I've done something I think is fairly important for me--cleaned out a bunch of the writing manuals I've been collecting. For the longest time I've thought, "One of these books holds the key." I'm now at the point where I think, "Maybe this one has a couple of good reminders I can keep handy."

Of sixteen books, I'm completely getting rid of four (didactic and repeating each other), two I'm keeping for about five pages each with useful ideas (I'm contemplating writing up those ideas in a separate notebook, then getting rid of the books), and one I'm keeping because his advice is fairly completely useful to me (Lawrence Block's "Telling Lies for Fun & Profit.")

Some I'm keeping just because I love the way they're written: Stephen King and Anne Fadiman and Ray Bradbury. Also Anne Wingate's Howdunit book, "Scene of the Crime." The stories of when she worked for a small Georgia town's CSI unit are wonderful.

Anybody interested in some generic writer's guides? "The Weekend Novelist", "The Weekend Novelist Writes a Mystery," "How to Write a Damn Good Novel," and "Get That Novel Started".

connie, goodonya.

I spent the evening - once I'd realised I needed one beta WIP editor who knew how "R&RNF" ends - having an incredible hash-it-down whip-it-up session with my amazing husband. I now have all the details - timing of who was what where, why the murder happened when and precisely where it did, and what one of my two protagonists - the one who isn't onstage in front of a packed house at Madison Square Garden at the time - was doing when it all went down.

I'm getting a mess of memories back, so like connie, in the major steps zone.

As of this evening, the book has nearly 25,000 words, and is 122 pages in length.

I began this last Thursday, and took last Saturday off. Nine days of work.

This one wants out. And yes, some of it is so painful to do, I keep thinking I ought to change my name to Hypatia.

Victor, insent.(He's been in here before, right? Just not lately.) Connie, if you still have the Weekend Novelist Mystery one, I've been curious about it...I promise,Deb, not to take it up like a cult.

Dumb question: is "mid twenties" (when talking about someone's age) hyphenated or not?

I think so, Anne.

Hear ye, hear ye! New drabble topic!

I'm full of charred meat, cake, and expensive red wine, thanks to a Memorial Day cookout. All of that impinges just a wee bit on my ability to come up with a new, thoroughly original and exciting drabble topic, so I'm going back to the pictures from Look at Me.

Challenge #59 (ways we communicate without words) is now closed.

Challenge #60 is the following pictures from the Look at Me website. Drabble them however you like, and please include a link to the picture you chose when you post.

Picture One.

Picture Two.

Picture Three.

Picture Four.

Picture Five.

Picture Six.

Picture Seven.

Picture Eight.

Picture Nine.

Picture Ten.

[link] Picture One

Here's where Tommy got so drunk he threw up on my new, dyed-to-match-the-dress satin shoes.

There's the table where Mark called Daphne a whore and Daphne told him she wouldn't sleep with him even for money.

Out in the parking lot, Daphne and I cried on each other and said a convent sounded like a great idea.

Then the guys came out, I slapped Mark, Daphne slapped Tommy, and Bobby and Harry asked if we'd rather go to the Howard Johnson's for cheeseburgers and shakes.

Memo to self: remind Harry about getting gift for Daphne and Bobby's wedding next month.

connie, that's a honey.

Huh. It may be the total immersion aspect of the current WIP, but none of those pictures are talking to me at all. Nearest thing to it is the guy in front of the ships with the swastika, but even that one is barely poking at me.

Interested to see what everyone comes up with on these.

[link] Picture two

It was Uncle Gregor who put the kayak on wheels. After the hay was mown, he'd push us around the shorn fields, telling us to practice our paddling and talking about cold mountain streams in Moldavia.

Tante Caterina would watch silently. That day in the summer, when the hay was blowing in the wind, Susan and I took her arms and made her join us in the kayak for the picture.

We laughed and waved, then I saw Tante's face. "It's so like waves," she said, looking at the grass billowing. "Waves mean you're leaving home."

Oh, connie, I like that one.