You can begin your first draft like this:

Joseph stood on her front porch but didn’t knock. The wind as it was coming from the east, made his eyes squint.

She opened the door. Saw him there, and she nodded and smiled.

 In one way, it’s a nice way to start. You aren’t over using state-of-being verbs, like was or were, or the helpers words like as and had been, too much.

The verbs here are stood, knock, was, coming, made, squint, opened, saw, nodded, and smiled. But it is a lot of stage direction for the wind, Joseph and someone named she.

 ON second glance, you have to admit, these lines are mostly story facts. The ‘Where folks are’, the ‘What they did, movement wise’. There’s not a lot of storytelling here yet.

We aren’t given many suggestions about anyone’s emotions, or motivations, there’s…

Most of the quotes were taken from this book.

1. “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.”

2. “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

3. “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”

4. “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

5. “In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it ‘got boring,’ the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep…

Many new authors slog out that first book, editing every word to perfection, revising, reworking, redoing. When I used to be a part of critique groups, it was not at all uncommon to find writers who’d been working on the same book two, five, eight and even ten years. Still see them at conferences, shopping the same book, getting rejected, then rewriting, rewriting…..

Sigh.

Great, maybe Kathryn Stockett, the author of The Help took five years and 62 revisions to get her story published. Awesome for her. And yes, her book was a runaway success, but this isn’t the norm. It’s playing Literary Lottery with our careers.

For most writers, it will be hard to have a long-term successful career if our pace is a book or two a decade.

Most authors who’ve made legend status were all talented, yes. But many were (are) also prolific. 

Does Writing Quickly Produce…

One line Sunday is here:

Here’s this weeks one line Sunday

‘He had the kind of face that could turn a Friday into a Monday’

How one Line Sunday works:

Each Sunday I’ll post one line on vcwillow.wordpress.com.

Your task should you choose to accept it, is to write a short piece of fiction, poem, haiku, or novella (if you really have a lot of time and the muse moves you) by the following Saturday

By the next Saturday I’ll post my short fiction story of no less than 300 words, or a poem, piece of prose or the beginning of a novella based on the one line posted here.

Everyone is more than welcome to join in and I’m eager to see your work posted here on the comments and see the myriad ways you have approached this weeks one line Sunday.

Any Questions, please just ask.

Managed to sort out my issues, so the free Amazon promotion is going ahead! My first novel, The Ritual, is now available for FREE from all Amazon websites, and will remain free all the way up to Sunday 16 June.

You can find it here on the US site, or if you’re in the UK (like me) you can find it here. For all other Amazon sites you can simply delete the .com or .co.uk in the sites above and replace it with your country’s suffix.

I would love it if people would pass on the word by reblogging this post. My book is a blend of Fantasy, Adventure and Romance, and I have actually been surprised at how well it’s been received even by people who wouldn’t normally read this genre.

If you do not own a Kindle, you can still enter the paperback giveaway I have…