Everything I learned about writing I learned from... Lace?

In April fellow writer and froggy Judy,Judy,Judy took part in a writing bootcamp where I gather they were in teams and whichever team gets the biggest word count by the end of the month wins a free workshop. There's a sort of Nanowrimo idea to it, where you want to just get Words on Paper and overcome your inner editor for that first draft.

She wanted to keep the motivation going and so started her own monthly bootcamp, which she'll run every month if three people sign up. The person with the highest word count at the end get chocolate. There are also these "sprints" where you get online at the same time, write, chat a bit, write, and then your word count counts for double.

I signed up late--Sunday May 6th. I haven't done any sprints, and I doubt I will cause I just can't plan ahead, and commit to stuff right now. So let's see if I can get my own personal private prize: Highest word count without sprints! heh heh. Anyway, I'm thankful to J,J,J cause I've been writing at least 2000 words every night. I refuse to go to bed until I've made 2000, even though in the last 30 minutes my eyes look like this:

and I can't remember my characters names. Every time I have to put in a person's name, I have to pause and think. It's pretty tragic and amusing.

As I walk the wogglies these days I'm listening to old Storywonk podcasts--a podcast about writing by Lani Diane Rich and her husband. Most topics are things I've heard before cause I've been writing for 30 years, but it's always good to hear them discussed, debated, new examples, new approaches, and so forth and it keeps me in a Writing Frame of Mind.

I've been thinking lately about which authors taught me so many good writing "rules"/guidelines over the years. Here's one...

Shirley Conran taught me the dangers of infodump in Lace II, which I read in high school. It's where you dump a whole bunch of information into the story that either is Too Much Information, or should be spread out better. In Lace II there was a chapter that began with a big long description of different types of guns, and I called up Swiss Girl and said: "Shirley Conran is showing off how much research she did about guns. It's no necessary." <-- "No necessary" is how Swiss Mother used to say "not necessary."