New year, new-sletter
Greetings, friends!
We made it to 2020. Do you have literary goals for the year? I'm trying to finish the first draft of my manuscript and get into editing by this time next year. Sooner would be better, but I'm trying to have realistic expectations of myself.
Zach and I spent New Year's Day on the couch watching movies: The Lobster, followed by Book Smart. The Lobster was definitely the better of the two films, but also way darker and hard to watch at times due to some fairly graphic violence. But there were elements I just loved. In particular, it was set in a near future environment that was kind of unexplained. I'm trying to channel that in my novel-writing going forward--no need to explain why the near future is the way it is, just give enough clues to the reader/viewer that they can draw their own conclusions. It's not about how and why things got that way, it's about how people are surviving in response to those changes. It's a tricky balance--giving enough information for thing…