Grahame's Writing
A website to promote my scribblings
What is this?
This is a website to promote the writings of Grahame Scott-Douglas. That's me. So why did I create a website all about a new unknown writer?
As a kid I loved reading books and then as a teenager I found that I also loved writing my own stories. Over the years I continued off and on, writing a short story here a poem there but never with anything serious or professional in mind, or maybe only half in mind.
Then in early 2007, I decided I it was time to get serious. I re-read several articles on writing in an old Writer's Handbook from 1989 (if you can get a copy I recommend it; there are some great articles in it). I also re-read "Writing the Novel" by Lawrence Block.
Then I bought a subscription to
The Writer Magazine
It's a funny thing but to be a writer you have to write. Sounds sort of self-evident, but I find that many people who want to be writers don't do a lot of writing. They do a lot of reading and they do a lot of talking but do they write?
In the second copy of the Writer that wended its happy way into my mailbox, I found a quote from 70 years ago by Henry Justin Smith
Most writers are mentally muscle-bound, badly coordinated. There are thoughts in their heads, but when the signal comes to their vocabulary to express those thoughts, the result is stiff and self-conscious. The only cure for this is self-massage with one's own pen or typewriter. After you have written about half a million words there comes, sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly, a mastery not only of words, but of sentences and phrases, that makes you a different being. It is like learning to swim or to navigate an airplane. You have conquered your element. From then on your personality, whatever that may be, goes onto paper unhampered, and thus exhilarated.
Wow! Boy, was he speaking my language! "From then on your personality, whatever that may be, goes onto the paper unhampered, and exhilarated." I'll take two to go please! So all I had to do was write and then write and then write and then ... you guessed it ... write some more. Because half a million words is five long novels or fifty short stories or three thousand blog entries or ... a helluva lot of writing.
So I started writing. First I wrote a few short stories and I noticed that each was longer than the last. Then I started on a short story that began to grow and grow and ended up as a first draft for a novel at about 70 thousand words. The novel will be longer.
I was about to start on the second draft when my daughter (also a writer) discovered a new publisher that was looking for talent. So I submitted some of my short stories and it looks like I'm going to have a book of short stories published. (I'll keep you posted.)
So, I thought I'd better get a web site up before someone squats on my name because I've become so rich and famous :)
Writing Resources
Stuff I've found helpful.