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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