first typewriter
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. ― Louis L’Amour
Last post I shared my first sale. It wasn’t exactly the first thing I had gotten for writing. When I was in sixth grade I wrote an essay about wanting to raise chickens and won 100 chicks. When I was in 8th grade I won $25 for writing a conservation essay. But that little poem was my first sale after I had consciously stepped out on a writing path and aimed to work toward being a WRITER. Before it was simply a dream, a hope, a wish. But once I signed up for that writing correspondence course that cost money, then I had to believe I could make it pay off. I was determined to keep sending out my words into the cold, unknown world of editors, and keep trying to get better.
I did get better at writing. I still got almost every thing I sent out to those magazine editors back in the self-addressed return envelopes I included with my submission. But now and again, albeit rarely, an acceptance showed up with a little check inside. I had notebooks full of snippets of story ideas. I wrote in my journal. I kept doing the correspondence lessons.
My babies went from babies to toddlers, from toddlers to little kids. My oldest son started first grade. And I got pregnant again. Not really planned, but some of the best blessings don’t come from planning. We were blessed with another son. I put him in a baby seat propped up on the kitchen table next to my typewriter. The clacking of typewriter keys was his napping music. Somehow I found time to write and keep sending in my assignments. We bought a farm and built a house.
We moved the day after my baby’s first birthday. In the snow. The baby had the mumps. It was a stressful time for me. I had divided feelings leaving the farmhouse. My parents had moved to a different house and let us live in the house where I’d grown up. I have a strong attachment to places and even though the new house was going to be warmer and better in most every way, I struggled to leave the rocks and trees and flowers I knew so well.
But a typewriter can be moved with ease. And so can a desk full of notebooks and hope. Somewhere during all this, I came to the end of the course. I had done all the required assignments and, as best I remember, did well. There was one more optional lesson. But uh-oh. The assignment was to write an outline of a novel. Doing outlines in school was my most dreaded assignment. I hated all those 1,2,3’s and a,b,c’s. Worse, I had no idea how to go about writing an outline of a novel. I never wrote outlines of the short pieces I was writing. I just came up with ideas and then started writing.
Outlines are supposed to help you organize your thinking. Keep you on track. Make the writing go easier. Not the outlining but the writing after the outlining. Many writers do plot outlines.
If you do enough planning before you start to write, there’s no way you can have writer’s block. ~R.L. Stine
I always have a basic plot outline, but I like to leave some things to be decided while I write. ~J.K. Rowling
But many writers don’t.
I cannot outline. I do not know what the next thing is going to happen in the book until it comes out of my fingers. ~Patricia Reilly Giff
The assignment about outlining a novel did get me thinking about how it would be to write a novel. I decided I would like to try that. So, instead of writing an outline, I ended up writing the novel. And in doing that, inspired by the assignment I never completed, I discovered that novels were what I wanted to write. Short pieces were fine. But I loved being immersed in a story for pages and pages with the same characters as I thought with my fingers as Isaac Asimov says in his quote.
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. ~Isaac Asimov
By then, both my older children where in school. I wrote while my baby napped and after he was older, while he watched Captain Kangaroo in the mornings. Somehow I finished that first novel and a second one. Neither found a publisher, but they were practice putting words together to tell a story. But would practice pay off? That’s a story for another post.
Thanks for reading about my writing journey. I’m not sure if you’re still interested in knowing more. Maybe I need to find the end of this story and move on. Maybe I should have written an outline for this journey and stuck with the highlights. So, what say you? It might be time for me to go back to writing about writing in my private journals the way I used to.
My newsletter giveaway entry deadline is coming up this week. I’ll be picking the winners for my book prizes. If you didn’t get the newsletter and would like to read it, here’s the link.
Have you ever had to outline a story or assignment or plan?
Comments 13
yes, outlined plan
You are so gifted with your writing. We need more writers like you. Regarding the wedding stories: I got married in a beautiful handmade wedding gown with tiny buttons down my back and wrist. The veil however was a roll of cardboard I cut and covered with left over material .Next I
cut out a circle of net and sewed it onto the cardboard circle. As I walked down the isle with the net over my face, a wasp found its way inside!. The net was quickly pulled up over my face as the tiny visitor made a quick exit!
Fond memories, I still have the gown and that was 57 years ago! God is good!
Author
That wasp was an unwelcome guest, Pat. But how innovative of you to come up with a way to make your own veil. I actually made my sister’s wedding dress with those tiny covered buttons. She must have been crazy to let me do it. I was only 17 at the time, but at the age when I guess I thought I could do anything. And I got it made and she got married in it. But she must have bought a veil. I don’t remember making that. I’ll have to ask her.
Glad the wasp made its exit without ruining your day.
I remember having to do some outlining, but I can’t remember what subject it was in or what for. I did not like it either.
Author
The good thing is that we don’t have to do homework for school anymore, Connie. 🙂 The homework we do now is mostly or our own choosing – except for those pesky housecleaning, etc. chores.
I’m finding your posts about your “journey” to becoming a published author really fascinating, and it’s like reading an autobiography of a special person. Thank you for taking the time to share your life story with your many book fans!
I don’t mind outlining someone else’s written work, but I definitely do not like starting my own creative writing with a written outline!
Author
I don’t even want to outline something already written or historical information, Roberta. I did it in school and once made my whole glass unhappy with getting a great grade to make their efforts not look as good. That doesn’t mean I enjoyed it. As for my writing, I might do some plot thinking on paper, but nothing that would necessarily stick. things change as you write.
In high school, in one of my English classes, we had to pick a topic, outline, and then write the paper. We had to turn in the outline, too, if I remember correctly!!
Author
Oh, I’m sure you would have to turn in the outline too, Trudy. No doubt the teacher was trying to help you be more organized in your thinking. I might often be helped by being more organized in my thinking. But sometimes, you have to write the way your creativity works best.
I very much like what you are writing now. So interesting. Please keep it up! If it was in outline form I probably wouldn’t be reading it! Jeanne Davis
Author
Thanks for the encouragement, Jeanne. I am enjoying the stroll back down memory lane about my writing journey. Some of the things are a little fuzzy all these years later, but writing about it has jogged my memory. I could have gone back in my journals and found more exact timing perhaps, but maybe then I’d find more disappointments that are better left forgotten. 🙂 And don’t worry. I’m not outlining anything if I can avoid it.
I don’t have a story or an outline in my head, but I do want to say that I have been enjoying your Writing Journal and hope you continue it.
I used to wish that I did have stories in my head, but that wasn’t meant to be. That’s ok. Thankfully there are many good Christian writers to give us readers stories.
Author
There are so many great Christian writers now, Ann, and publishers willing to put clean stories with faith thread out there for readers. You readers have made that possible by supporting Christian fiction. Thank you.
I appreciate your encouragement about continuing with my writing journey. I had no idea when I started the retelling that it wouldn’t be a quick post or two. Now here I am on Post five, I think. Maybe I’ll gather them all up when I’m finished and make a little booklet of them all.