Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

the long process February 5, 2012

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:13 am
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Things are changing in publishing, as e-publishing, indy-publishing and self-publishing are gaining popularity.  It is interesting to see exactly why.

Diana Gabaldon has a recent blog entry about her latest projects.  It includes are very thorough explanation of the long process of having a book published in the traditional manner.

The workings of a small indy-press like Lintusen are much simpler, because fewer people and projects are involved. When everyone is paid on percent of royalties, they’re all keen to get the work out as promptly as possible. When only one or two projects are in progress at any one time, the process can be streamlined.  All the same things Gabaldon mentions do happen though, just much more efficiently than with a huge corporate publisher.

Editing is a long, long process.  It makes me laugh at times.  When my students are sure they’re done a composition because they’ve read it through once, I can’t help but smirk and tell them what the editing process is really like!

Thanks  to my amazing editor, Vikki for her skill!  (She even corrects my Facebook slips! lol)

 

writing and real life January 23, 2012

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:25 am
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Arg.

You know, I had a rather easy teaching load first semester, and I thought, “Wow.  There will be so much time to write!” and I didn’t.  I had hoped to finish book 3, and maybe get a good start on book 4 in the Grace Awakening series, but it didn’t happen.

I completely blame Diana Gabaldon for this.

I was making good progress until Outlander came into the electronic library for me in October.  Then I had to read every other book in the series.   Have you seen this series?  The first book is over 800 pages, and it’s the shortest one.  Four of the seven books are well over a thousand pages.  Like 400 pages over.   The books were so good that I read every one of the books twice on my e-reader before they expired from the library, and then I went out and started buying the audio books to listen to while I knitted, sewed, cooked, or cleaned (okay, not so often while I cleaned, but only because I don’t do that very often).  Then I had to find and read all Gabaldon’s Lord John books.  Just because.  Between reading and working and the other stuff- like making a traditional 8 yard kilt…  I wasn’t getting much writing done.  Much?  Read ‘practically none.’

I was listening to the Diana Gabaldon podcast the other day (yes, it’s all gotten quite obsessive, I recognise) and this comment struck me:

I write every day. If you don’t write for a day or two, the inertia builds up on you and it’s hard to start again.  (Diana Gabaldon podcast Episode 3: The “Kernel Process”)

Plainly, that is precisely my experience.  I wrote the first two books in 6 months, writing 5 pages a day, or 25 pages a week, while I was working full-time and president of my Rotary club.  Two years of editing those, and starting the research on the next series, and then Outlander brought me to a grinding halt.    Gabaldon reminded me that it was time to find the hour a day that would break the deadlock and get me in the swing of working on the novel(s).

In the last week, I’ve been making a concerted effort to at least read through the previous work, edit here and there, add a scene, etc.  It’s not a lot, but it’s getting into the habit of spending time with Grace and Ben again, which is the important thing.

Diana Gabaldon is very active on the internet.  She interacts with her fans, she travels, she has family commitments, and yet she is writing every day.  I was reading a section of The Outlandish Companion yesterday that particularly hit me.  She describes her day (December 15, 1995), in amusing detail.  Since I had already read the completed scene in situ, it was very interesting to read the process of its development.  She writes like I do on too little sleep, images come in, she asks questions, and the story evolves.  At the end of that particular day, she was 1700  words short of her 2000 word goal, but she had several threads developing in her mind and she had 300 words more than nothing.  As I read how she wove her writing into her day I decided I need to be far more disciplined if I’m ever going to get Awakening Myth finished for this spring.

Next week the new semester begins, and I’m full-time again.  Guess what?  I bet I’ll find more time than I’ve been able to find for the last five months.  I’ll be squeezing it in between other tasks with intention.  I’ll probably have to cut back on the knitting, but since I have made 3 sweaters, 5 scarves and 5 pairs of socks already, that shouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.  We’ll see.

PS.  If you want to read about Diana’s day some 16 years ago, it’s here.  If you have The Outlandish Companion, it’s on page 453.

PS2.  Didn’t I say in yesterday’s blog that the student is responsible for learning, and the teacher can only inspire?  Thanks for the lesson, Diana.  I guess it’s my own fault your great books completely distracted me from my responsibilities. I get it.

