Recently John Le Carré gave CBS’s Sixty Minutes five tips for novel writers. You can find them here. One was easy: “Keep a travel journal.” Some were lessons I learned the hard way: “Make the verb to the work,” and “Start your story as late as possible. One is giving me fits.
“Start writing at 7:30” is excellent advice. When I hit my desk, stay off social media for the most part, put on my writing music, and get to it, I will write 1500-2000 words by lunch. If I don’t, I never make it up later in the day because too many things are rattling around in my brain. The morning news does not help (today it is the Las Vegas massacre), periodic medical nonsense (not crises exactly, just the ongoing craziness of aging/mulitiple doctors/insurance roadblocks and so on), and family whatnot do not help. Today is one of those days.
I’ve done what I can. The music is going on. I’m stepping into The Unexpected Wife. (Charles has finally arrived in Macau and Zambak isn’t happy. She thinks her father sent him. He did.)
But first, coffee!
Oh my Glenaire and his meddling ways!!!!