There are some stories you can only start writing on the bank of a river named Rogue.
Unfortunately, you have finish and revise them on the bank of a river named Market Street. It's startling to see how dependent I am on location. ("Where you are is who you are," says Frances Mayes. "Never casual, the choice of place is the choice of something you crave.") Or maybe I'm just a sucker for beginnings, which can be written without reference to those tedious middles and endings and plot points and messages and details.
Today I will plot an entire story from start to finish in outline form, allot five pages each for ten sections, then write and finish the damn thing in the next two weeks. I begin to suspect I need to teach myself the basics before I can jump feet-first into the deep waters of a novel.