 

death and time January 3, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:14 am
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I’ve been pondering time lately.  I once heard a theory that while time is linear to us, that it could also be a circle.  I envision this as a tight coil, circle upon circle, so that everything is really happening simultaneously, in different components of the coil.

This concept works well with my notion of Other Realms, such as exist in Grace Awakening.  This makes the past that Ben is obsessed with and that Grace is dreaming about is all really concurrent with their modern high school experience.  The memories of 3000 years are as close as the present.

This sort of fits with the experience of Jamie and Claire in the time travelling Outlander series.   It changes the concepts of death and love.

18th century Jamie expresses it well to Claire who has crossed through the standing stones in the 1960s to return to him in the past.  She is remembering his grave seen in her own time, and she is afraid for him.  He is not worried:

“But do you not see how verra small a thing is the notion of death, between us two, Claire?” he whispered.

“All the time after ye left me, after Culloden—I was dead then, was I not?…Two hundred years from now, I shall most certainly be dead, Sassenach…  Be it Indians, wild beasts, a plague, the hangman’s rope, or only the blessing of auld age—I will be dead. … And while you were there—in your own time—I was dead, no?… I was dead, my Sassenach—and yet all that time, I loved you. … So long as my body lives, and yours—we are one flesh,” he whispered.  His fingers touched me, hair and chin and neck and breast, and I breathed his breath and felt him solid under my hand.  Then I lay with my head on his shoulder, the strength of his supporting me, the words deep and soft in his chest.    “And when my body shall cease, my soul will still be your’s Claire—I swear by my hope of heaven, I will not be parted from you.  … Nothing is lost, Sassenach; only changed.”

“That’s the first law of thermodynamics,” I said, wiping my nose. 

“No,” he said. “That’s faith.” (Drums of Autumn p.321-22)

It makes my heart ache a bit to think of such faith in love.  That’s a good thing too.  I think Ben feels the same way about Grace, so long as she will choose him, and survive the attacks of those meant to destroy her.  There’s that finger of doubt chasing him, though.  Will she stay this time?

Death doesn’t stop the love.  The loss of a person physically doesn’t mean the warmth of feeling disappears.  Scents or memories can drop in and collapse the time between in an instant.   Dreams seem like a very logical way to cross the divide.  Visitations can be close in the territory of Morpheus.  I wonder if he’s worked out some arrangement with Chronos?  Hmmm.

 

library ghosts December 30, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:31 am
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Still less could I be afraid of those ghosts who touch my thoughts in passing.  Any library is filled with them.  I can take a book from dusty shelves, and be haunted by the thoughts of one long dead, still lively as ever in their winding sheet of words.

Diana Gabaldon.  The Fiery Cross

 

standing stones at the solstice… December 21, 2011

Filed under: Commentary,OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 4:14 pm
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I’m spending a lot of time the last couple of months reading Diana Gabaldon novels. The Outlander series is about standing stones, and the opportunity to time travel on the sun and fire feasts of assorted solstices. When I realised the day, I posted this on the Diana Gabaldon Facebook site, but I thought I’d share it with you as well.

On this Winter Solstice Day, may the stones guarding your reality open to your dreams…

What are your dreams?

What is standing in the way of achieving them? If your desires are attainable, just as a little more light is added to each day from today onward to summer, take a few moments daily to take steps to fulfilling those dreams. Write a few words, learn a few things, work out a few minutes. Each small step leads closer to reality. Then the stones of your reality won’t be blocking you, they will be the doors to your destiny.

 

re-adjusting… December 8, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:36 pm
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I was driving home while listening to the audio book of Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber. It’s a brisk December day, -3 Celsius.

At this point in the story, the narrator was discussing about how the day of the Battle of Culloden was bitterly cold. Immediately, in my mind, I envisioned a bitterly cold day. -20 or so. The next line was about how the bodies were stacked wet with blood and rain. Rain. Immediately, I adjusted my vision of the cold 21 degrees warmer…

Then I laughed. So much of the story is contained in the perspective of the reader. I know it intellectually, but it always seems to take me by surprise when I see it in action.

A couple of times I’ve had comments from readers of Grace Awakening that baffled me. Sometimes they’ve just misinterpreted something, or missed some detail, but often it is just that their life experience reveals a different view on the events. It’s interesting.

