No progress at all yesterday; family responsibilities on weekend pretty much preclude any chance of writing. What free time Mary and I were able to generate went to Mary's working on a tight publishers deadline -- a paying contract with a tight deadline has to take precedent over spec writing every time.
Plus, I only have the next half scene worked out in my head -- not sure where the story goes after that. The trouble with writing mystery is that after working out the characters, setting, set up, on-going conflicts and snarky dialog, I still don't have an actual crime for my heroine to solve yet.
Got an email from Sue Grafton this morning. Okay, probably all the NaNoWriMo writers who listed their genre as 'mystery' got the same email, but even so, Way COOL!
But somebody explain to me how I, a guy who has been reading and writing nothing but SF for over 40 years, suddenly finds himself writing a mystery? And with a retired housecleaner as my heroine?
Even stranger, this stuff is flowing out pretty well -- no real writer's block, no real obsession with revision, just steady progress getting stuff down. I always nag my students to "write what you know" and so far, that advice is working well for me. The completed stories are based on a guy I knew, an anecdote Karl told me, aan incident I observed at an SF con, and two guys/incidents that have annoyed me lately. Great catharsis, if not great literature. I guess the setting and the heroine are based on the fact that Mary and I have spent a lot of time lately in assisted living facilities -- but still, odd that its coming out this way rather than something more like my usual SF reading/daydreaming.
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