Averil Dean's Blog, page 14

Honeymoon

So it begins. The book idea’s got a green light and I’m ready to start writing. Over the weekend I put together an outline and began assembling the all-important playlist, and I came up with a beautiful twist for the end of the book that surprised and delighted me so much I almost don’t want to think about it anymore, in order to preserve the fun times I anticipate having when I get there.

I’m a little suspicious at the ease with which this story is coming together. If the others seemed like e...

Pisser

This is my week for pissing people off. I had a patient call me saying he’d gone to his appointment at our office and was told he didn’t have an appointment there at all. The girl who sits at the middle desk, he said, was unbelievably rude to him. But there is no middle desk at our office, so I suggested he might have gone to the wrong place and asked if I could confirm the address with him. At which time the dude lost his mind and started screaming, Why would you even say that to me? Do you...

Dear Diary

“The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes.” – André Gide

I’m not sure whether I should tell you that I have a new story idea. This is number…what? Four? Five, since I finished Blackbird? I do hate the false starts, not only because of the anxiety they create but also because I feel foolish for getting fired up about something that won’t work. Sometimes for comfort I revisit old blog posts in which I have taken hold of and later discarded an idea that seemed re...

Blank

Fill in the blank: A writer is _________.

Dream House

You just inherited a dilapidated, crumbling-down grand mansion in the countryside. Assuming money is no issue, what do you do with it?

Aside from living in it? I’d make it a writers’ retreat house. I’d keep one little corner for my family, and the rest I would furnish with desks and cozy nooks, a big round table for meals and a garden out back where we could grow our own produce. I’d keep it a little shabby so that everyone could feel welcome to put up her feet and stroll around in jammies, bu...

Voodoo

I’ve been quiet this weekend, burying myself in Lana Del Rey playlists and reading how-to guides that advise me to outline, or not outline, or begin with a situation or a setting or a vivid character before anything else. I’ve been scouring the neo-noir and the B-list thrillers, trying to find a new jumping-off point. I’ve taken a bike ride and a long walk, smacking at the grass with a stick in case my story might be down among the prickers.

The problem is I’ve got it in my head that this book...

Ta-da!!

Today I’m pretending the fireworks are all for me.

Peach

There are a lot of things I don’t talk about on this blog. My children, for one. My sex life, my job. Diet, health, exercise. I don’t talk about how I went vegan or when or why, because a) this is a writing blog and b) vegetarians tend to sound like uptight lunatics when the topic arises. My kids showed me this video the other day of some vegan on a rant, accusing everyone else of murder and claiming the moral high ground for himself as a non-murdering environmentalist. He looked ridiculous,...

Grind

Well, the book concept is a non-starter. Too many strikes against it, too much that doesn’t work and can’t be fixed. But I had a great conversation with my agent, who gave me some new ideas about what might work and how I can better incorporate the things I love about the setting and characters into a novel that stands a fighting chance in pub-land.

Them’s the breaks. I’m not willing—at the moment, anyway—to sink a year or more into something that I know from the outset is going to be a tough...

Meadow

“Is there something you’ve always wanted to do, but never got around to starting (an activity, a hobby, or anything else, really)? Tell us about it — and tell us about what’s keeping you from doing it.”

I always thought that when I was an adult I’d have a horse. I imagined myself on shaded trails, wading through streams, loping across summer meadows with the wind in my hair and a fist full of mane. There are opportunities to do that now, but somehow I haven’t. I don’t know why.

It’s been twenty...