Un-wise words about writing...

Don't do it. See, writing takes a very long time. Some parts go more quickly, like the dialogue, or when I'm off-and-running with a specific image, but in general I wrote very few pages for my fiction class compared to the amount I devoted.

I'm working toward a first chapter. But when I reach that pinnacle, there will need to be a second. I get so distracted. Stephen King is helpful there: "It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl."

Hopefully the pages of dirt will form together into something that, if not shiny, at least looks a little more polished. But that's a broad semester-long goal. Good news: I have a title and an opening. It begins thus: "My first death threat comes after six days of unpacking." Seems to me all good stories involve the death of something: dreams, mysteries, people. I hope writing one won't lead to the death of my sanity.

A first sentence takes work, you know. I wanted to immediately establish my first-person narcissist narrator. Suggest there will be further threats. Show that, due to a recent move, everything has changed. Use present tense for immediacy. Place this story within the realm of mystery/thriller without dark, stormy cliches. Be terse (I tend toward meandering sentences). And toss a Biblical allusion in there for kicks (more on that in the second sentence). I wonder if Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer put this much thought into every line. Maybe they are wise and they just write, without TV breaks or soporific contemplation or blogging.

More advice: Know your characters' names. Halfway through, Evan mutated into Chris, and Ariel went through this whole Rachel-Mary phase. No wonder why they have few friends.