FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for January 25, 2022

“Sometimes we writers take hours just to find the right words.” ~Snoopy

Maybe the Shining started this way where the writer was heckled by ghosts.

In my experience, you don’t always need to start with the first word of the first sentence of chapter one.

It may have been a dark and stormy night.

“ It was the best of times; it was the blurst of times…”

James Joyce reportedly once said, “I got seven words today…but I don’t know what order they go in!”

Prior to word processors you pretty much had to start at the beginning and keep writing until the end.

Now the fear of physically copying and pasting and retyping is gone. Also you can go through a passage knowing that it is crap and knowing that you can go and fix it later.

Very often in my writing I have islands of text that I have to go back and connect with bridges.

My characters do not always behave the way I want them to. They do unexpected things. I find I have to go back and rearrange history to make what they eventually do plausible.

I find it always easier to just daydream for a while and then a story will come!

It doesn’t.

My novel has started out just fine, so far, I have “It was”, still working on the rest of it, not getting any easier.

Total lack of talent would have written a lot of words.. but the “story” would be horrible

“The” Well I’m stumped.

The writing is the easiest part, its the brain surgery that’s the hardest

Does he actually have any ideas? Because getting the right words and written is hard, but there should be an idea behind the initiative to write to indicate any talent.

“Oh, it’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ all over again!”

I know, “It was a dark and stormy night.”

\\//_

That first word is a cork holding back the flood of creativity.

It was a dark and stormy night