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Last week proved to be a busy week at my day job; my night job, prowling the streets as a vam--ooh, pardon! That's personal information for my husband and my use only. ;-)

I managed some more work on my story, though. I've decided on a last name for my protag; I did more extensive write ups on the other main characters as well as the minor ones; and found some more research on trapping feral cats (a bit of which will go into the opening scene). Today, I wrote some more scenes on index cards and numbered them in pencil. Later today or sometime tomorrow, I intend to do what James Scott Bell, channeling Robert Kernan (Building Better Plots) suggested: Shuffle the cards, then go through them two at a time. This is to see if any new connections between plot elements present themselves. If something does hit me, I'll definitely revise the structure, and go from there.

My Objective

My objective tomorrow, and the days thereafter, is to write straight through--without revising anything. This has been one of my problems of sticking with a story: Too much futzing around with what the protag says or does or whether there's a breeze or a cyclone ripping through at a certain point in the story. As Bell says, on page 4 of Plot and Structure, "Your job with the first draft is to pour yourself onto the page."

That's what I'm going to try to do. I'm going to try to quit worrying if I've got the correct words the first time around; I'll go with my instincts. And if those instincts aren't right, I'll worry about it at some point past the first draft.

Ah, another quote for me to think about, from the great Ray Bradbury (from Zen In the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity): "Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper."

His writerly output speaks for itself.

So tomorrow is going to be a good day--I'll have plenty of time to finally start writing the story!

Looking For Agents

This time, just a little tidbit. I currently subscribe to the free version of Publisher's Marketplace; the paid version is USD$20 per month. I get the free version because, well, I'm not yet hunting for an agent. When I get to that point, I'll switch over to the paid version, at least for a couple of months (you can pay for it on a month-to-month basis; nice).

You'll get an overview of what's going on in publishing, from deals, to personnel changes, to interesting web articles on the movers and shakers in the publishing world, and even a job board. You can get an idea about which publishers are buying what from which agents/agencies, and even a range of the advance the author received.

By the way, you'll note there are plenty of debut authors; the email specifically marks those as such. Don't believe anyone who tells you new authors aren't published anymore. Think about it: Tom Clancy and whoever else you can think of were all once debut authors.

Something to nibble on.

You can subscribe to the free Lunch here.

As always, keep writing!