My writing as of late has been sketchy. I write almost every day in my journal – three pages, thanks to Artist’s Way training. Right now I’m working my way through Cameron’s The Vein of Gold… getting off to a slow start because I find the Narrative Timeline assignment so challenging. The focus is to write everything you can remember about your life. Well, my Narrative Timeline is slowly coming to life. I’m up to about third grade now. I wonder if I’m dragging myself through this at a snail’s pace because I’m afraid to write about my teen years.
Last year I did an autobiographical manuscript, and at that time also wouldn’t go past about third grade. I really need to keep going. I’m so reluctant, however, that I’ve set my goal at only 1/2 page daily. I figure I can do at least that, and of course usually exceed the goal by about 1/4 page. (Not much!)
Another book I’m working my way through now is Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I find this to be absolutely fascinating, because I’ve always loved to do artwork: drawings, paintings, whatever. But… I’ve also felt very untalented at it. Now I realize that’s because I never had much right-brain training as a child and at the time that my school dropped art from the curriculum in favor of left-brained activities (reading and math) I wasn’t able to function well enough as an artist to keep it up. Like most children, I took a look at the few very talented artists, felt I could never compare, and quit, for the most part.
Actually, art has stayed with me in small bits over the years, but now I’m determined to learn how to draw realistically… how to let my skills mature… and how to practice drawing daily.
So… this week in my journal I wrote a short article about sketching. I’m no expert but I wrote what I’ve learned so far. I still need to type that up. I think I’ll be posting it at Helium – a site I’ve never written for before. I have a few friends who write there. Then yesterday I wrote another short article about plotting… this time at the request of a friend in a critique group who wants to start a database of writing help information. My new plotting article will go either at Helium or on this blog. I’m undecided at this time.
Also this morning I wrote a third query letter for one of my novels. This time I disregarded all the conventional advice and wrote from my heart, exactly what I’d like to be able to tell an agent about my project. I asked critique group friends for help and of course got told not to include certain things – such as that this is part of a series I’ve already written. I know, I keep hearing that agents don’t care to hear this kind of news. Still, I felt that my novel’s inability to attract an agent’s commitment so far may be because I haven’t presented it well in the query letters I sent. Actually, I’ve queried only five or six agents so far, so perhaps I just need to keep trying. I don’t want to run out of agents to query before I get the presentation perfected.
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