Road Tales - Writing

I don't follow traditional guidelines for writers or traditional guidelines for anything for that matter.
I've talked to many writers who claim that they stick to a strict schedule. "I write 5 pages per day," one colleague claimed. Was I supposed to be impressed?

I know that I couldn't follow a rigid schedule. It may appear as though I write this blog every day. I don't. I write batches of them at a time, save them, and then release them one at a time to maintain the illusion. This is a trick that I learned from column writers decades ago
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Writing my novels has been more haphazard. It took me 8 years to write the first novel that I started, Beachhead. Characters were added along the way, but I was never able to make much progress on the actual composition. Of course, I had electrical engineering projects to work that paid the bills, kids to raise and launch, and gigs to play. I'm a pretty busy cat most of the time.

But, now that I'm retired from the corporate-cocksucker world I have finally found time to write.
I usually write with the TV tuned to some mindless show that offers no challenge. Occasionally, I play music of the period that I'm writing about. I did that frequently while writing Road Tales. There are songs that take you back in time to a place and people. The tunes trigger memories from the closet that haven't been dusted in years.

I write in a voice that I hope, and am told is, easy to read and follow. I attempt to do what the songs do, bring someone back to a time and place in their life. In Beachhead I attempt to bring the reader to the seaside community. One commented that she could smell the sea air. She lived in Iowa. I took that as quite a compliment.

I write in marathon sessions aided by lugubrious amounts of coffee. I am not sure how many pages come out of one of these sessions. I'm sure that it varies vastly. I am currently working on the second volume of Beachhead subtitled the Immortals. I had about 9 pages at the beginning of the month. I now have 44. I find it essential to keep a list of characters next to me as I write. Learning from experience, I used to spend inordinate amounts of time paging back on the computer to remember the names of characters. Having the handwritten list next to me is far more efficient.

My advice to writers. Forget the rules. Make your own rules. Find your own voice. And, most importantly, never listen to my advice.