Cooking the Hook - NEW

HOLY CRAP! I watched our writing group leader line edit a chapter for one of the members the other night and I have been paralyzed at the keyboard ever since. I try to pass myself off as a tough guy, but now I know I'm made of glass. I need to get over myself. Taking time out for input only.

"Sometimes, when accepted and welcomed, divine wisdom and enlightenment flow freely like a calm river. The rest of the time, wisdom is blocked until it rages forth like a tidal wave and crushes anything in its path, including the recipient of the wisdom.  This is the energy of the Tower card, an energy very similar to Death in that it is both a destructive and a creative force. When a building is old and decrepit, it must be demolished so that a new structure may stand in its place." J. Rioux  I'm trying hard to not be crushed  (I'm a great floater),  but the words "kill your darlings" were never more true. I'm only glad that I won't continue polishing pearls without properly grading, setting and stringing them for a really effective outcome.  For the next week I can't even dwell on the revisions ; they  will only be happening inside my head. Family duties have to take center stage.  Thanks to TH, CL and a close revisit with " Shake...

That's what it feels like when all you have is a cool title and only a vague notion of what you are going to do with it. In the writer's group I belong to one member put forth the notion that all you get from an editor reading your manuscript is 250 words before they roll their eyes up in their heads and pitch it in the trash or hit "delete". I did some grubbing around on the web but couldn't find any yeas or nays to corroborate this, but it wouldn't surprise me. I won't let it bother me much either. Maybe I should have called this blog "Honing the Hook" but that sounds vaguely pornographic, which, given the genre I'm attempting, is not all that far off the mark. I was rummaging through old notebooks with the intention of not letting them go to waste when I found the dry leaves and the hard cash  in the notebook that holds the bones of my first two novels, both patiently waiting their turn while I get this one done.  I pissed the...