What to Expect When You're Expecting...A Novel!
Posted: January 15th, 2010, 10:15 am
When my old roommate started law school, the school had a special night to prepare the new students for the three years that lay ahead. The incoming law students were able to invite family, significant others and loved ones to the event. My roommate came home with a bunch of pamphlets that reminded me of an abridged version of the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting that you give to newly pregnant mothers.
After I started working on my manuscript, I realized that pregnancy and law school weren’t the only places that needed information pamphlets. Writing a book takes work. It takes a lot of work! Why shouldn’t writers have a book helping them through it?
I decided to let the world in on all the secrets I have learned along the way. I wanted to create my own list of What to Expect when You’re Expecting ...a Novel:
*You will protect your external drive like it’s your first born child. In fact, your hard drive may become even more important than your first born child.
*You will find the strangest places to write down story ideas: receipts, napkins, parking passes and maybe even texting lines to yourself from your cell phone.
*You will act out parts of your story in the car, laughing at something a character may say, and stop when you turn and see the person in the lane next to you staring at you.
*You will sit in coffee shops and ease drop on conversations. People will start to look at you as if you are a crazy stalker, but hey, you’ve got good dialogue!
*You will also find people asking you if you’re okay when you’re deep inside an emotional part of your story. You’ll have to assure them that nothing is wrong with you, but your characters may be another story.
*You will get to know the first names of all the workers at your local office supply store, as you buy mass quantities of printer ink and paper to perfect one single manuscript.
*You will hear somewhere that showers cause positive ionic charges in your brain, and suddenly feel the most creative in the shower. You will start to take long showers just to try to get ideas out.
*You will find yourself scowling at people who have the same name as an antagonist in your story.
*You will wake up in the middle of the night and try to write down what you dreamt about, because you think it might be “the next big thing.”
*You will develop rituals in order to procrastinate about writing. Your writing may depend on that one special pen, the right table in a coffee shop or song on your ipod.
*You will find yourself with a new obsessive compulsive disorder causing you to hit the save button on your computer hundreds of times while you are writing after you lose a piece of your writing for the first time.
*You’ll convince yourself that the piece of work you lost was the piece that was going to win you the Printz, Pulitzer or National Book Award.
These are just the start of the examples I’d include in my pamphlet. I’m sure you can add more…what else would you add to the list?
Rachele Alpine
http://www.freckle-head.blogspot.com
After I started working on my manuscript, I realized that pregnancy and law school weren’t the only places that needed information pamphlets. Writing a book takes work. It takes a lot of work! Why shouldn’t writers have a book helping them through it?
I decided to let the world in on all the secrets I have learned along the way. I wanted to create my own list of What to Expect when You’re Expecting ...a Novel:
*You will protect your external drive like it’s your first born child. In fact, your hard drive may become even more important than your first born child.
*You will find the strangest places to write down story ideas: receipts, napkins, parking passes and maybe even texting lines to yourself from your cell phone.
*You will act out parts of your story in the car, laughing at something a character may say, and stop when you turn and see the person in the lane next to you staring at you.
*You will sit in coffee shops and ease drop on conversations. People will start to look at you as if you are a crazy stalker, but hey, you’ve got good dialogue!
*You will also find people asking you if you’re okay when you’re deep inside an emotional part of your story. You’ll have to assure them that nothing is wrong with you, but your characters may be another story.
*You will get to know the first names of all the workers at your local office supply store, as you buy mass quantities of printer ink and paper to perfect one single manuscript.
*You will hear somewhere that showers cause positive ionic charges in your brain, and suddenly feel the most creative in the shower. You will start to take long showers just to try to get ideas out.
*You will find yourself scowling at people who have the same name as an antagonist in your story.
*You will wake up in the middle of the night and try to write down what you dreamt about, because you think it might be “the next big thing.”
*You will develop rituals in order to procrastinate about writing. Your writing may depend on that one special pen, the right table in a coffee shop or song on your ipod.
*You will find yourself with a new obsessive compulsive disorder causing you to hit the save button on your computer hundreds of times while you are writing after you lose a piece of your writing for the first time.
*You’ll convince yourself that the piece of work you lost was the piece that was going to win you the Printz, Pulitzer or National Book Award.
These are just the start of the examples I’d include in my pamphlet. I’m sure you can add more…what else would you add to the list?
Rachele Alpine
http://www.freckle-head.blogspot.com