7 Comments
User's avatar
Good Humor by CK Steefel's avatar

The flow thing is tough. When the story stagnates and the dread begins. Glad you have a plan! Plow thru!

Expand full comment
Rebecca J. Gomez's avatar

I just need a challenge to keep me going so I don’t worry about quality too much while writing! 😁

Expand full comment
Rafael Concepcion's avatar

Hi, Rebecca, it’s fascinating to read about the way a pro works. I think a lot of writers are just plain tight-lipped or even flippant or misleading about the way they work. (Not you, Rebecca!) One of my hobbies is building electric guitars, and I have a bunch of nice dry mahogany, walnut, poplar and maple in my attic. I have several bodies and necks in the rough-cut stage and now I’m making plans to build a seven or eight string mandocello. Your drafts remind me of my unfinished musical projects. Right now I’m itching to work on something, anything, but my current problem is that it’s too cold in my workshop for these old bones. I did manage to restring a guitar I’m not crazy about like a cello, just to practice and get used to the different tuning, and it’s been fun. But I’m afraid that the lower notes are going to wreck the speaker in my guitar amp, so I’m going to have to buy an amp that is made for a keyboard or electric bass. I’ve just finished reading The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta and I was disappointed by the ending. That book was made into a television series by HBO and I think it was written ten or twelve years ago. Right now I’m halfway through Unleashed by Gordon Korman, which was published in 2015, but it feels like it may have been written a few years earlier. It’s a young people’s novel and I like it a lot. I get most of my books at thrift stores so I’m almost never reading the latest thing. Thanks for sharing this little peek into the way you work, and I wish you all the best in dusting off and completing all your projects!

Expand full comment
Rebecca J. Gomez's avatar

Building electric guitars sounds like a super cool hobby. The idea of making musical instruments (besides the drums we all made out of tubs as kids, haha) has always fascinated me. Have you seen the picture book Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hood? If not, you should look it up!

Expand full comment
Rafael Concepcion's avatar

No, I haven’t seen it but I just might have to visit Thriftbooks.com. I have an old novel called High Lonesome about a steel guitar player that I’d love to read one of these days. You’re right, building and playing your own instruments is an awesome hobby.

Expand full comment
Veronika Sprague's avatar

I love *having* written. It's much funner to edit a working manuscript than put in all the work of world building and reorganizing.

Glad you have so many ideas to work with! Your faucet is flowing beautifully!

Expand full comment
Rebecca J. Gomez's avatar

Oh, yes, I live for revisions!

Expand full comment