Dear Bill,
You haven't written anything on your blog for over a month. How come?
--I've Got My Eye on You
Dear IGMEoY,
Getting a manuscript in shape and proofed for a fall 2014 publication. But that doesn't help you as a fellow writer, does it? When someone asks you what you've been doing on your novel. A convenient truth (but pretty much a lie) is to answer "research."
Nothing wrong with that unless... you start to believe it.
To write a novel you gotta write a novel.
--Bill
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Dear Bill,
Do you just make up these questions?
--Bill
Dear Bill,
And just wing the answers. The blog's about fiction, right?
--Bill
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Dear Bill,
I came across this video of Donald Westlake. What do you think?
--Web Surfer
Dear WS,
I like his books very much so it was interesting to hear him talk about characters and such. (Around 2:20, about writing in a genre but making it his own.)
Then, too, the interviewer -- God bless her heart -- demonstrates why it can be best to stay a few steps back from the cutting edge of fashion and style. Donald, on the other hand, could have bought his clothes thirty years earlier. (And, it seems, he wore the shirt for many more years. Compare the video with the photo in this piece.)
--Bill
Just keep writing.
