Scribes Take Heed

Author Shows You How Easy It Is For Him

For anyone following the word-count on Shopkeep to the left on the home page, note that in the brief month of February, not yet complete, the count has tripled.

That’s 20k scattered words now grown to 60k. In three weeks.

Not only that, but this material isn’t sloppy first-draft rambling nonsense—during this period the work has also been shaped and organized into a cohesive structure that includes theme, narrative arc and redemptive ending. Aspiring memoirists, as I teach in the writing workshops, will want to structure their story in the same manner as a novelist or screenwriter. We’re not interested in ‘what happened,’ we need frequent conflicts and resolutions that move the overall story forward, and we need a landing place that’s satisfying.

Again—nobody cares ‘what happened,’ but readers will be keen in their curiosity about why and how things happened, as well the consequences.

So, like many of my other projects, once I set to work, Shopkeep started coming together as if in a dream. It has a beginning, middle, end; it only needs more grace notes to flesh out the fantasy, mostly happy but at times horrifying, that has been the course of my life.

Let’s face it: I’m fortunate at 55 to have a complete arc to describe. And of course, my story will go on. I would plan on a second volume after another twenty or thirty years, but since society is now raising children who will likely never read a book in their lives, I have no plans to write any other books after this one.

To whom would I be speaking?

To whom have I ever been speaking with this work?

What if it doesn’t matter?

No question, though, in that the end is in sight: It’s likely my original draft completion goal of ‘Summer 2021’, now changed to ‘Spring 2021’, will end up coming in the next two weeks. That’s still Winter. And that’s called ahead-of-schedule; that’s called getting the pages done; it’s what writing discipline looks like.