Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!lsuc!hcr!lynda
From: lynda@hcr.UUCP (Lynda Williams)
Newsgroups: ont.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Publishing Times
Message-ID: <407@hcr.UUCP>
Date: 25 Apr 89 14:04:54 GMT
References: <315@hcr.UUCP> <3859@geaclib.UUCP> <1989Apr21.114814.9296@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Reply-To: lynda@hcrvax.UUCP (Lynda Williams)
Distribution: ont.sf-lovers
Organization: HCR Corporation, Toronto
Lines: 25

Thanks Tom.  That's real encouraging.  I always make notes of that
sort of "how someone got published" information, however, so it's
valuable.  I've hoarded up enough now to be thoroughly discouraged
about ever getting published but it doesn't seem to help. I'm
going to concentrate on writing my 7 novel saga instead, since I
can't seem to cure myself.  It's been evolving for so long it's
a way of life.

The disease I'm suffering from the most right now is "rewrite-itis".
This is where a drafted chapter gets rewritten, and rewritten, and
the plot shifts slightly, so it gets rewritten again ... ad nauseum.
Rewrites driven by plot shifts actually don't cause me too much
grief.  It's descriptive sections I bog down in.  People keep telling
me there has to be lots of description. Personally I like minimal
descrition. Just enough to set a scene and help define the characters 
or action.  A little sensory input. That sort of thing. I'm not good at 
description. I'm good at dialogue, plot, motivation and background history. 

Anyway, I'd like some opinions from readers and other would-be
writers.  It seems to me that there are successful books out
there that don't lavish pages on description.  But I know I'm
prejudice because I'd like to spare myself the part I find least
interesting and hardest to accomplish gracefully.  I'm even willing
to post a page to give you something to go by, if necessary, but
that might just confuse the issue.