Writing a Garden

After the very somber mood of yesterday's post I didn't feel like writing today but I have something to share with you.

One of my daughter's little pals came over for a play date yesterday and the Mommy and I are pretty good friends. She's not a writer but likes to read. I told her about the new story and described it to her, then I told her what I wanted to do to it. Either write it as a straight up romance or take it to the next level and make it women's fiction. The story I refer to as "Genna & Tony" -- Then I told her HOW I was going to do that.

I explained the difference between panster and outliner, then I explained the three act as opposed to the five act story arc, how many scenes per act, how many pages per scene, and what happens at the end between the climax and the denoument. And how, one would ultimately get to the end. She was fascinated and totally blown away that writing a book isn't about just sitting at a typewriter and banging the keyboard all day. I told her what most writers go through, how we have to query, then wait, then query some more, pray to the gods we get an agent, then pray some more we get picked up by a publisher and then, even with the money, how it's not all Danielle Steele and Dan Brown.

She said to me, "So you'll never be rich." And I said "No, of course not." And she said, "Then what are you doing it for?" and I said, "Because I have to. It's in my soul. Like some people paint, or write poetry, I have to write. If I didn't, I'd go nuts." She thought I was nuts that I would waste all this time working on something that might never get published, never make money is what she really meant. I then explained to her that writing, to me, was like growing a garden. You til the soil, you put your compost in, til it again, sow your rows, plant your seeds, water and sunshine and hope for the best. Last year I had lettuce and onions but no tomatoes and no watermelon. The soil composition was wrong for those two plants, so this year I have to try something different.

Last year I wrote and queried Masquerade this year I'm writing/finishing Genna & Tony (God help me I have got to find a title for that story). Hopefully I'll be finished by the end of May and then I can edit over the summer, query by the fall. As I was talking to Lulu (my friend) and telling her about the book, more of the story began to emerge and I now have the beginning of Genna & Tony, I also found the glich, I also found her guilt (And when I tell you what it is you will say I am the MOST BRILLIANT WRITER IN THE WORLD) but I can't tell you now, because it's still in my head and I have to get it on paper. I've also found a few more little plots, Robby and Lauren, the cancer scare and I think Fortuna may have the beginning of Alheimer's, I'm not sure yet. It might just be that vitamin deficiency thing.

Can you tell I am excited about this? I really am. Sarah over at Falen Formulates Fiction had this totally cool scene thingy posted on her blog the other day with all different colored post it notes and I just thought that was way cool and I think I'm going to use that with this book. There are so many places this could go, but I like what I've got so far. Now I just have to write it. (And I'm sorry for not linking but it was Thursday's post there's a picture of it.)

So my dearest friends, this weekend I am playing with pen and paper and getting the outline done. I've also some conversations in the pad in the car that need to come to Word, and I've got to really really really get all those new scenes down before I forget them.

I've also got to try and get the fence posts in, 8 in all, and I'm really not into digging 2 feet deep times 8, but I really have no choice. I promised my dogs last summer that they would have free reign over the back yard. I'm such a bad Mommy.

Have a great weekend everyone, and if I don't see you, you'll know that I'm working on something.