writerly

[likethebeer]

Yesterday, before I really delved into working on the food for the fest, I got to listen to 1/2 hour with one of the authors, Larry Watson. He gave the mantra "just write every day." After dealing with his own guilt over how much time he spent w/his family, his writing, and his students, he devised his own approach to writing, which I thought was interesting. He writes for 15 minutes a day. That's it. But those 15 minutes he has learned to use well. Throughout the day, in his spare moments, he thinks about what he's going to write in order to maximize his time. He also noted that 15 minutes a day, over a couple of years, does add up to a novel.

After I got home yesterday and had my beer on the deck while resting my tired, tired legs, I finally got up and took out the manuscript of my book about tours and about Tal., What Time Does the 1:30 Tour Leave?. I printed it out several weeks ago, but had been afraid to look at it. I was inspired by Watson, but also Wilke, the artist, whom mda & I saw last week. Wilke talked about cutting things out of his sculptures until he got to the parts that worked.

So I went through the first 2 chapters, just an overview. There's a lot of work to be done. Especially the 1st chapter. It starts strong, but then dissolves into a bunch of bureaucratic bullshit as I describe my company, vs. the FLLW foundation, etc., etc. I've had this chapter on the computer now for awhile, but looking at it on the page, I thought, "Holy shit! Who the fuck would want to read this boring crap?" Needless to say, that will get relegated some place, or dumped all together.

I'm happy to see that, at this point, the sections that seem to work the best are when I talk about why I love the place.

I also spent time just circling "is" and "was." Jeez, I hate that verb. Why does it always crop up there?

Comments

circling "is" and "was."

[erisreg.livejournal.com]

the hard part of any writing is the editing,.. be strong,..:)

Or just starting, then stopping.

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

thanks, I hope to be ;) Now that I've amassed a decent amount of writing on the subject, cutting some of it out doesn't feel like cutting off an arm.

[livsmama.livejournal.com]

I love Larry Watson. Have you read Montana 1948?
That is good advice, thanks for posting about it. I will have to add that to things i am trying to do every day.

I am always happy to read more of your book, when you want to send it on to me :)

[likethebeer.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the offer! Still, I have lots of editing, even on a prelim scale, to do. And the book seems to lose focus at some point, which always seems to be my problem.

Montana 1948 was the book picked by Watson for the LitFest, so that's how I came to read it.