RUE, an acronym for ‘Resist the Urge to Explain’.

I’ve been mulling for little while now over a plot for a book and have had a pretty good idea where I would like to go with it, but until I read this article, I was choking on page 0 without really knowing how to start off. My problem was that I had been succumbing to the urge to explain—and getting nowhere.

But yesterday morning, an opening scene came to me which I developed in further detail while running later in the afternoon in the cemetery (yes, I do some of my best thinking—and sometimes even compose poetry when I run—doesn’t everyone?).  So there I was, making 7 miles of tracks around gravestones with a shadow character coming to life in my head.  This character was letting me know quite clearly that he has an irresistible urge to pound on a laptop, to make the story happen—by resisting the urge to explain.  And so after my 7 mile tour was complete and I had returned to my truck, he reached into my backpack in the backseat, grabbed a beer, and started sucking on it.  Just then, a tornado weather front started rolling wickedly in, north over Lake Erie.  So, still chilling with the beer, he positioned himself on the bottom ledge of an obelisk that’s upon a hill with an open view of the lake and watched the lightning flash and the clouds swirl.   Then, when the danger had passed, he reached into my backpack again, withdrew the laptop, and, in the dusk, began.