Shawn L. Bird

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

Amateur free verse November 8, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Poetry,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:39 am
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Putting on the English teacher hat…

(Free verse: poetry without rhyme scheme or rhythm.  The following poem is a tirade against bad free verse.  It is not written in free verse.)

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When crafting lines of poetry
Please choose your words most carefully.
If you must vomit onto the page
Clean up all the boring beige
Only the best words should be saved
Everything else, please deftly raze.
Leave your message in a poignant turn
Not lost amid the dross and worms.
In poetry, now please don’t pout,
the best is left,  when you toss out!

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Do you think a poem about it will make my students more inclined to do it?

No.  Probably not. 

I hate rambling, self-gratifying, free verse poetry.  I wrote a lot of it as a teen, and it was very cathartic.  Not everything we write is  worthy to be shared.  (In the effort to avoid hypocrisy, let me take this opportunity to apologize to the young men who were forced to endure those horrendous, cathartic poems:  I was young.  I was stupid.  Please forgive me).  Let us remember that even free verse should be edited for the most beautiful, evocative, powerful language we can create!  There is power in brevity!

I think I may make a poster that summarizes this idea even further:

Use the best, the perfect words

Don’t bury them beneath the turds

 

Not the one November 5, 2010

Filed under: anecdotes,Commentary,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:07 am
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A prose selection that’s been floating in my mind for quite some time………

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     “Just how near-sighted are you?” she asked from the side of the pool.
     He laughed, as he leisurely moved his arms to keep himself upright in the deep water, “Very.”
     She slipped into the water while she watched him. About 8 feet away, she pulled up. “Can you see me here?”
     He shook his head, “Nope. You’re just grey fuzz.”
     She swam a few feet closer. “Here?”
     “Nope.”  His voice had changed subtly.  There was a timbre behind it that drew her.
     She moved in again. “Here?” Her heart was beginning to pound.
     He whispered this time. “No.”
     She blushed in the cool water as she swam even closer. Their eyes were less than a foot apart now.   Their lips were less than a foot apart.  Inches.  She could see the creases, and followed his tongue as it licked across the bottom lip.
    She swallowed and murmured, “Here?”
    He stared into her eyes as his lips curled into a slow sultry smile. “Well, you’re almost clear there.”
   She gazed into his eyes, paddling her arms gently back and forth, her heart pounding in her ears at his invitation.  She felt her life unfolding before her in the depths of his eyes. Would it be?
   Time stood still as he waited, smiling with the challenge.  The gauntlet was  thrown. 
   Time was frozen as she waited, feeling for her future, wondering.
   And suddenly, it was clear.  

   Driving the heel of her hand across the surface of the water she splashed a wave into his face, then dived past him as he reached, laughing, to grab her.
   She swam away from him, beneath the surface of her dream, deep in the water of a new choice.  She was bidding farewell to the dreams that had haunted her.  Dreams that would probably haunt her forever.  Dreams are not reality. 

   He was not The One after all.

———————–
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Technically, this isn’t about Grace & Ben although I’ve linked it to other writings about them.  It fits with the theme of Grace Awakening although it doesn’t fit into the plot.  Ben is definitely The One, so this could be Marco or Alex?  It’s a little closer to the Bright and Umed narrative, though of course, they would never have been swimming together.  Whatever it is, it’s a slice of life moment when destiny is looking you right in the eyes, and you know that the decision you make will irrevocably rearrange the rest of your life.  You have to stare deeply into the mists and decide if this is the future you choose.

It’s kind of profound when it happens to you.

 

Slowing down November 4, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:27 pm
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Yesterday I was listening to CBC as I was coming into the house. The person being interviewed was talking about how science has created significantly smaller unit of time than the nanosecond. He was talking about how a whole other world could co-exist with us in place, but because they were living in a different time, we wouldn’t even notice them. Their world would exist so much more quickly than ours that we would be statues in their midst. Several generations of their lives could pass within a blink of our eye.
It’s not implausible. After all, insects live in a more rapid world than we do. The water cycle is much faster than the rock cycle.
This presents interesting narrative possibilities
Could the beings living in this rapid world be responsible for unexplained phenomena in our world?
Could we be living in someone else’s much slower world? Are those statues on display in museum, really just very slowly living beings?
Hmmmmmmm….

