Gammelor Goodenow

First Drafts

I have to keep reminding myself that the most important thing about first drafts of novels is to get them done. The urge to find the best word, the smoothest phrasing, the perfect rhythm is a continuing itch, and I must fight the urge to scratch. Left to my natural inclination, I would end up with a few paragraphs polished to perfection (and then most likely into oblivion) and never finish a single chapter.

It’s a first draft–it doesn’t have to be good, it just needs to be completed.

Carnival Ride

Take your handgun

on the Ferris wheel–

Everyone’s doing it,

mustn’t be unarmed.

Where would we be

if a lonely gunman

opened fire on us

and we could not reply

with skyrocket bullets

and Roman candle gore.

One of the best things about knitting is also one of the best things about writing–you can always fix it. And with writing, it’s even better, because no matter how many times you frog it back to the beginning (rip-it rip-it ribbet), your words never get too frayed to use over.

I love reading Elizabeth Gaskell. I like the idea of a cozy who-dun-it series set in Cranford, but I’m waiting for someone else to write it. Although if I were to write something of the kind, I’d have to add zombies or vampires if I wanted it to sell.

Why is it that whenever I want to write, the houseplants need watering?

Oh wait, I think I reversed the words “want” and “need” in that sentence.

I’m practicing writing in the voices of the two narrators in my crime novel. These are both rough first attempts.

Neilly

Perched as I was in my loft above the warehouse, I felt safe enough until water began, not as a trickle but as a thrusting wave, to swallow up the concrete floor below. With the power out and dark skies above, I couldn’t see much detail, but the shadows swirled and rushed, trying to escape the bounds of the steel and brick.

Then the double doors out front, a huge wooden arch that hadn’t been used since the days when the building had been a livery stable, burst free of their bolts with a splintering crack louder than the pounding rain.

Now a river ran below me, arising like a poisoned spring out of the floor near the back wall and exiting though the gaping doorway. It cleared its path of light boxes, loose pallets, anything it could float out or shove aside–but a churning mix of ragged debris flowed past–or got dropped, caught up by crates, stuck in crevices–brought down from who knows where uphill. And the smell was almost palpable, not a sewage odor but dirty oil, solvents, mold and sharp decay.

 Gray

The rain was fun at first, until I got bored and restless. I wanted to go out and tramp around, but the downpour was too much. Then my work phone rang, and I jumped across the room to grab it.

“Gray.”

“Got a call.” It was my sergeant, Eamon Maguire. “Two vics, skeletons, down the Flats.”

That meant I was the only one who could possibly get to the scene. Eamon and the rest of the team couldn’t cross the Industrial Canal, both its bridges were out. My heart kicked up a notch or two waiting for him to continue.

“Secure it. Dispatch about passage.”

“Will do, sarge.”

“And call me.”

Sometimes I think he took me on only because I can hear the words between his lines. He wanted me to protect whatever I could at the scene and to call dispatch for information about where I might be able to drive through the flooding.

Actually started working on a third voice there, too, that of Sgt. Maguire.