Work-in-Progress

I haven’t blogged for some time.

The need to connect with the outside world has atrophied in me since I started working on my new novel.

I write every day, bright and early.

I never think past the scene I’m about to write that day.

I write that scene honestly well and that scene always breeds the next scene for the next day.

I don’t overwrite, for I know, as a reader, I like to participate in a scene.

I stop where I still have something to say so the next day I won’t face a dry well.

I read each day and in between my writing breaks to keep my mind off my own writing.

I don't believe in any other rules except mine.

There is another rule, though. I never talk about or show my work-in-progress. In my writer’s primitive mind, I understand that a novel is the whole assemblage of parts. A lyrically written passage might garner compliments from friends or blog readers, but it’s not the novel. I also understand that, again in a primitive way, I should never fall in love with my writing. Then I won’t have the urge to show my work piecemeal to anyone who would tell me that I can write. Well, I’m a writer. Why do I need to be told that I can write?

For those who are still unsure of themselves about their chosen trade, read this:

I even read aloud the part of the novel that I had rewritten, which is about as low as a writer can get and much more dangerous for him as a writer than glacier skiing unroped before the full winter snowfall has set over the crevices.

That was what I would think if I had been functioning as a professional although, if I had been functioning as a professional, I would never have read it to them. [Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast]

[Image source: http://motoxstores.com]