Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Messing Around

The goldfish are uneasy, but who wouldn’t be when their potential killer stares them down with such glee?

This is the first line of my new project. I'm not entirely sure what this project will be, but sometimes you just have to mess around, you know? Even now, when I have a contract and other ideas that might fit my "brand" better, I think it can be healthy for a writer to let go and just explore.

So I'm writing more contemporary. I love contemporary. Honestly, I read more of that than anything else! Maybe someday I'll be able to even sell one of my contemp projects—that's a dream I still have, another goal to reach now that I've sold once.

But anyway, this new distraction is fun and weird and delightfully unclear in direction, ha. It's been so long since I floated along in a story, and I'm really enjoying looking at all the pretty puzzle pieces, even if I don't know how they come together yet.

12 comments:

  1. That is always fun. I like the first line. It will be interesting to see where it takes you. :D

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  2. Messing around is the writer equivalent of throwing a bunch of paint at a canvas and rolling around in it. Fun and messy and beautiful!

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  3. oh I LOVE this first line. Messing around is healthy for a writer, in my opinion. hopefully you will sell a contemp! I love the genre, too.

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  4. Play is the first and most important ingredient for productive Work, I think. ;)

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  5. I love it. It can even apply to my 4yo's snack fishies (goldfish with a capital G, preferably pretzel--he likes the salt) that he eyes with glee. :D

    I love that you're inspired, that you're messing around, and that contemporary is calling you! Yay! I just finished LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR by Stephanie Perkins and loved every minute of it! :D I can't wait to see where your awesome first line takes you. The voice is already there. :D
    Go Natalie!

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  6. That's certainly a nice start. I agree, sometimes you just have to turn the brain and fingers loose and let them play a little bit. You never know where they will take you, and isn't that the fun of it all?

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  7. Playing is valuable (something I keep forgetting...). Can't wait to see what this becomes! :)

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  8. Playing around is definitely important, and it can lead you all sorts of unexpected places with unexpected payoffs in the end.

    (You should know, that thanks to your line, I have the Siamese cat song from Lady and the Tramp stuck in my head now. Poor goldfishies...)

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  9. I think my best ideas come when a bunch of those disparate ideas, which I had thought were entirely separate, begin to stick together of their own accord. Sort of the accidental magic of the pinball machine: you have these little paddles and swat away, but where the ball goes, well, you don't really know... but sometimes you get lucky.

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  10. Love that first line. The most recent first line or...line I wrote down for a potential story = "The night before my brother came out, I dreamt of a murder of crows."

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  11. Sometimes just playing with words and seeing where they lead is the best thing you can do!! :)

    Jo
    In Which We Start Anew

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  12. You already get the reader wondering... who's that potential killer of goldfish anyway?

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