marycatelli | Entries tagged with writing flow

figuring out the weakness of the opening: it's two scenes, and the first is mostly info-dumping.

It should start in the forest, talking about firebirds and golden stags and info-dumping there, because it's not much information, actually.

So all I have to do is dump four pages and rewrite. Which is trivial. I've done much more.

sigh So I'm still bracing myself for it. The writing life.

Crossposts: https://marycatelli.livejournal.com/1262175.html

"Of all plots and actions the episodic are the worst. I call a plot 'episodic' in which the episodes or acts succeed one another without probable or necessary sequence." -- Aristotle

"When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand." -- Raymond Chandler
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So I was scribbling along on a story at lunch and went dry -- went poking among the old stories --
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Sometimes the story is a logjam of inspirations.

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Faced with such lackluster advice as "less than four books a year," a brave soul has stepped up to the plate to definitely answer questions about speed in writing:

However, the piece did reveal an obvious, crying need in the book industry for a real answer to an important question: exactly what speed should a novelist operate at in order to produce a genuine, quality novel?

We have been working tirelessly all week to provide this answer. Here are our results.

Question: what is the correct number of novels a novelist should write in a year?

Answer:

Based on our calculations -- 1.736

Full essay here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/g-doucette/how-many-novels-should-yo_b_8158196.html

Pay particular attention to how many words you should write a day.

You know when I finished the outline on my superhero story, I thought it was light on action and heavy on talk and philosophy, all things consider. Ah, well, it was based on a philosophical notion. . .

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I even know the answer this year: if and only if I get the outline done!

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Word quotas can be a wonderful thing to keep you going. Particularly if you are wise enough to set your daily quota higher than the usual number of words you need to get warm to your work.

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Keeping a story going in a straight line is not a good idea. Even on a microlevel, it should keep doubling back, surprising the reader.

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There is one little disadvantage to lugging about long-hand writing to work on in odd gaps of time.

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One advantage about writing by hand is that you get going and write much more quickly than for a computer. Which means it can be carried out while waiting for the oil change, or the dentist appointment.

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Aristotle observed somewhere that the one essential gift for a poet (read imaginative author), the only one that could not be taught, was an eye for resemblances.

And the muse, being metaphorical herself, can come up with a number for the work of writing as well as the matter. (Though, like all analogies, they are imprecise; a precise metaphor would cease to be a metaphor and become an identity.)
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John Gardner at one point says that writing exercises are good practice for writing because a lot of the time you are not writing stuff out of a deep and passionate desire to write that stuff, but because it is needed for the story.

How true.
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It can be interesting looking back in time.

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Sometimes you put a story on the backburner for a couple days, or a week, or two. It is flat, stale, and profitable.

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You've got to do it some of the time, or no story will ever get done. (Maybe a drabble, but there's very little else that can be done in a single sitting.)

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The last two scenes were like pulling teeth.
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Completely and accurately depicted.

I try to never stop writing.

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Inspiration can be a tricky beast.

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Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

being chiefly about the written word

Entries tagged with writing flow

so that's the problem

chandler vs aristotle

the muse's mirth

fire and philosophy

how many books a year

ah, nerves

NaNo or not

the trouble with quotas

turn, turn, turn

breaking points

drabs and dribbles

the muse's metaphors

writing exercises

retrospective reflections on inspiration

the backburner

that's my story, and I'm going to stick to it

decisions, decisions

The Creative Process

writing and writing and writing and

warming to the work

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June 2025

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