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Tuesday 19 July 2011

The First Five Pages

Yesterday the concierge brought a load of books in the mail.  I'd been expecting them but there was one that I craved above all.  Noah Lukeman's The First Five Pages;  A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile. 


Last night I read the first chapter on presentation and the second on adverbs and adjectives.  At the end of the second chapter he suggests, that before continuing, a writer do several exercises. One of these is to count and list all of the adverbs and adjectives on the first page of their beloved manuscript.

I thought that I had streamlined my MS well enough but listed over 10% of the words on the first page.

Oh how painful it was, I didn't want to do this exercise, it's not fun and the clock is ticking away precious painting time, and oh damn it's difficult doing this without a cigarette, maybe I'll just go smoke one.

It was a great exercise and now I know how to better write the next 60K words to the end of my first draft, and the cigarette?

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