Pat Bean's blog

The landscape along Highway 95 in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area dwarfs my RV, Gypsy Lee. -- Photo by Pat Bean

My Favorite Places: Glen Canyon

Highway 95 Bridge across the Colorado River in Utah. -- Photo by Pat Bean

“A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all.” —  William Sansom

NaNoWriMo Update – 23,643 words

Continuing with the 5 a.m. start. The writing came slow at first but then it picked up momentum. This one scene, where a self-righteous hypocrite and her lover get caught with their pants down, was a joy to write. I had wanted to put the woman in her place and couldn’t figure out how to do it until today.

After it was written, I wanted badly to go back and polish the writing, But I convinced myself that leaving it alone, at least for now, is a good thing. At the end of this challenge, I want to be excited about going back and doing the necessary rewrite.

I am now seriously thinking what I’m writing could be turned into an actual book. It’s a necessary ego trip that keeps me writing. Otherwise I’d have given up after the first week when the doubts started to slip in.

As an old broad who made her living writing for a newspaper for 37 years, I never doubted my ability to write. What I wasn’t confident about were my ability to finish such a lengthy project, and whether I had enough imagination to write fiction. It’s not nearly as easy for me as writing facts. But writing a mystery, which I love to read, has been something I’ve wanted to do ever since I got hooked on Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys.

Thanks NaNoWriMo for challenging me to actually do it. It’s been a long time coming.