Diana Rowland — Writing, Life, and the Stuff in between

Isn’t that like this story

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job:_A_Comedy_of_Justice

This is not going to be a comedy. More like a noir mystery.

I didn’t think that story was a comedy….just thought it might be something interesting for background.

Diana

I suggest you forget trying to get the start right. Just write. The start will rise up and force you to the keyboard and you will bless those hours and days you spent learning to touch type because your tears will stream down your face and you will not be able to see the keyboard as your fingers pour your heart into the words.

Stuart Woods tacked a prologue onto the beginning of _Chiefs_ because the novel started slowly otherwise. The prologue hints at mystery. The original beginning did not.

Here is what happened to me.

I had an idea for a short story. Or so I told myself. It burned out of me in a 10 day blitz of 3000 words-a-day and totaled 125 pages.

I slept for nearly two days after that. When I read the thing, at the end I thought, “It’s not finished.”

Called what I had written Part I. Wrote Part II. That added 135 pages. Wrote a bridge between the parts. Another 16 pages. Decided it needed another part and another bridge. Fumbled around with Part III six times and could not get up steam to carry it to a conslusion.

Why?

Because I had not figured out what it was all about. What motivated my hero?

Then one Sunday afternoon, I was driving home from my writing group, mulling over the story while I sat at a red light when it hit me. And I knew what the story was about. And I knew what motivated my hero. And I knew that I had to change the title.

I drove home through my tears. I staggered through the front door, leaving it wide open in my rush to get the keyboard. I sobbed while my computer booted. I pounded keys that I could not see for my tears. And when the pounding was done, I saved the Prelude. 800 words of longing and love and loss.

Part III flowed like the clearest pinot noir after that. I revised everything to conform to the new vision. The bridges got slashed. One is 5 pages; the other, 8. Added a postlude. Total: 97,000 words.

I wrote the beginning 2 years after I started writing the story.

Just write. The beginning will come.

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