You’re a _____, not a _____!

Thought of the day (after seeing Thor) – “You’re a ____, not a ____.” Those lines work when they make sense. I have one in the opening page of my current project. It works in context.

“Jane, you’re an astrophysicist, not a storm chaser.”

The line fails. She’s a scientist, she has storm chasing equipment. Perhaps if it had been followed by “You should be in the lab not out her in the middle of nowhere” it would have succeeded. As it stands, it serves only to tell the audience our character’s name and profession. That blatancy took me out of the story.

Reworked line: “You’re an astrophysicist. You should be in the lab, not out chasing storms.”

Compositional Brainstorming

This week was meant to be about composition. I’ve a general outline for a new project and was hoping to put words to paper. Not background words, not scene summaries or character profiles, but honest to goodness words that a reader might actually see.

Instead, brainstorming has generated a slew of ideas that simply will not work for this project. They are, however, perfect for three other projects at various stages of development. I fought it, tried to regain my focus…

Nothing doing.

So, I’ve surrendered to the cruel taskmistress that is my muse and am switching between three to four different Scrivener project files as ideas manifest. Here’s hoping the ideas go into the correct project file, else my Iraqi war veteran doctor might find herself marooned on an alien planet, which…hey, that’s not a bad idea.

Darn it, now I have five project files.

I ask you, is this any way to run a railroad?

Reading Plan

You can’t survive today on what you ate last week. What does that mean for the writer? Besides that he must eat semi-regularly to fuel his body, he must also read to fuel his creativity. Sure, I’ve read thousands of books in my life, but I haven’t read all that many lately. My reading this year has been limited mostly to short and serialized fiction. I’ve watched and analyzed television and movies also. But I’m not a television writer. I’m an unpublished novelist. I need to read novels.

 So, it’s time for a reading plan. Before me I have works by Alan Dean Foster, Greg Rucka, Orson Scott Card, Elmore Leonard, as well as other selections not to be named. (Hey, Danielle Steele and Nicholas Sparks are terrific writers. Hold on, let me verify that. Okay, Danielle Steele is a terrific writer). The television is unplugged. The DVDs are packed up. The podcast aggregator is uninstalled. And the media files–all legally obtained, thank you very much–are removed from my PC and transferred to not-easily-accessible external hard drives.

 For the next month, it’s nothing but novels. No media will be consumed that is not in the form of the written word. There, I feel better.

 Wait, do audio books count?

 

Joseph Aland

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Joseph

Joseph Aland