The police your friend and helper

First written in Dutch July 26, 2012

Writing for fun is writing just what you imagine, that’s what I am thinking for instance. That’s true for the part of my book that is a chicklit. The part which is dealing with the detective asks more. It asks for timelines, analytics and so on. So I have to think.

But I don’t like to think when I am writing. I just want to let the words flow. Till this week I put every event on a timeline. I thought that I did a great job already.

My love did warn me. He told me, make a analyses of your own book. You didn’t study that for nothing.

Secretly I know he is right, but doesn’t  he know yet, that what I want is to write a book, not to analyse it.

I decided that I wait with the analyses part till I finished the book. If I still like it to do, I can do it then. Naïve as I am.

But there is something I completely forgot. My book writes itself. And my book still lets me work.

That stupid detectives  in my book are going to make a timeline.

As you already know I don’t like to write it. So at first I did write a simple one.

Of course the worst thing happened. My story must be rewritten.

But it gets worse. The detectives in my book completed their timeline. And so it happened that, as well as dull as busy office days where on a Sunday and other stupid details . And again I had to rewrite. And by changing the timeline, chapters weren’t in line any more. Events that lasted two days, should happen in one day, and that was just the least.

How often  I sighed: ‘I am glad that I don’t have to do the work of a police officer.

And I realized how happy I am that I can work with a computer. I learned typewriting on a typing machine. In the old days it would have cost me days of cutting, paste , typ-ex and typing again. In the old days, I don’t think that I would have finished one single book at all. I am just too lazy for all that retyping , cutting and pasting stuff. Hard to believe that it is just about thirty years ago.

Just to feel save, I saved a copy before all I made all the changes. First I have to control if all the changes are really improvements.

I hope that I have completed  an accurate timeline now. Thanks to the persistent police. So today I am allowed to write again.