Technology has made it much easier for writers. I use the "Find" function on my word processing program very often. Today I was writing, and had someone's eyes twitch as he thought of a lie. Twitch I said to myself. It sounded familiar. I was in chapter 45; had I written of people twitching all over the place? Was my police procedural full of twitches? Guilty twitches? Geriatric twitches? Smoker's twitches? Compulsive twitches? Yikes. But, knowledge was at hand. I asked "Find" to locate all the twitches in the manuscript and made sure the word was not overused.
Today I also, for what reason I know not, began to wonder if I was writing what I should be writing. I had finished a campy paranormal cozy, had written half of a horror/haunting novel, and had a charming one paragraph treatment of a lady who found a fairy in her garden. And here I was, writing a police procedural. Did I know what I was doing? Had I found my niche yet? Was I wasting my time killing people when I should be writing about little winged creatures? Should I make a stab at a mainstream novel? I decided the issue by asking myself what I liked most to read. Well... John Sandford, P.J. Tracy... Also, most mainstream novels put me to sleep. So I'm keeping on with this current book, DEATHBLOW, and never mind these niche fantods.
It did give inspiration for the next Minnesota Writers' Alliance newsletter, though. The newsletter focused on finding one's niche, deciding what to write. Thanks for reading. Joan Sween
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