I don't know anyone who writes exactly the way I do, which is mostly not writing at all.
First of all, I need an idea. Next I need a deadline. Nothing happens until both of those are in place. Our Black Coffee Fiction blog http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com provides me with a deadline. On average, I must have a short story written every three weeks. It must be done. So it is.
As for the ideas, I never seem to be short of them. I have a little book where I jot story ideas down. If there is nothing there, I open up my scrapbooks and wander through 69 years of living. That's enough stories for anyone and probably too many. I have five books, fiction and non-fiction that I want to write before the end of my life. They need to be done, so I will do them.
Some of my work requires me sitting in front of this monitor and typing away on a keyboard. But most of the work happens when I go for long walks. More happens in the wee hours of the morning waiting for the sunrise. Those are the hours I snuggle beneath a quilt and think. My stories are mostly composed in my mind. When the time comes to write them, they gush right out.
That was the way it was this morning.
First the idea. I used to spend a lot of time at Seymour's Aquatic Center doing arthritis exercises. The exercises were boring so I talked to the lifeguards. I used them as characters but I also told my stories and gossiped with them. One day I asked if they found my chatter annoying. They were too polite to say so and I had no intention of stopping but I began to think about an old woman who would leave the guards alone. Then I started asking the kids how they would murder someone in the pool. Or if someone nasty began to drown, would they save him or her?
I wrote the idea in my idea book.Then I put the story on the back burner and let it stew there for two years.
Most of the last three weeks we three writers at Black Coffee Fiction have been thinking about our next collection which will be out as an e-book next week and perhaps two weeks later as a paperback. In the past weeks, Gary and I have been moving from campsite to campsite then getting kicked out of the last one by the government shutdown. Until this morning, I really didn't have time to sit down and write.
However, it was no problem because I had been walking, blanket snuggling and thinking for the past few days. I sat down here at 7:00 a.m. By 10:00 a.m. I had my story done, or Part One. We try not to have more than 3,000 words and in three hours of writing, I had a story that was way too long. I had to leave poor Gladys lying on the floor in a shower room at the aquatic center. Readers will have to wait to find out what happens next.
First of all, I need an idea. Next I need a deadline. Nothing happens until both of those are in place. Our Black Coffee Fiction blog http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com provides me with a deadline. On average, I must have a short story written every three weeks. It must be done. So it is.
As for the ideas, I never seem to be short of them. I have a little book where I jot story ideas down. If there is nothing there, I open up my scrapbooks and wander through 69 years of living. That's enough stories for anyone and probably too many. I have five books, fiction and non-fiction that I want to write before the end of my life. They need to be done, so I will do them.
Some of my work requires me sitting in front of this monitor and typing away on a keyboard. But most of the work happens when I go for long walks. More happens in the wee hours of the morning waiting for the sunrise. Those are the hours I snuggle beneath a quilt and think. My stories are mostly composed in my mind. When the time comes to write them, they gush right out.
That was the way it was this morning.
First the idea. I used to spend a lot of time at Seymour's Aquatic Center doing arthritis exercises. The exercises were boring so I talked to the lifeguards. I used them as characters but I also told my stories and gossiped with them. One day I asked if they found my chatter annoying. They were too polite to say so and I had no intention of stopping but I began to think about an old woman who would leave the guards alone. Then I started asking the kids how they would murder someone in the pool. Or if someone nasty began to drown, would they save him or her?
I wrote the idea in my idea book.Then I put the story on the back burner and let it stew there for two years.
Most of the last three weeks we three writers at Black Coffee Fiction have been thinking about our next collection which will be out as an e-book next week and perhaps two weeks later as a paperback. In the past weeks, Gary and I have been moving from campsite to campsite then getting kicked out of the last one by the government shutdown. Until this morning, I really didn't have time to sit down and write.
However, it was no problem because I had been walking, blanket snuggling and thinking for the past few days. I sat down here at 7:00 a.m. By 10:00 a.m. I had my story done, or Part One. We try not to have more than 3,000 words and in three hours of writing, I had a story that was way too long. I had to leave poor Gladys lying on the floor in a shower room at the aquatic center. Readers will have to wait to find out what happens next.
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