
It’s Monday and Dr. Tanya is back with her weekly Blogging Insights prompt. She provides us with a quote about blogging or writing and asks us to express our opinion about said quote.
This week’s quote is from English playwright, novelist, and short-story writer W. Somerset Maugham.
“There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
How does Maugham know that there are three rules if no one knows what they are? Maybe there are five. Or two. Or ten. But what do I know? As Tanya pointed out in her post, I have three started novels on my laptop, but none is finished. So maybe the only rule that counts should be finish what you start.
I like to think that I’m good at coming up with characters and at writing dialogue. The problem I have is with plot, and being able to devise and sustain a story arc sufficient and engaging enough to produce a novel. Hell, I can barely write enough to sustain a blog post, which is why the average length of my blog posts is fewer that 250 words.
Maybe I should just publish a book that is an anthology of my flash fiction posts and call it a day. Yeah, that’s my rule for writing: just do it!