Learning by Experience

I've been writing for a long time. Not only on my stories, but as a technical writer and a training developer. Sometimes it catches me by surprise when I realize how much my writing has changed. Last night I told you that I was going back to Dragon Summer, after abandoning my attempts to change Tycho Station. Parts of this story contain some of my earliest writing attempts. Tonight as I edited the Prologue, which is one of the first things I wrote, I edited out 15 pages of extraneous information. Some of it I saved for future use, but a lot of it I just deleted.

The new prologue is much better. More action, less passive voice, less "stuff" that does not belong or does not add to the story.

How did I figure out what to do? How did I know what to cut?

The biggest factor I believe is the passage of time. Hours and hours of writing. Listening to experts and reading other's work. In other words Experience.

I go back to Heinlein's Rules:
You must write
Finish what you start

If you follow those two rules, consciously or subconsciously, you gain that valuable commodity known as Experience.

At least that's what I think.

Tomorrow I will post the old and the new prologues on the exercpts page and you can judge for yourself. Right now I have to get back to the story. See how far I can get tonight before I give up.

Dave

In Compliance with Heinlein's Rules... Again!

Shifting gears in compliance with Heilein's Rules although I have been strugging with Rule Three. I thought I could make it better, but I just kept screwing it up. So I threw away the edits and I'm standing pat with the original version of Tycho Station.

So now I am working on Dragon Summer, story number 3 in the DragonHawk Saga. A lot of it is the first part of the story I ever wrote. It reads really rough. I can see a lot of wholesale delete of superfulous detail and boring technobabble.

What about story number 1, The Dragon Hunters? Maybe I will save it for NANOWRIMO in July...

Going to add a page tonight to display Heinlein's Rules.

Cheers!

Dave

Why won't you play with me?

Tonight while trying to write, I watched an interesting interchange between Baby Girl, my used to be Ferel but is still kinda wild, cat and Nawla, our five month old Australian Shepherd. Nawla was being her usual exuberant self, chasing whatever we would throw for her. Meanwhile, Baby Girl, who was sitting on the desk, decided she wanted to find a quiet spot away from the crazy dog. Nawla was taking a break, sitting on the floor by Cindy's chair chewing on a rubber dog Frisbee.
So Baby Girl quietly hopped down and eased her way across the entry, heading for the formal dining room. She got about halfway across the entry before Nawla saw that Baby Girl was down at her level. So, with ball in mouth, she hopped up and headed for the cat.
Baby Girl stopped and turned sideways, facing Nawla and arching her back.
Nawla stopped in her tracks, ball in her mouth and stared at the cat. She has already found what happens when you get too close to Big Boy or Baby Girl. They don't run. They turn and get ready to do battle.
So Nawla stopped and thought about it for a few minutes.
Then she dropped the ball and let it roll over towards Baby Girl.
The ball rolled over until it was about three inches from Baby Girl.
Baby Girl looked at the ball.
The arch in her back eased.
Nawla flopped down on her belly paws spread, tail wagging.
Baby Girl looked at Nawla.
Nawla looked at Baby Girl.
Baby Girl looked at Nawla.
Nawla looked at the ball.
I heard strange music in the background. Waa - aah!
Like the soundtrack for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly...
Baby Girl looked at Nawla.
Nawla looked at Baby Girl.
This went on for about five minutes. Long enough for me to get the camera and take a couple of pictures.
Finally Nawla got bored and when looking for her Frisbee.
Baby Girl disappeared into the formal dining room, one of her favorite hiding places.
And I got back to writing.

Now, that's more like it!

So I am sitting in the study tonight, working on my stories. I gave up trying to find anything worthwhile on the TV to watch, but I did find something to listen to. Direct TV Channel 840, 8-Tracks! Songs from the 60s and 70s rock that was on that really far out thing called the 8 track tape! Steppenwolf Monster (rather appropriate after this weekend, don't you think?), The Doors, Alan Parsons Project, Moby Grape, some really great bands! I could write all night... Maybe I will!

Rock on!

Dave

Are you bored?

Are you bored? Did you come over here because you read my challenge on my Facebook Page? Stick around, read the excerpt from Tycho Station about Varla Riss, the Lioness. Tell me what you think about her!

In Compliance with Heinlein's Rules...

I sent a query out last night to a potential agency. The query included a synopsis and the first five pages. I fudged and sent them the first six pages of The Lioness that you can read on another page of my blog. Hopefully it will do the trick.

Sometimes I'm not sure I'm not just talking to myself. If you stop by here and read my ramblings, please leave a comment.

Thanks!

Dave