Summer Nights

Sat down to write and found nothing was coming. Distracted by music as usual, because music is a big enemy of writing, but there was another thing, too---I was waiting for nightfall to arrive. The atmosphere of the current piece almost requires it. The summer does strange things to you. Currently, I'm describing the early life of a young woman. So many times in the past the writing has been caught up in short and sweet situations, but I recently read THE DEAD ZONE by Stephen King (that guy again), and although I wasn't overly impressed, the darn thing kept getting better the longer it went on. And by the end he was telling the life of a character called GREG STILLSON, a fascinating individual, from start to finish. That is storytelling proper, I realised, when you begin to summarise whole lives from beginning to end. So that's what I'm doing at the moment. I'm in a pure fantasy land. This section of the book is a result of a song (see how I've gone back to the music thing here). A song from a band I discovered a year ago. What it made me think of, the imagery I got in my mind, has become part of the tale.


It made me think of combat. Skilled combat. Between two opposing rulers. And I'll leave it there for now. Don't want to give too much away. But what I will say is this part of the first draft written in biro pen, when being typed up, is expanding wildly. Maybe up to five times longer. There's really no equal to writing like the masters did, with ink, and then keying it up six months later, filling in the blanks, veering off on a tangent, then coming back to tackle the next line.


Okay. Keep writing, and writing will keep you. Or doing whatever it is you do.