Meandering On Monday with Janet Lane Walters #amwriting

What an interesting thing I discovered when I opened the dashboard this morning. I have 111 followers and have posted 1111 new blog entries. Guess the ones have it. The only thing that would have been more interesting would be for this to have happened on the 11th month and 11th day of the year. Guess one can't have everyhting fall into place. But that's the lot of a writer.

Second meander is about something that happens every time I start a new story. Of course it happened this time as well. In the rough draft, I begin writing down the words, or "making words" as my granddaughter used to say when she sent people away from my study door. Sometime during the writing of this first chapter, it comes to me that what I have written is "drek". Not only "drek" but boring sentences and paragraphs. Usually there is too much back story piled in paragraph after paragraph. How could I have written this? But I did and I suppose it will happen every time. Suddenly the light goes on, this time after only 2000 words written. Better than sometimes. Perhaps I am learning. I would hope so after all I've been writing for 45 years. Not always every day or even every week but that's since the first short story published. But I have a new beginning and I'm starting with a minor change in my heroine's life. The second scene in the story will be a change in the hero's life, one that's a bit more than her change.

Third meander is about critique groups. I've been a member of the same one for 20 plus years and have seen people come and go. When we started we had some rules to keep the group on task. What I need to do is sit down and try to remember them, write them out and pass them to the many new members of the group so we all get on the same page. The rules were rather simple. One I remember is "You don't defend" and can only respond if you are asked a question when it's your time. Another is that 5 to 10 pages double spaced are what can be read and if the group is large, you try for the lower level of pages. The third involved things to look for when you're critiquing and don't repeat what everyone else has said. The last one involved praise and not to go on and on. I'll be working on this before our next meeting, send it to a friend who has been part of the group, perhaps not as long as I have been but close.

As to writing. Am typing the changes into Shattered Dream. Finally found the time line for The Goddesses of Soluer. That was a real time since the original draft found was more than 150,000 words in length and rough so I've divided it into two. And I'm roughing in Shadowed Dreams, the second novella or short novel.