Gail Anderson-Dargatz is a formerly local writer. She graduated from the high school where I teach, and until last summer, she lived over the hill and wrote about our region. At the moment she’s living all the way across the country on an island in Lake Huron. Gail also teaches at UBC in the Creative Writing Masters program. In addition, she has a blog. On her blog she has a guest author visit from Vincent Lam, and(here is the point of this post at last!) Vincent Lam has a fun post about editing. Enjoy!
be bad May 19, 2012
A colleague of mine was telling me yesterday that she wants to write. She is terribly impressed that I have written these books. She would like to write a play.
But…
But she hasn’t.
Why?
Because she gets in the way. She doesn’t know which direction to take a scene in, so she takes it neither direction. She doesn’t know how many characters to use, so she has none. She has so many things, that she has nothing.
I told her that she should give herself permission to write a crappy play. If she can free herself from the idea that what she has written must be good, she can actually write SOMETHING. Once there is something on the page, you can edit it into something better. If there is nothing on the page, well, there’s nothing!
I read that Diana Gabaldon wrote Outlander as a practice novel. She thought she’d try writing a novel, and since no one was ever going to see it, she could do whatever crazy thing struck her fancy. She gave herself permission to have fun with the experience, and she did.
When you give yourself permission to be bad, you give yourself permission to take risks. Let the voices in your head go nuts. Catch what they say. Don’t think about it. Don’t worry if it’s ‘right’ or if it’s ‘good.’
Just let it BE.
Try writing the same thing from different characters’ perspectives. Try different narrative styles. You need to put the time in and explore the process. You will find something interesting, but you won’t if you don’t let it happen.
Give yourself 15 minutes. Tell the inner critic to leave you alone, and just write. Don’t stop yourself from achieving your dreams. Don’t be your own enemy.
Write it.
editing May 16, 2012
I mentioned the other day that I enjoy the editing process. Apparently I am not alone!
On his blog David Antropus recently wrote, “editing is an integral part of the creative process and isn’t really qualitatively different from writing. What we tend to call “writing” is in fact “initial drafting” and what we often think of as “editing” is just a deeper form of “writing”. Every bit as creative, and potentially just as satisfying. At its best, it’s the layers of paint over the pencil sketch.”
He goes on to demonstrate, showing the process. Check out the indiesunlimited piece by clicking here. He has some valuable links in the comment section. Read through it all. Great stuff!
Latin inspiration May 8, 2012
I don’t know why I am so surprised when I discover yet another way in which knowing other languages adds so many layers to the words we use every day. Beyond that, root words I’ve known forever, suddenly spring into profound meaning with a flash. Like today.
Consider the Latin root spir. It means ‘to breathe.’ You know, ‘respiration’ and all that.
Combine it with the prefix in- meaning ‘in’ or ‘on.’
This means inspire translates as ‘in breath’ or ‘on breath’
Oh my.
Breath is an essential aspect of life. Without breathing, there is no life.
Our creativity is essential to our life. We are inspired as we are in our breath.
When we are inspired, the doing becomes as natural as breathing.
Oh.
My.
pinterest May 7, 2012
I’ve been hearing about Pinterest, so I decided to take a look. It seems like fun, so I’ve got a profile going there. My boards are about the places and spaces that I love (like my own backyard), people I admire (so far only authors, but if I think, I know I’ll come up with more. At the moment I am so obsessed with Diana Gabaldon I’m having trouble seeing past her! lol), and books I love.
After that, I jumped into author mode, and Grace has a board, as well as Ben and Auntie Bright.
Have a look around at Pinterest.com/ShawnLBird. Feel free to offer some suggestions!
passive power May 2, 2012
Sometimes, just being is powerful.
I remember when I was in grade eleven, one of our graduating students, Randy Lawrence, won a play writing competition with a play entitled, “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There!” It’s a clever twist on the epigram, “Don’t just stand there, do something!” It’s not true that any action is better than inaction. As Lawrence suggests in this title, sometimes, it the best course of action to wait patiently.
In fiction, a passive character is a boring character. Critics tend to like “strong characters” and it is certainly true that a character prone to doing ‘something’ (when perhaps ‘standing’ is the better idea) will get himself into far more interesting adventures. I understand that.
There’s been the odd reviewer who finds Grace excessively passive. It’s certainly true that Grace receives action and is forced to react more than she instigates action. She is not the feisty heroine who’s out to put all wrongs right right from the very beginning. She is a quiet person who just wants a peaceful existence. Truth be told, she should be a boring person. She’d love to be a boring person, with boring experiences to recount. Unfortunately, there are those who won’t let her have her boring life. She is forced to deal with the destiny she has been given, just like the rest of us.
