff game between the Steelers and the Jets. There are always reasons to postpone starting a project, but I’m going to relax this weekend, and be firm with starting on Monday night. Plus I think the routine of writing will by harder on nights after work days as opposed to my off days. So the routine starts Monday. In this blog entry I’ll point out some things I’ll do to prepare for the start.
In one of my creative writing classes in college late in the semester the professor asked if I wrote a certain section in one sitting. I said yes and he said he could tell because it flowed better than the beginning and the end. That observation influenced a few things in my first novel attempt that I’m going to do again. One thing is on the margins of the notebook paper I’ll write down the date that I wrote a section. That way if I write 2 pages and don’t write for a week, I’ll know that some time lapsed between writings. Looking at my failed attempt I can take notes on it seeing months or more time between writing. The goal is to write continually until it’s done.
On the same concept of trying to be aware of the flow of the story, I’m going to get black pens and blue pens. I prefer to write in black, but then I couldn’t visualize the text. In addition to writing the dates of each writing session I’ll alternate between black and blue pens. That way I’ll know if I wrote a few paragraphs or pages in one sitting. I think that will be helpful to know that when I type it out.
Over the weekend I need to pick out a notebook. I’ll need to think about if I want a green, yellow, red, blue, or orange notebook. Just kidding, the color probably doesn’t matter. The one I used for my last attempt was a 200 page college ruled notebook. This worked well and I could write really small, which for some reason I liked better. When I wrote small a page was about a page and a half typed out. This might be a stupid thing to want, but I would like the whole first draft to fit in one notebook. The 200 page one might be cutting it close, so I might try for a college rule notebook with more pages than that if they make them. Also it has to be a spiral notebook.
My goal is to write it all out by hand first. On my last attempt I wrote out a chapter by hand and then typed up each chapter as I went along. This made me stop too much and is one of the reasons I did not succeed in that attempt. The other thing I need to do is write this thing out quickly and regularly. I haven’t had long sessions of writing out by hand in a long time, but I think that flow will come back quickly.
For my blog I simply put on internet radio and type what I think, but this novel will be a more serious attempt at writing. That is all for now.
Mallisonwhat's Blog 