I had a double dose of walks this week, one to the old church at Puntagorda and one around La Salemera. I’m not getting noticeably fitter, but I had fun and took lots of photos.
I’m reading through “Murder by Starlight” aloud. The friend who recommended this is quite right; you catch a lot of little things that you missed all the other times through. The trouble is, it’s very irritating for anyone else in the room so you do need to be alone and that slows me down. I managed 14 chapters this week though so now I’m up to chapter 68.
I’ve been re-reading “Story” by Robert McKee which is all about how to structure a good story. McKee focuses on screenwriting, but lots of things are the same with novels. A novel needs about 80 scenes. He makes the point that the best way to produce 80 great scenes is to have ideas for hundreds of scenes, and then be selective.
Hundreds of scene ideas. [Gulp]
I also came across the idea of pushing yourself ot produce ten ideas a day. Never mind if they’re good ideas, just bash out 10 ideas every day, and you’ll get better at ideas.
This sounds logical, so I’ve put the two things together. I’ve been producing 10 ideas for “Pinch Me” every day. They’re mostly crappy ideas, but some of them might be useable. More importantly, in five days it’s already noticeably easier. I’m going to keep doing this.
I’ve made almost no progress on finding an agent for “Murder by Starlight” so that’s next week’s priority.
