a book and writing life review

Just finished reading an interesting book for a book review column I write each month for a writing ezine.

 

While I had to read it twice for it to stick, there’s lots of good advice in it for thinking of your plots and scenes in a different way. I always think reading books on plotting will help my plotting–and they would, if only I would finish writing the damn story in the first place.

 

The book is Martha Alderson’s Blockbuster Plots: Pure & Simple. She gives two charts for us visual learners out there–a scene tracker and a plot planner. The plot planner is pretty similar to the “W” plotting chart, something I’m intimately familiar with thanks to my Serious Writing friend (and now Golden Heart winner–WOOOO HOOOO!!) Donna, so I didn’t figure I”d learn much.

 

Of course I did. I learn more when I think I don’t have anything to learn. Weird how that works.

 

Anyway, the scene tracker is a really cool tool I’m thinking of trying on the first scene of the third draft of the last short story I finished. Starting little is nothing to sneeze at when some people can’t start at all If so, I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

Not sure I want to venture back into ficiton, anyway. Still debating the merits of sticking to nonfiction for a while. Found two new, really cool freelance markets yesterday and already have two articles outlined. Starting back to school this afternoon, so I’m trying to not load up the plate **too** much.

 

Oh, and if you’re interested, I’ll post the review link when it comes out (for Blockbuster Plots). It’s the writer2writer.com ezine–good stuff Cheryl puts out each month–sign up for free on her site.

 

Back to writing….

Beth