Being an INFJ and scoring something that only 1% of the entire population scores means nothing around here — the husband is already tired of hearing about it and I still have to do the laundry. I somehow thought I would be much more appreciated, that whole avenues that had been otherwise unknown to me before would suddenly open up but sadly, that hasn’t happened. So onward to other things.

Am still working toward the WORD goal (and yes, staring out the window for the past hour totally counts, because I was thinking about the WIP. Really.) I have decided to pull in my secondary characters, to do what Annie Dillard says:

“Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book, give it, give it all, give it now.”

Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind at any second (and blame it on the INFJ thing). And I began to wonder, during the staring out the window time, if writing life would be easier if I did / could plot. And then I started thinking about the whole selling on a proposal thing, spurred on by the incomplete book in front of me. I would LOVE to get to the point where I could sell on three chapters. (Let’s completely ignore the fact that I haven’t sold AT ALL and enter my AU dream-world, shall we? It’s so much fun here and there are enough peanut butter granola slim fast bars for everyone and anything French vanilla is strictly banned). However, I realize that, like all good things, this selling on proposal thing comes with a catch. Editors expect a synopsis to be included with the three chapters. And, funny thing, I think they expect you to follow the synopsis to some extent.

A synopsis. The thing I usually write once the book is complete. Because really, how else would I know what’s going to happen at the end of the book until I’ve actually written it? I mean, right now I’m on page 138 in the WIP. Things could go so many different ways. I think I should be able to say that at the end of the three chapters and leave it at that…

Dear Editor:

Here are my three chapters. After that, things could go so many different ways. Some of them could involve wolves. Trust me, you’ll love it.

PS I am an INFJ.

Steph T.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2005 at 11:54 am and is filed under Writing Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.