The snow looks as if it had been spraypainted beneath this walnut tree.
The weather changed throughout the day on Wednesday, starting with enormous wet snowflakes, then a thaw, then alternating rain and sun and the usual gray, and finally a spectacular late-afternoon hailstorm. It’s rare that weather offers so much drama in one day. It sure kept us riveted to the windows.
Writer Dana Haynes, in promoting his novel Crashers at a Portland reading last year, mentioned he writes longhand on legal pads. If no action happens within an elongated page, he tries again.
There was so much hail, it was still on the ground hours later.
While he writes thrillers, that seems to be excellent advice for all writers, no matter what their genre.
How long does it take for something to happen in your manuscript?
If it’s too long, take a lesson from Dana, or from crazy weather days like Wednesday, and rewrite.
