Patricia's Rule of Writing #27

[pbray]

If you've been struggling with a scene all morning, trying to figure out why it's not flowing...

...the solution will occur to you just as you've closed your wordprocessor and started to shut down your computer.

Which is why my epiphanies wind up scribbled on pieces of paper--there's never a good brainstorm when you've got the wordprocessor open and your hands on the keyboard.

In other news, yesterday matociquala and arcaedia helped publicize the Donors Choose request from a high school in LA that was looking for copies of Olivia Butler's The Parable of the Sower. Within hours that request was fully funded (yay interwebs!), but if folks are still feeling generous, there's a high school in Harlem that is also looking to buy The Parable of the Sower for their students. Request details are here: http://www.donorschoose.org/donors/proposal.html?id=146016.

Comments

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Very true. I even carry a notepad while biking.

If you've been struggling with a scene all morning, trying to figure out why it's not flowing...

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

....then the problem is at a higher level of structure.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

corollary #2: the very best ideas tend to occur in the shower, where it is not practical to keep a notepad to write them down on.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Au contraire mon ami, there are waterproof marker boards that can be suction cup mounted in the shower. I think it's a wax pen.

I haven't gone quite so far as to buy one, but I did research it a while back. Mostly I settle for leaping from the shower, throwing a towel around and frantically seizing both pen and paper. Then laughing later as I try to interpret the water-spotted scribblings.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

I suppose I could use SP's soap crayons ...