What works?

Is it because I went back to college and completed a bachelor's degree in English with the Writing Minor? Or would I have reached this point anyway? What am I talking about, huh?

I am writing one manuscript after another in rough draft.

I am staying focused as I write one story after another, but the temptation is great to set aside the current work and begin another.

I am reading the Inheritance Trilogy by Christopher Paolini...which actually has been upgraded to a four-part series. I hope it gets wrapped up in the fourth book, but if it doesn't, I will continue to read it because my grandson, Aaron, is reading it. We're reading it together, sorta. :)

I am reading the space odysseys by Arthur Clarke, 1.) because I wanted to read something by Sir Arthur Clarke. 2.) My great-great-grandmother's maiden name was spelled "C-L-A-R-K-E" and she was from England, disowned by her family because she didn't marry the right man, according to one family legend. "They" are all gone now, but "they" used to tell me there were well-known writers in the family but never gave me any names. I am a writer.

The odysseys aren't a series, Clarke advises in the afterwards I've read. But I'm reading them as if they were, one right after another. I am ready to begin 3001: The Final Odyssey.

I have a story I started long ago. I won't mention the title. That can't be copyrighted and I am vain enough to think I shouldn't reveal it at this time. It is a fantasy story. I put it away because I wasn't sure where I was going to go with it. But in reading the two above selections I have stumbled upon an idea for it. But I have to finish what I'm working on first or I will bounce around forever and never get anything finished.

My favorite place at the "department" store is pencils, pens and paper. I found bound journals size 8-1/2 x 11 inches or so. Occasionally I pick up another one. I have several and picked up the one, the cover of which is designed with hummingbirds. I was keeping notes from various projects in it. I decided to write a novel in it, longhand. The first draft is nearly done. I carry it with me everywhere I go. All of the pages are together, in order, and I have no choice but to write from beginning to end. I suppose any notebook should do, but currently I like these journals. I am meeting goals. I am writing daily. It is working for me.

Now, to make the leap to revisions and publication.