Too Much of a Good Thing

Two weeks ago, we joined the caravan of sun worshippers leaving the snow capped mountains for the desert valleys. Today I’m warming up in Arizona, watching two cottontail bunnies build a nest out back under the watchful eye of a mourning dove.


Daddy bunny appears to be helping, but I suspect his motives. “C’mon babe, the nest is perfect. Let’s make some babies!” His honey must be an interior decorator bunny; she’s choosing straw for softness and fragrance, and she’s picky.

In a bit, I’ll walk four minutes to the fitness center and choose among a number of exotic classes – Zumba, Muscle Works, PowerUp Abs, Aqua Aerobics in the indoor infinity pool. After that, Joel will go to a Cactus League baseball game with the gang and I will settle down and write.

It is Week 10 of Stanford University’s online writing class, Gripping Plots, and young Seth has hit his stride. In addition to critiquing two of my classmates’ work, I have this blog to write, questions to answer on the forum and progress to make on my novel, but it’s all good.

I’m learning to be a more careful and critical reader – to post encouraging and helpful comments on my fellow writer’s work that go beyond, “I liked your story”. I labor to add value, like “Bob’s facial tics were a brilliant way of showing us he’s a nervous guy, but he went out for a smoke on page three and never came back. What’s up with that?”

I’m discovering my own lapses: “You didn’t get that Henry is Dee’s husband who died in Korea, not the father she never knew?” I better fix that.

I’ve work shopped the first few chapters of the Sheepwalker and gotten useful critique and encouraging response.

From Elisa, “There is a slow beauty that comes through in the lyricism of your writing.” I hope when she gets famous she’ll do a blurb on my book jacket.

From Terry, “It’s got secrets, romance, exotic and colorful places, generational issues and a very satisfying ending.” I’d want to read that book, wouldn’t you?

From Seth, a call for more clarity and better management of the information flow. So, I have my work cut out for me.

Revising the first draft of a novel is like putting together a 5,000 piece puzzle. Some of the pieces that appeared to fit where you first placed them actually don’t. You have to pull them out and refit them, and then more pieces will fall into place. Or you may determine they don’t belong in this puzzle at all and set them aside.

Perhaps the most fun I’ve had in the last ten weeks, besides getting to know some talented writers, is learning to kill adverbs. I may offer a contest when I send out review copies of my book: find an adverb, get a free autographed copy of the first edition. Adverbs seem to proliferate, like bunnies.