 

Grace makes friends October 30, 2010

Filed under: anecdotes,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:33 am

You know what I love?  I love getting feedback from readers.  It is so incredibly gratifying to have someone telling me what they’re thinking as they’re immersed in Grace’s world.

At the moment, one of my grade seven students is reading a bound draft copy of Grace Awakening.  Yesterday we finished silent reading and were busily working on socials projects when she looked up at me and blurted out, “Mrs. Bird!  I can’t stop thinking about that phone conversation Grace overheard about Ben!”   Today as silent reading ended, she put the book down slowly and grumbled, “Why do we have to stop?  They’re on the train and the guy just got stabbed!” 

A boy across the aisle from her looked from her to me and said, “Mrs. Bird, your book sounds way more exciting than the one I’m reading!  I want to read your book next!”

Outside our Hallowe’en dance in the afternoon I was chatting with a young man.  He had told me that he was dressed as Ares, the god of war.  I explained that I knew Ares well, because he had a very significant scene in my book.  We discussed the differences between Ares and Mars, and then another boy, who’d been listening remarked, “I’m buying your book when it comes out, Mrs. Bird.  It sounds awesome.”

It is quite crazy to have this amazing opportunity to touch lives and experiences with my words.  I’m not sure that it’s as suited to the boys as they think, but the fact that I can discuss these gods with them is fun.  It’s also wonderful to give them a chance to connect with “a real writer.”  Mothers have come up to me in the hall and asked about my book because their child has told them about it.  It is all rather surreal.

I can’t wait until book launch time!  More than that, I can’t wait until AFTER the launch when there are lots of readers to discuss the book with!

11 months to go…

 

Write this and that, but skip the crap! October 27, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:44 am
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Yahoo Canada News reports on a 19 page manuscript for an unfinished work by Theodore Geisl aka Dr. Seuss going up for auction. 

An included letter from Dr. Seuss to his assistant makes for interesting reading. Seuss was displeased with the work, and especially the main character, Pete. In the letter, he explains why ne never seriously pursued its publication. “What, in my opinion, is wrong with this story is that…despite the greatness of Pete as a stellar athlete hero…the negative image of him flubbing and unable to catch any ball at all will make him schnook… And I think the reader’s reaction will be, ‘What’s the matter with this dope?'”

The L.A. Times points out that it may have been this bit of self-editing on the part of Seuss that set him apart. Clearly, he was good enough to know that not everything he wrote was worthy of his name

And that is the mark of a quality writer, isn’t it?  Not everything is worth disseminating to the world!  The ability to filter and to edit is crucial to ensure excellence.  For the beginning writer, each word is like gold.  It is so much work to get them on the page that you become attached to them.  To be asked to edit, that is, to re-think, to re-vision, to re-word, to re-phrase, or to just cut something right out– well, it is like cutting off a piece of your body.  (A piece you like and want, not something like a gangrenous foot, but something like your nose).  In time however, we may see that the thing we like IS eating away at our manuscript, making it less than it should be, and like gangrene or a cancer, it must be cut out.

On the other hand, sometimes pain is good for us.  It may cause us a sense of loss to see our perfect prose slashed through with blue pencil, but a re-read a safe distance away in time, and the improvements are undeniable.  Sometimes we must let go to find the stronger writer within us. 

Meg Tilley told me once during a blue pencil session that she saves the words by putting them at the back of the manuscript.  She finds it comforting to know they’re still around until she’s completely secure that it’s right to let them go.  I don’t do that.  I have complete copies of the manuscript saved, so a session of cutting and  slicing doesn’t bother me.  After a rest to let the words lose their holy status, I approach the edit with verve.  When I’m sure it’s time for the words to go, I am free slice them off with impunity.  I find it cathartic, actually.  I like the 10% per edit rule, and it works.  Subsequent readings move more and more smoothly.