So she’s not actively pursuing her destiny. To be honest, this makes her like 95% of the people I know, 90% of the time. Occasionally things shake us up, but most of the time, we don’t set ourselves up for much excitement. We make good choices. We play it safe. We survive to live another day.
Like us, Grace isn’t an adventure seeker. She’s a victim of circumstance, though. Grace has to learn why things are always ‘happening to her’ before she can face it down. She spends some time grumbling about it. You know people like that, don’t you? The ones who whine that their life is so unfair. You can usually point to the flaw in their character or the specific choice that led them into their circumstance. That’s the lesson that Grace (and the reader) has to learn. We are the one common denominator in all our life experiences. We carry our hamartia. So whether we ‘deserve’ our fate or not, some essence of our being has often led to it. We are still an element of it. Like Grace, our passivity may be our power, but sooner or later, it must be resolved.
When I crafted Grace, I wanted the reader to identify with her. I wanted them to share in her confusion, and imagine themselves in her experiences. That’s the reason there is no physical description of Grace anywhere. When I ask readers how they visualize Grace, they invariably describe a version of themselves. Most of the students I know have outside forces controlling their lives. Parents, schools, and/or teams govern their time and responsibilities. They can relate to Grace receiving action, rather than causing it, and they’re the ones I wrote for.
Josh says it best, “Be.”
Myths about writing April 12, 2012
LOL. My first book hasn’t even been out a year and I have run into many of these comments.
Worth a read!
Arg! April 11, 2012
Your priorities are
not my priorities.
Your time is
not my time.
Your hopes are
not my hopes.
Your deadlines
are not my deadlines.
But all
of mine,
depend
on yours.
on the muse… April 10, 2012
When the muse is dancing,
one plays her a tune.
Just thinking about inspiration. I try to keep my teaching work at school. I treat the job as ‘9 to 5’ and mark and prep after school. I try to never bring any marking home with me, mostly, I confess, because there are so many other distractions at home that I’d never look at it.
Writing, however, is a different thing. I’ll have ideas simmering on the back burner most of the time, but when I sit down and the words are coming, sometimes it is impossible to shut them off. I might be stuck, writing frantically for hours. If I don’t, then the words will still be pouring out, while I’m lying in bed. There is no sleeping at such times.
So my metaphor is explained. When the muse is dancing, one must play her the tune, because she will keep dancing one way or another. If you don’t capture her inspiration, it will carry on without you.
Shawn L. Bird 
editing fun April 28, 2012
Tags: comments, editing, editor, English, jokes
I enjoy the editing process. I love considering the questions that force me to think. Figuring out alternatives or motivations (therefore to bring a new truth) or tossing something that isn’t supported is very empowering. I see the process of these discussions as literary improv. Off the top of my head I have to be able to come up with a plausible reason for whatever question has been asked. Sometimes the answer has been in the story, but sometimes it’s back story stuff, but it needs to be consistent with character. I can be very creative. Sometimes my convoluted solutions are approved, but sometimes a set of lowered brows indicates I need to use my delete key, and kill my babies.
My editor, Vikki, peppers the manuscript with comments. Lots of times it’s just grammar corrections (Vikki is a grammar nazi), some moments earn exclamations, often she poses an intriguing question, and sometimes, when she’s been at it far too long and is plainly getting overtired, it can simply be entertaining.
My two favorite comments from the final edits of Grace Awakening Power:
“You use mad every time you mean angry. I know you are being colloquial, but it would be okay to use the correct word sometimes, again, as a model for young readers. And to add variety.”
I think of “mad dogs and Englishmen” in her context. 🙂 I always use ‘mad’ for ‘angry’ rather than to mean ‘crazy.’ Some days ‘shift F7’ is used more often than others!
Here’s my favorite comment:
“This event is an opportunity for Grace to accidentally bump up the energy, with people leaping from their wheelchairs and bursting into song, or something slightly more subdued. Grace and Ben together should be contagious, not just Grace for Ben.”
HA! “or something slightly more subdued!” HA HA! Vikki cracks me up.
Like the joke a friend sent me on Facebook today: “The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.” Bwaa ha haa!! I told it to my husband, cackling gleefully after the punch line and he stood straight faced looking at me, then shook his head and remarked, “Yeah. That sounds like an English teacher joke.” 😀
PS> I was VERY excited that Grace Awakening Dreams and Power, the trade paperback omnibus of the two e-books, is now available for sale to the public! There’s a link to purchase in the bar above. I know some have already sold, and I wonder if other folks will be reading it before my own case of books makes it through customs.
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