My scribble books...

My brother, the genius behind Unstressed Syllables.com , has challenged his readers to post a photo of their scribble books for all the world to see. "What is a scribble book," you say? A scribble book is a book or notebook of some kind for a writer to capture their thoughts, meant to be carried around with them at all times. I don't have mine at ALL times, but I do have a good stack of scribble books lying around the house. I keep one for each project I'm working on and that is where I add notes on characters or plot, draw diagrams or maps, and occasionally write entire sections of the story. This is then what I refer to as I am typing my draft.

My first book was done almost entirely in a set of notebooks. Occasionally I would sit down at the end of the day to type up my draft, editing as I went, and find myself a few hours later with another chapter or two that I hadn't started out with in the notebook.

I am currently working on a first draft of a book called A City On a Hill, which is the third book in a series. I had promised myself I wasn't going to write it at all if the first wasn't picked up for print, but lately I just can't stop thinking about this story. It needs to be told even if I am the only one who will ever read it. This, I find, to be the best kind of writing - writing done for the author's enjoyment. You can tell when a writer really loved his/her story. The characters seem more real, the action more fascinating. It never seems forced, but flows because the writer is simply chasing the story to its end.

So, when you see a notebook in my hand, you'll know I'm just chasing a story to its end.