And yet another post about writing. Is there a magic formula for being a writer? Observe, Think, Write.

My daughter and I drove to a public library today. When I was about to turn the car into the library parking lot, I noticed the lot was empty and there were police cars and barriers blocking the way. Except for the police presence and the media, the outside of the building was eerily quiet. I turned right into an adjacent parking lot and I asked a by-stander, for he was literally standing by the closed parking lot, "What's going on?" It turns out there was a fatal shooting in the parking lot this morning.

Is this something to write a story about? Probably not. We came home, my wife was on the couch watching Oprah, but at a break we recorded the noon news and later saw the reporter describing the scene from the library parking lot.

Now this question has been on my mind for some time now. Not a week or a year but maybe for 20 or 30 years. I sit in front of my computer and I wonder what good writers are doing right now. Alfred Flan is writing at his word processor a third version of chapter three, in a novel called Chapter Three. Margaret O'Sullivan works with pen in hand. She invites the words like the biscotto, sometimes called biscotti, in her tea. You get the idea. Fred Winters, Carleton Chambers, Carmen Arnette. David Tumbarello. You get the idea. The only difference is that I have never thought of myself as a book writer. I can write prose pieces. I can string some pretty genius words together and occasionally impress my professors or some other person of importance. In seven months I will have an article published. I made an impression on an editor.

Today I read three stories. Incredible stories. Quite often I read a story and I stop myself about the time I finish the sentence "I can do that." I think the words and I remember I have never had success writing fiction. What is it about character, setting, events, and voice? I got the voice part. At least I've had it when I respond to prompts in graduate school. "Compare the emphasis on differentiated instruction in Fountas & Pinnell versus Martha Combs works on teaching elementary school language arts skills." Oh, I got that covered. Ask me write my thoughts or response to any scholarly topic. Got that too.

Now fiction. Fiction. Elusive.

Here is my thought of the night. Writing begins with an idea. Hum-wow. but it is true -- writing begins with an idea. Well, actually, it can also begin with writing, I suppose, but in the creative mind of Mr. Tumbarello, this thought is going to carry me to write my first book. (The author actually attempted to begin a book last year while taking a class on children's literature, but he bailed out after about three chapters, when the list of characters began to get greater than four.) And my brilliant idea of the night, besides the one mentioned in the second sentence of this paragraph, is the following: write about a boy who says "I can do that." Of course the irony is charming. If one can personify irony, which is an appropriate aside, since Ovid's Metamorphosis sits to my left on the desk by my PC.

So draft one would begin like this:
"On Friday, Charlie Templeton finished reading his favorite book, Biker Sam, for the fifth time that week."
and it would end like this:
"He closed the book and wondered about the boy this story would inspire."

I'm sure there are some appropriate pages & lines that will go in between those brilliant book ends, but I am not ready to .......