Marilyn's Musings

So far, I've finished Chapter 1. With this one, Tempe will be in Bear Creek, but once again, way up in the mountains, even higher than in the last book. It's winter and too much snow is a big factor. Because of the snow, it will be a "locked room" mystery. In other words, no one can get out, so everyone is a suspect.  The main setting is the lodge of a camp for girls. I've based it on a lodge for a church summer camp that our family went to a lot.  I know who all the characters are, and I've introduced them. I know what they look like and their backgrounds and their relationships with one another. At this point, I think I know who will be murdered--though that could change and I have some ideas about the murder weapon and the murderer. Unlike some other authors, I don't outline, at this point I'm feeling my way along. If it works like every other book I've written the ideas will pop into my head as I move along. Sometimes the id...

In a memorable Finding Forrester movie scene, William Forrester sits down at a manual typewriter opposite teen prodigy Jamal Wallace, rolls in a sheet of paper and begins to write. Wallace is supposed to do the same, but confesses that he doesn't know where to begin. Forrester mentors him: begin with a sentence, any sentence, and write. "No thinking - that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write, not to think!" Rule #4 in Pixar's famous 22 Rules of Storytelling is (fill in the blanks): "Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___." Put these two powerful concepts together and your imagination can turn a simple idea into an all-consuming tale. In my case, it was escape from the boredom of an hour-long commute. The radio had grown stale, the recorded music old, the ...