Three Rules for Writing

I read many books and articles on writing. Something I am sure many aspiring, and some successful writers also do. But of everything I read, seems like its Mark Twain that had the most knowledge of what it took to be a successful writer.

My favorite Twain quote on writing – his  three rules for writing. “First write, second write, and the third is write.”

Doesn’t really let anyone in on how Mr. Twain did his writing but a good idea of how hard he worked at it.

Speaking of three rules, Somerset Maugham once said, “There are three rules for writing a novel, unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

So why did I think of this stuff today? I am patiently waiting for, what I hope will be my final review copy of my CCC book. I thought I was done, but I didn’t like the looks of the formatting on my last review copy. Re-formatting a book with nearly 300 headings and 200 photos is not that much fun. Thought I could do it in 10 hours or so – took about 50.

My new three rules for writing.

   - Write and write some more (this is the fun part)

   - Edit and re-edit (not as much fun, but not bad)

   - Format it correctly the first time (not fun to do this one again and again)

And, how about a number four? If you don't do number three correctly all the lines may not match up as needed and wanted. (See #3 above)

My attempt at night photography - saw this yearling moose walking up out of a creek bottom about a half hour after sunset Sunday evening. Looks like he/she is still dripping wet. This photo has nothing to do with the post but I don't see many moose and thought it might be fun to post.