Hello,

I read recently in The Writer at writermag.com, an article titled “A ‘crazy-quilt’ approach to fiction” by Sharon Oard Warner. It was the first paragraph of the story that caught my attention, it told of going against the so called wisdom of writing a first draft non-stop and instead doing what Ms. Oard Warner called “premature revision” which sounds vaguely unpleasant yet it’s not, it’s her term for revising, rewriting, getting one section complete, done, as perfect as you feel you possibly can then moving onto the next part of the story and doing the same. Ms. Oard Warner goes on to write about how though while still writing the bigger picture out you can give birth to smaller, stand-alone stories from “scraps” off that larger picture or story.

I was taken though with what I’ll call “another way of writing” to Ms. Oard Warner’s “premature revision” and mostly because I’m writing a novel just that way and not because it’s an experiment or easier but because it’s the way the novel called “The Geography of Love” is developing. I started the work of course with an idea but pieces of the story didn’t come to me right away, I would be reading a book for research and a line would conjure up an entire scene, but one at the end of the book and I’ll write it out, put it aside then go back to writing the beginning of the novel; or I’ll write a short middle section or a long end section, hodge podge, back and forth depending on the inspiration I receive for whatever scene; it’s not the start-at-the-beginning-of-the-draft-and-keep-at-it-until-the-end; my novel is coming together piece meal yet in my mind its coming together as well as if I flamed through it as a first draft.

All of this sounds good, but the bottom line for me as well as for you I’m sure is just getting the work, the novel done, completed, by any means necessary; it’s the goal and if I had to stand on my head to finish my novel in the way that satisfies me—or as satisfied as I can get with my writing—then I’ll do it. So no matter how you write your novel or other writing projects, the point is that you’re writing it, finishing it and are as happy as you can be at that fact.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please e-mail me at: matwrite1@hotmail. com. I’ll love to hear from you.

Until next time, God willing,

Lori