But before there are the fine word by word edits, there are the concept edits.  There are those stories that seem like good ideas at the time.  We get started, have a few hundred pages invested and then it is obvious that this just isn’t going to be what it needs to be.   Like Seuss did with Pete the Athlete, sometimes we have to bid farewell to characters that don’t have what it takes to bring readers to care about their problem, if indeed they have one.  Every story needs a conflict or there is no point in reading.   Jocks like Pete  are only legends in their own minds.  Good call Dr.  Sorry Pete.

 

the longest month September 12, 2010

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:06 am
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I’m starting to feel like I’m nine months pregnant.  The ninth month of pregnancy is the longest month.  You mothers out there will know what I mean.  When you get to a few weeks from your due date, people start calling you up to see if you’re still pregnant or whether you’ve got a baby in the cradle yet.   As you pass your due date (as I did every time) you get even more concerned calls.  All the affectionate interest begins to get a little wearing.  You want that baby out more than anyone else, and every well intentioned question emphasizes the delay.  You watch the days pass on the calendar and when the next person asks if you’re still baby-less, you want to scream, “I will ensure the whole planet knows once junior has arrived, please leave me alone to agonize in peace over this miserable delay!”

Welcome to my experience with publishing!  I hear I am not the only one who has discovered that those in the publishing industry have their own time vortex.  They say ‘2 weeks’ but that really means ‘2 months.’   They say  ‘soon’ when they really mean ‘later.’  I hope having named a month, they don’t mean the one NEXT year, since the one named has already passed.  

I once heard of a writer who was waiting to hear back from his agent.  Being used to long delays and poor communication, he just waited patiently.  He didn’t want to be an irritating pest, after all.  Eventually he wrote, and discovered his agent had been dead for a year already!  Oh dear.

It’s a waiting game, and I’m in the longest month.  Pretty soon I’m going to have those contracts in my hands and the adventure will be undeniable.

Or maybe I’ll be sending flowers to a  funeral.

 

editing September 1, 2010

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 7:11 am
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I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve edited the work I’m gathering in my  MFA application portfolio. It is quite amazing how many times one can read something and still find things to adjust. You think it’s perfect, and then you read again and find another typo, another sentence to re-phrase, another word to tighten up meaning.

It makes me laugh when I ask my students to edit something they’ve written and they refuse, because they are sure it’s perfect as it is. First draft perfection. The Mozart Effect perhaps?  Do you remember the scene in the movie when Salieri realized that the perfect music score he’s looking at is a first draft- that Mozart took entire scores out of his head and just put them on paper without a single erasure?  It was traumatizing for him that the irritating, immature Mozart had such a glorious genius to craft heavenly music apparently without effort.

While my students are amazing, I don’t teach that many geniuses.  Trust me, even the geniuses have no excuse not to edit.

There is a strange power in understanding that while perfection may be an impossible goal, the process of editing is a journey toward finding the best in our ideas.  Getting the ideas out initially is one process, but trimming those ideas to bring them to a polished brevity that catches the reader with its brilliance is something else.  Editing never ends.  Improvement is always possible.  Perfection is a journey to understanding.

Edits of this post: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

 

The publishing process August 26, 2010

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:37 am
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I was just asked by a budding novelist to tell something about the publishing process. Here was my rather abbreviated response:

The best suggestion I can give you is to spend a lot of time on www.writersdigest.com reading articles and chatting on the forums. A subscription to the magazine is also very worthwhile. It’s an excellent manual to the process of getting published in a variety of genres.

In my About Me section there are links to some writerly organizations you may want to check out.

My own personal experience with the process is given at https://shawnbird.com/grace   See the article (link at the bottom of the page) called The Story of Grace.

The simplified version of the process goes something like this:
1. write your novel
2. edit your novel 20 times, cutting 10% each time
3. leave the novel for a year
4. read it again, re-write all the parts you now realise are crap
5. send out query packages to agents and/or publishers (cover letter identifying your credentials and a bit about the novel, a one page synopsis of the novel, a 10 page sample of the novel)
6. get a lot of rejection notices in the mail- make particular note of any suggestions given by professionals about your manuscript, fix them
7. get an offer to publish
8. negotiate a contract, get a cheque for your advance
9 (at this point, the publisher may leave your ms in limbo for years. It might never actually be published, even though they paid you for it)
10. edit with the publishers’ editors. They will force you to make painful cuts
11. see a published copy!!!
12. work with the publishing house marketing team to publicize your novel
13. wait for royalty cheques to roll in! 😉 (One friend tells me he sometimes gets royalty cheques for amounts like $1.32)

 

decorating August 3, 2010

Filed under: Pondering,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:24 am
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This is a draft that I think will turn into something else later.  However, at the moment, it is this!  lol

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Once upon a time there was a little girl. She was the only child of doting parents. She was happy. She was admired. Her life was perfect.

