My hard hat looks suspiciously like a Dollar Store tiara, complete with gaudy faux jewels, and a red light that flashes in the purple heart when you press it. I was wearing it last night, and my oldest son would press the heart every time he walked by me.
But I digress, as I'm prone to do.
Right now, I feel like I'm a builder, working on finishing my WIP, so that I can turn it in to my editor on time (um, next week), and my crit partner and dearest friend, Sherry (Shara) Jones, just scrapped 6 chapters of her WIP, in order to start over again, fresh. It got me thinking about the process of writing. We all write differently and there's really no "right" way to do it, but there things we all do in common.
Laying the Foundation
Introduction of main characters
Introduction of the plot and/or conflict
Laying the Bricks
Goals, conflict, motivation-- the externals, the internals-- just what makes these people tick? Making the characters come alive and seem real, worth caring about and rooting for.
The Mortor
This is what holds it altogether. This is how we use all the tools available in our writer's tool box: dialogue, action, narration, exposition, description, voice, word choice--- This is the way we tell our story, the details we include to interest the reader, intrigue them into continue reading.
While our writing processes are varied, I like to think our goals are the same: to write a novel that others will fall in love with. It doesn't matter how you get it written. It only matters that you just write it.
Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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