Good News on the Writing Front
After three false starts, my writing group says I’m on the right track with my latest draft. Attempt #1 was my draft from NaNoWriMo ‘04, #2 was modifying that to a single character, #3 was making that a four-person narrative, and now attempt #4 at novel #2 is something completely different. The three previous attempts are shelved, perhaps permanently. If I’m lucky, some stuff may work its way into this manuscript, or a future one.
I attended a panel discussion on writing at the Minneapolis Central library earlier this week. Sandra Benitez said she’d once written 50 pages that she’d had to junk. I’m fairly chagrined at the 200+ pages I have to junk, but it’s a huge relief to feel I’m finally on the right track.
The other writers on the panel were Judith Guest, her daughter-in-law Patricia Weaver Francisco, and Kate DiCamillo. Absent was Allison McGhee. All are part of a ten-person writing group, though they claim not to talk about writing, ever.
“We drink,” quipped DiCamillo, who also subverted her children’s book author persona by reading from an adult short story.
“_Adult_ adult?” asked Guest, in mock horror.
DiCamillo denied it, but the excerpt she read contained not only profanity (”I used ‘asshole’ so you know I mean business,” she joked) but a 60-foot tall sculpture of a knight that she described as “erect.” The suggestive adjective was one that Charlotte Bronte used several times in Jane Eyre, a book DiCamillo also evoked in her Newbery-award book The Tale of Despereaux, with her direct addresses to the reader.
The panel was fun, though superficial, and the few things I took away were only implied: writing is easier without kids, or when kids are older. Minnesota is a good place for a transplanted writer to live. And a late start isn’t a barrier to writing success.