bookkeeping

[truepenny]

Thank you, papersky and heres_luck, for offering advice which was both sensible and what I wanted to hear. I love it when those two things coincide.

The Second Son: 650 words

Other work accomplished: read the chapter on Hamlet in Shakespearean Tragedy and Its Double. Can now proceed to get Cartwright into my chapter on Hamlet. Also slept. Mirrorthaw remarked when he came home this evening that I look washed out, so I'm choosing to regard the nap as wise rather than merely self-indulgent.

Verdict: Not too bad.

And you're stopping because? 1. I'm tired. 2. I've never successfully written a mystery, and thus I'm not quite sure what I'm doing. (Speaking of which, the most useless book of writing advice I've ever read was the one put out by the Mystery Writers of America, the title of which I cannot at this moment recall. Much infuriating nonsense about "following the rules" and nothing of any practical value whatsoever.) This seems like a good moment to pause and reflect.

Comments

[zzrg.livejournal.com]

Mystery: a story where a fact that the reader or protagonist does not know becomes more and more important creating dramatic tension during the course of the story.

Maybe helpful, maybe not. I am only on my first cup of coffee.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I've never written a mystery either, but I suspect you have to know what's going on before you start.

It'll work out.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, sitting in the car mechanic's waiting room (routine maintenance, nothing scary) I was recompensed for the splitting headache--the waiting room faces east and has a sort of sunroom arrangement for kids to play in and NO BLINDS and all those damn cars in the damn parking lot for the light to reflect off of--by figuring out a great many of the things I didn't know yesterday. I'm going to go lie down now and hope I can get the headache to go away, but I'm pleased about the plot progress.