Friday, November 03, 2006

Chicken Cacciatore, national novel writing month

Last night for dinner I made Chicken Cacciatore (Cacciare means to hunt in Italian) from a recipe in the Dean and Deluca cookbook. This is one of the first cookbooks I bought and I love it. There are no photos but over the past nine years I have used it countless times.

There is a great wine shop on Larchmont Blvd. and they recommended a great half bottle of wine, Benton-Lane Pinot Noir from Oregon, 2002. The recipe, which I cut in half, calls for wine but to buy a whole bottle of red made no sense. A half bottle is perfect for one person. I had a glass while cooking last night and will have the rest of it with dinner tonight. Dinner was delicious.

A friend told me it's National Novel Writing Month. Good luck to all the writers out there. I have a lot of work ahead of me. My first act is too slow and long. Damn. As a film exec I have discussions all the time with writers who can't bring themselves to edit words that they have fallen in love with. Now I'm doing the same thing. I'd hate to lose certain jokes or lines of dialogue but I need to be ruthless. If the word, sentence, paragraph is not moving the story forward it has to go.

I wish I had taken a creative writing class recently (I did in college but that was back in the stone age). I would have a little more confidence about what the hell I'm doing. I am going really focus on my first act this weekend.

Okay, it's 6:00 a.m.. Waiting for the sun to rise a litte before going to Runyon Canyon to hike. It will be good to relax and just think about the book. On Wednesday I was getting frustrated because I kept coming up with dialogue for book number 2 as I walked up the mountian. Very annoying. I must finish book number 1 first.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey There - I've taken plenty of creative writing classes and I think you've probably got a better education having worked in the business. You're doing fine and sure, the novel needs some work, but that's totally normal and very doable. I am past the half way point, cruising along, and still enjoying it. Rewatch Adaptation and maybe it won't feel so frustrating! :)

nyc/caribbean ragazza said...

Thank you for the pep talk Chatam Jen. Adaptation was a great movie.