The little girl grew up, and as she grew, she was happier. She liked herself. The curves of womanhood were celebrated. The eyes were admired. Everything she saw in the mirror was satisfying. She was thoroughly proud of every part of herself.

Except her nose.

She disliked the round nose with the ski jump and the tip that bounced when she talked.

“There’s nothing wrong with it!” assured her mother.

“It’s just like mine!” bragged her father.

The girl looked at her father’s large hook nose that tilted off to the side to show that he’d been a boxer in his youth and tears came to her eyes.

“If you really hate it,” remarked her best friend, “you can always go to a plastic surgeon and get it fixed.”

And so the girl pondered. She thought. She mulled. She studied. She considered.  What nose would she have if she had a perfect nose?  She knew exactly what she’d trim, and precisely where she’d tip.  She visualized her face with this perfect nose, and realised there was a problem.

She knew how proud she was of herself, and she realised that if her nose was to her liking, she would feel beyond beautiful. She knew her head would fill with herself (and being an only doted upon child, it was already quite full of satisfaction). She would become too pompous for other people to be around. She had obviously been created with this unattractive nose to protect her from vanity. It was the only tether to humility she had. She had to keep it.

Years went by. If anything, the nose began to resemble the father’s even more. The grown girl, now a woman, despaired of it, but determined to celebrate the source of her humility. She adorned the dreaded nose with a jewel, that caught the sun and twinkled merrily.  Whenever she caught sight of the glinting gem she smiled to herself, and thanked heaven for her distinctive nose.

 

time travelling July 25, 2010

Filed under: Commentary,Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:02 am
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Writing is a way of communicating across time and space. As a teen, I remember a friend ruminating about how his letter was going to time travel to me, and that when I read it, a week or so hence, I’d be in his past. When I read my teen diaries, I’m conscious that I am time travelling back to visit with another self, and I wish I had a little more of value to say about the times and experiences I was having! I was, sadly, a very boring diarist, as I explored my particular obsession ad nauseum. Nonetheless, the power of that time travel is still with me. My diaries are messages to the future that are still there, waiting for an even further flung future. My thoughts, my worries, my dreams are all congealing on those pages, just waiting for a future someone to read the message. Unfortunately, the communication is one way. How I wish I could send a message back to that young diarist and tell her that it would all work out: every last bit of it, as perfectly as could be wished, and assure her that she would find the meaning of the life story she was struggling to understand.

These days, I am spending a lot of time with Francesco Petrarca, a man who loved to write as much as he loved to read. Letters, poetry, essays were left behind him in a tidal wave of very well edited paper. He left us so many messages to the future that are still quoted by philosophers, theologians, historians, and poets. He was a fascinating guy, and it is amusing to read some of the commentators who evaluate Petrarca’s own perception of himself. He was apparently a blatantly proud self-promoter, using his celebrity with aplomb and thoroughly satisfied with his own worth. Although he wrote of his frailties of faith, his words suggest that he was humbly proud. He would be blissful that we are still pouring over his words today, and yet not particularly surprised about it. He believed his words were worth something significant; after all, his master work was his “Letter to Posterity” which he fully intended for people to be reading long after his death.

I am absolutely adoring the ‘Franco’ who is being revealed to me as I read his writings, and those of the philosophers, historians and such who have analyzed his life. I think I’m falling head over heels in love with him, actually. Funny how his intellectual charisma reaches across time through his words, and draws us to him. I can see him at a cocktail party, gathering an audience as he asks tricky questions, delights in argument and good conversation, and has everyone enchanted. Thanks for your words, Franco. I wish I could travel back to 1370 and tell you myself.