Trailings from a writer’s life

Random notes in no particular order:

1. Consider each chapter a movie – beginning, middle, and end – conflict and some resolution. Boy meets girl etc.
2. My characters don’t lie … it’s one of my defects.
3. Any time it sounds like writing, cut!
4. Always go for RIGHT BRAIN revisions
5. Each book is unique, special, fragile in its own way. Honor it.
6. Talk to your readers. Like in a smoky bar.
7. Rereading an old favorite, only to realize how much my own standards have risen.
8. Certainly, there is room for a range of Midwestern writing as well – and for recognition of the manifold subtleties among the smaller localities within that country. It ain’t as bland as you’d think.
9. “Riotous complexity moving swiftly within a basic unity” (from How the Irish Saved Civilization) … not a bad formula for creativity, is it?
10. What was I really hoping to accomplish, back when there were only 500 new novels a week?