I'm futzing around as usual. I have the whole afternoon to write and what I'm doing is checking and sending email, finding out what's up on Facebook, writing a little ditty for the April poem a day challenge (well, at least that's writing something), and eating my lunch. I'm not doing the writing I came down to my office to do, that's for sure. And I couldn't ask for a better atmosphere. The sun is out - for some reason the predicted huge rain storm missed us almost completely, the birds and insects are out checking out or little fountain in the yard, and not a sole is around. I like it this way when I'm working in my office. Quiet. Lonely. All conducive to get me going.

I wrote the dialogue for a new scene for my novel yesterday. Today I'm going to do some spackling - like Jessica calls filling in the action, descriptions, and other details. But, I think what I've written so far is a good start. I don't even know if writing the dialogue first is the way to start writing a scene, but yesterday it worked for me. I've written a kind of action outline before, but I can see how the dialogue can provide an outline as well.

And what I keep finding out is as I get into this novel writing thing, so much of it seems to write itself. I never believed it when I heard novelists talk about how their characters seemed to lead the way. The first step is to define the characters. Now they seem to be taking over the page.