A New Novel . . . and A Need for 48 Hours a Day

Since my last blog post, I've been working with the Author Salon Novel Writing program and getting quite a bit out of it. I'm surprised, actually, at how useful it's been for me. It's taught me to write deeper, to think about characters differently, and to thoroughly analyze the outline before beginning. That last part was something I've always done, but this time -- with this program -- I've really gone into it far more than ever before.

Has it worked? Right now, I'm not sure. One thing I do know is that I'm writing differently. I've been putting pieces of the novel together in a mosaic fashion rather than a linear one. And I've been writing by hand. That, in itself, is slowing me down and forcing me to think about a scene completely before writing. I think that's actually a strong positive. I'm not just ripping out thousands of words without knowing where I'm going. Instead, I'm crafting sentences.

I like this much better.

More as the process continues . . . I have almost 100 pages done, so far, and I'm going to put my final lesson onto the website within the next week.