What am I? Crazy?
I want to be a paperback writer. I want to write novels. Documenting the process basically doubles the workload. Perhaps that's why the interval between my first post and my second post is eight months.
Returning to the office after covid quarantine has definitely affected my work as a writer. In a way quarantine was good for my literary career - I read a lot, I wrote a lot, I analyzed my reading in depth. In short, I was making progress, despite the fact that quarantine was having a noticeable effect on my mental stability. Quarantine gave me time, all it asked was my sanity.
So, I'm trying to get back in the saddle. I suspect my struggle is familiar to many beginning writers. I have characters, I have settings, I have ideas for scenes, but I struggle for novel-length plot ideas, particularly mysteries.
When I was working as a storyteller I rarely wrote my stories. My usual modus operandi was to take an existing story, and re-write it with my own characters, places and especially my own voice. The question I'm asking myself now is, could I do the same thing with mystery novels? Should I do the same thing with mystery novels? And, I think the answer is, why not?
A lot can be learned from reading other writers, but re-writing other writers I'm hopeful will teach me a lot more than reading. Starting with short stories will be easier, of course, so selecting one is a process of its own. I'm leaning towards the very first detective story ever written, Murders in the Rue Morgue, despite the fact that I don't care for the solution. Maybe I can make it better.
