Janet, I wrote half a novel - a very clever, funny satire on the year of the Watergate hearings - but like Marilyn I found plot almost impossible to handle. Also the sheer amount of material, that you have to remember exactly what you said someone was wearing on a given day or whatever. Pointless!! Looking back after I'd reverted to poetry I realised I was structuring the chapters like poems, which is clearly no good. It was fun, though, I had sections from different characters' points of view. One of my favourite scenes was where my experimental poet character heard that Ezra Pound had just died... oh he was so sad.
And while I didn't begin the chapters with verse, like Kevin, I did have about 2-3 wonderfully-researched epigraphs to each chapter. It was totally unpublishable.
Oh wait, I did write some 1972-type poems for the character - but as I recall, one criticism I got for them was they were slightly too good.
And I got shortlisted in a short-story competition. My only good short story.
With what relief did I write a sonnet one time and go: PHEW!
KEB
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