Easy Like Sunday Morning

This morning's clouds are scattered with blue and lit with a brightness that just might contain some sunshine. There is a busy day ahead of me (as it's the last non-working day before my road trip) so I'm really enjoying this quiet time in the library with a cup of coffee and the steady tick of a clock. Time does not feel rushed...yet.

This past week has been full. The majority of my time not spent at work has been about pre-trip errands and graduation stuff. And when it hasn't been that it's been about reading books (I have two assignments to finish by the end of the month) and rewrites.

Tuesday I spent an hour on the phone discussing and brainstorming with my critique partner. There is one last problem (and it's a significant one) I have to work out. It won't change the heart of the story, but it provides a very important context for the reader. We brainstormed several ideas/solutions and in the end I thought of something that just might work. We hung up and I went outside to see what Zelda was up to and the idea began to put down some roots started to grow. Partly because of time and partly because of choice, I haven't worked on my revisions since then. But what I have been working on has been really promising. I'm making some smart choices and I've really been able to get the characters back to where they should be.

This whole process has taught me so much about writing and about reading. One very important lesson that I've learned is that you will never fool a smart reader.

The past few weeks (and I'm pretty sure I wrote about it once before) there has been great discussion about Story. It's a theme that's been recurring in my life over the past month. Story is king. Story rules all. You can have the best characters, the best dialogue, the most clever sentences and brilliant prose, but if you don't have story, you don't have anything. Readers (and writers) need story.

There's been something passed around the internet this week that was absolutely perfect for all this Story talk. Before I had a chance to pass it to my critique partner, she sent it to me. It's the 22 Rules of Storytelling According to Pixar and it's got 22 useful things for any writer/storyteller to consider.

Soon I will be traveling and I imagine my characters will tag along on this journey. It's been too long since I took to the road and I'm really looking forward to the time in the car listening to good music, watching the world pass by, and letting my thoughts wander. Until then, I've got a few things to check of my To Do list...