I am writing the final edit (hopefully) of my novel, and I’ve learned a lot. Let me share with you some things that you may or may not know about novel writing:

• In elementary school, I remember a homework assignment in which we had to write sentences using at least five adjectives and/or adverbs.  It led me to believe that good writers used them a lot.  WRONG.  At least in fiction writing, the use of adjectives and adverbs is considered LAZY.
  • Instead of saying, “He spoke angrily.”
  • It is much better to describe the man like this:
    • His face reddened,and you could see the veins pop out of his neck.  He glared at the girl and said, “No.”
• When I first thought about writing a novel, I wanted to show a protagonist who had spiritual strength.  Very quickly I learned, that in order to do this, you must create conflict.  You have to be willing to make your characters SUFFER.  Think of some of the most edge-of-your seat movies that have you seen.  Were the main characters suffering?  You bet.  I remember someone saying that they only wanted to read positive books.  Well, if you want to read spiritual books that are not fiction, then that’s okay.  But in fiction, books get pretty boring if there is no conflict and no suffering.  That is also why soap operas never have complete resolution.
• Making your character suffer may include violence.  These scenes are hard for me to write.  On the other hand, I love my villain.  In fact, I wish I could bring him to life and introduce him to a couple people.
• Romantic scenes were also hard for me to write.  As a Catholic convert, I have taken up the guilt aspect of the religion quite naturally.  In order to write a love scene, you have to fantasize a romance.  I wondered if, by doing this, I was being unfaithful to my husband and committing a sin.  I even asked a priest.  He laughed and said, “No.”
• Point-of-view is a huge decision.  My first couple of drafts were in the third person.  After some frustration, I decided it would give me more freedom by writing in the first person.  Therefore, I rewrote the ENTIRE draft in the first person.
• Setting is also a huge decision.  After much thought, I decided to set my novel in the eighties. My protagonist is in her twenties, and I was also in my twenties in the eighties.  This makes it is easier for me to tell her story.  I grew up with less  technology, and so does my main character.
• Tying up all the strings and making the story realistic is much harder than you think.  If you are a lounging-on-the-couch critic of every movie and TV show you watch saying, “That’s not possible,” or “That’s not realistic,” I challenge you to give it try.
• Many of the movies that I watch are horribly written.  This gives me hope that I have a chance to get published.
• While I’m not a perfect writer in that I have forgotten many of the rules of grammar, I am hoping that, because I have a good story, it will make up for it.  There are many books that are not well-written but have a good story and have become best sellers.
• When editing my rough draft, there were sections that I don’t even remember writing.  I was surprised at how good the writing was.  On the other hand, there were some sections that made me cringe.
• When you are writing a big book with over 100,000 words, sometimes you forget details.  For example, I named a church St. Mary’s at the beginning of the book and realized that I referred to it as St. Elizabeth’s towards the end of the book.
• Sometimes, pieces of my story fit together without any conscious thought or effort on my part.  I found this to be the most amazing and rewarding part of writing.
• A spiritual director, a priest, once told me, “People will name your gifts.”  Because I have been told that I was a good writer, I decided to try and develop this talent as one of God’s gifts to me.  This is the main reason that I challenged myself to write a novel.
• I won’t be heartbroken if my novel doesn’t sell.  I just want to bring the project to completion.  I have learned so much, and it is a much more constructive hobby than TV watching or living on social media.

Hello again!  How have you been?  It’s been over a year.  My last post was in October of 2016. Since then, a lot has happened.  My beloved cat, Oscar, whose picture is on this website, died at age 13.  I have since adopted a new cat, Zeke, whom I love just as much.  Our beautiful dog, Buffy, died, too, of lymphoma.  We now have a new puppy, Tawny.  I got braces.  I’ve been to Charleston, San Antonio, Vermont, and Newport, Rhode Island.  We have a new president… Well, that’s where it ended, because I lost a lot of faith in humanity and lost my desire for unity. I also lost my desire to connect and to write.

Now, I have decided to come back and write again. I’m not sure what my focus will be, entirely, but I do know that I must write.  Warning:  It might get political.