New Year's Resolution: Learn to Write!

What are your plans for 2009? Have you made any resolutions? I can't help you lose weight or quit smoking, but I might be able to help with another popular resolution. If you're one of the many folks who have promised yourself that 2009 will be the year you finally start writing, why not take a course? Sometimes the structure of a course, with its guided excercises and deadlines, is all you need! I'm telling you this now because I'm in line to teach "Essential Beginnings" through the UCLA Extension writers program in January. "Essential Beginnings" is a six-week workshop designed to get anyone up and writing in a supportive and encouraging environment. Curious? Check out my course (and hundreds more) here.

Remembering to forget...

It's not like I don't have enough on my plate. I've got the revisions of "Probable Claws" to finish up (luckily, my editor is on vacation, which gives me some breathing room). And I've got my summer writing class to teach. But my agent is sending out my non-Theda manuscript this week, and so the time feels right to start on an entirely brand new project.

Sometimes, this part is easy. On Saturday, sitting at a cafe in Harvard Square, I started writing notes and bits of dialogue. They came from nowhere. But once I finally sat down to type them up and enlarge on them, I found myself second guessing everything. Should I start with a simple scene? Not let the narrator intrude so soon? Was I rushing the action, or was the pacing natural?

At some point last night, I remembered: I can't worry about this now. I've just got to get what's in my head out on paper. I can fix it up later. Years ago, a friend quoted pub rocker Nick Lowe to me, saying, "Bash it out now. Tart it up later." But, especially while revising "Probable Claws" and after polishing up the other ms., it's so hard to turn off that internal editor and just write!!

Anyone have any advice?

When your book comes out, your life changes...

Right?

Well, that's what I used to think and it is what a lot of aspiring novelists think. And so, since I teach writing at the UCLA Extension School (yup, I'm in New England – I do it online), I blogged today on the UCLA Writers' Program blog about what it feels like when those boxes arrive – and what you can look forward to!

On a lighter side, one of the lovely things about being published is that other people interview you and you get to just sit back. Sandra Parshall (a wonderful mystery writer herself!) did that for me today on her blog Poe's Deadly Daughters and local freelancer Rachel Lebeaux did me the honors in this week's Cambridge Chronicle. Thanks, folks!

On another note entirely:
My review of a wonderful book, Farewell, Shanghai just ran in the San Francisco Chronicle. Not crime fiction, but an exquisite, involving World War II story.


And finally... a week late, but how can I resist?