Bitter cold doesn’t need to be -20 of course. I spent a July in Vancouver one year, and the humidity of the city got into my bones and I was cold all the time. It was much worse than the -20 winter days! Living in the dry interior of BC, I don’t like humidity. Perhaps the weather at Culloden, not far from Inverness and the Channel, was that ‘get into your bones’ bitterness, even though it was above zero.

Adjust while reading.

Carry on.

 

practice November 29, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Pondering,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:04 am
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“forgiveness is not a single act, but a matter of constant practice”

Diana Gabaldon in Drums of Autumn

Forgiveness is something that requires practice because it’s not that easy to do.  There are things that get under your skin and you want to hold onto them.  Little injustices.  Petty irritations.  Big betrayals.  Some things are so slight that others don’t know why you’re holding onto them, but we’re stubborn to our own detriment, much of the time.  I’m a bit of an expert in the cutting of a nose to spite a face.

When you can do it though, even for big things, especially for the big things perhaps, it releases a freedom of spirit.  Holding tight to grudges ties a knot in your spirit.  Forgiveness creates the wings to set it free.

 

 

Echoes November 24, 2011

Filed under: book reviews,Commentary,OUTLANDERishness — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:21 pm
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In my on-going delight over having discovered and devoured Diana Gabaldon last month, I have read the last book in the Outlander series twice this month (I read through most of the series twice since I discovered them. Just because.

I had a bunch of ponderings about Echo in the Bone, and was hoping to spend some quality time on the Outlander Book Club forum. Unfortunately, having Americans involved, they have closed the forum for the Thanksgiving holiday (imagine! shutting down the internet for a holiday!) NOT being an American, I’m not very impressed. I did a search for other discussions and came across this amusing review.  I thought you might be entertained by it as much as I was.

Having shared that, and not being able to play on the forum, I shall have to listen to Voyager and cut out that linen tunic, I guess.

 

audio reading November 14, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Reading — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:01 pm
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My father is legally blind, and as a result he has been receiving books on tape from the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and the regional library for several years.  I have really only listened previously to one audio book, a copy of The Golden Compass that we took out to listen to as a family on a long driving holiday.  I guess it’s because I read so quickly, or because you could only get them out from the library unless you were visually disabled, but I haven’t gotten onto the listening bandwagon.

Recently a friend suggested that I should listen to The Outlander series (even though I had just read the whole series) because narrator Davina Porter is so wonderful.  I bought a couple books, and have been listening, and I am enthralled with Porter’s melodious voice.  The Outlander series is full of long books- the first one is 33 hours and the second is 35 hours.  I think I saw one comes in at 55 hours (A Breath of Snow and Ashes is almost 1400 pages, I recall).  I’ve managed to knit much more efficiently while someone else reads to me, than when I was reading print and knitting simultaneously!

I made an audio recording of Grace Awakening the summer of 2009 for my dad.  I know how long it takes to do it, and how tricky it is to read expressively with slightly different voices for the various characters, etc.  Porter is amazing at that, with a breadth of accents, pacings, and intonations for the various characters.  I think I would listen to her read the phone book.

Here is an interesting pair of videos Porter and he husband did, wherein Davina Porter discusses her job as an audio reader.  Quite interesting, and you can enjoy her beautiful voice.

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PART ONE

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PART TWO

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falling through holes in history November 7, 2011

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Reading,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 8:33 pm
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Well, novelists are a conscienceless lot. Those of us who deal with history tend to be fairly respectful of such facts as are recorded (always bearing in mind the proviso that just because it’s in print, it isn’t necessarily true). But give us a hole to slide through, an omission in the historic record, one of those mysterious lacunae that occur in even the best documented life…

 (Diana Gabaldon in the Author’s Notes of An Echo in the Bone  p. 1103-4)

I have taken a break from working on Grace Beguiling in order to focus on Grace Awakening Myth, but when I read this remark in the notes, it made me laugh.  I have enjoyed hunting through historical records, and finding just enough holes to fall through.  Those hollows are the where the most interesting parts of the story breathe their own lives.  I am looking forward to getting back to the 14th century and exploring  beguilement.

I have to make it through the myth first, though.