Shawn L. Bird

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

feeling guilty? April 5, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening,OUTLANDERishness,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:04 pm
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Crystal Stranaghan was the publisher at Gumboot Books who signed Grace Awakening.  Sadly, Gumboot is no more, but Crystal is still involved in writing and all sorts of other projects.  In this blog post, she writes about feeling guilty about finding time for writing.

I am thoroughly impressed by Diana Gabaldon who says she writes every day.  Good thing, considering how huge her books are, and how desperate her fans are for her to finish them!  I know that a little work every day adds up quickly, but I also know how difficult it is to carve out time to do the work.  Gabaldon posts ‘daily lines’ almost every day on her website and Facebook, so it appears to be true. 🙂  She is juggling a few different projects, but there is a little snippet of writing from something to feed the fans.

I seem to find time for the blog, but it takes a little more effort to fit in the novel work.  The most words seem to fill my brain just as I’m about to drop off to sleep.  This is not always conducive to adequate rest, I confess.

Crystal says she feels guilty for taking the time to write.  By contrast, I feel guilty for not writing! ;-P  I know when I am working on a novel, I am making an investment that will pay off in the future.

How about you? Are you guilty for writing or for not writing?  How do you carve time to write in your day?

 

Where’s Grace? April 1, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 4:30 pm
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Yeah. I know.

Originally I had posted that Grace Awakening Power would be released in November.

Next I posted it would be out in January.

At the moment the website says “It’ll be out in February,” but it’s now April, so clearly that’s wrong, as well.

What’s the hold up?  Don’t look at me! ;-P  The manuscript has been with the editor since the summer.  I expected it back by the fall so Lintusen could have it out by the end of the year 2011.  Plainly I was wrong.

I don’t think there are that many mistakes in it, but I guess the day job is interfering with the editing job.  I’ve been trying to be patient, since nothing in the publishing world moves quickly or smoothly.  I haven’t been in the business long, but I learned that within the first year.

Many people ask, “WHEN?”  It always makes me a little embarrassed, because I’ve been giving out these dates, and they turn out to be wrong, so I look like I’m an idiot, or uninformed.

I can only say, “Soon!  I hope.”

Keep your fingers crossed with me.  (Though that does make it hard to type).

In the meantime, I hope you’ve been enjoying the snippets of  Book three: Grace Awakening Myths that you can find here on the blog.  I hope it’s a small consolation?

Soooooooooooooooon…..

 

Another snippet of Grace Awakening Myth March 31, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Grace Awakening Myth,Mythology,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 4:54 pm
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A little snippet from Grace Awakening Myth for your pleasure.  Ben is narrating.  ‘She’ is…well…  You’ll figure it out.

“Please?”
She shook her head. “It’s not our policy to interfere in such a way. The threads have been spun and the destiny is spun into them.”
“New people bring new thread though, don’t they?”
“Of course. Oh. Your thread, do you mean?”
I nodded. “Doesn’t it make me an important thread in her life?”
“Your thread is woven quite tightly into her tapestry so far,  true.  A thread can be continuous within a life. It doesn’t have to bring anything positive, though.”
“I’m positive.” I stared at her doubtful expression. “I’m positive I’m positive!”
She rolled her eye.
“You have no way of knowing that. You don’t know who she would have been without you.”
I stared at her. Better without me? How could Grace be better without me? What did she know about who Grace would have been?
“Your thoughts are on your face,” she said matter-of-factly.
I shrugged. My stomach was moiling. Would she have been better if I hadn’t been following her through time. I swallowed. “No.”
She gazed at me, sympathy warming the eye to tenderness. “Your wishing doesn’t make it so.”
“Can you show me?”
She wrinkled her brow. “Do you want me to pull your thread, so you’re removed from her picture?”
“If you pull it, can it go back?”
She shook her head, “No. Once a thread is out, it can’t be reintegrated the same way again.”
“Could it be better than before?”
She smirked. “Ah. Your optimism amazes me.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
She shrugged. “We’re artists. We use our skills and tools to create, but we only have the raw materials we’ve been given. The tapestries always reflect the life stories they tell. Some are ugly simply because the life is ugly. Sometimes the tapestry is strangely compelling for all its ugliness.”
I ponder that for a moment. “Wait.” Do you mean me?”
She guffawed. “Oh by Zeus no. Have you seen your thread? No, not you at all. I mean the lives of people like that snarly creep Ivan the Terrible or that miserable, greasy little Hitler.”
I blinked. I’d lost the rest of her words, frozen by her first statement. I whispered, “Can I see my thread?” In several millennia the audacity of requesting such a thing had never occurred to me. Both gods and men generally avoided interaction with the Moirae, their power was great and terrifying. But I was here, now. Clotho was in a pleasant enough mood. I might never have another opportunity like this. I whispered, “Can I see my thread?”
She glanced around, and then, assured of our privacy, she grinned mischievously and held out her empty hand. She rolled her thumb back and forth across her fingers in rapid circles. A line of sparkles shimmered like a trail between thumb and fingers. She rolled her thumb in quickening circles and the sparkles aligned themselves into a glittering opalescent glow. I stared, awestruck. I reached out for the glowing thread. She grinned at me as she dropped the strand into my palm. “This is just a sample, of course. If we cut thread from the actual tapestry…”
“Yeah. I know.” Mortality was held in the scissors her sister Atropos wielded.
I held an end of the thread and raised it to the light. In a milky whiteness blue, orange, green and pink flamed like an aura of hope. “This looks like a positive kind of thread.”
“It’s beautiful, obviously. One of the most beautiful we spin, actually, but beauty isn’t always good. You know Aglaea. And Aphrodite herself, for that matter.”
This was bold talk, but perhaps the old woman was beyond concern for love, and therefore beyond Aphrodite’s power of retribution.
“But…”
“Look, sometimes something this sparkly is a distraction. It detracts or endangers. What if her life requires camouflage? This kind of brightness is going to bring the guns on her.”
“Unless she’s trying to camouflage at the Academy Awards.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s true I suppose.
“Beauty, Radiance, and Joy.” The natures of the Three Graces.
“Yes.”
“They’re glorious threads, aren’t they?”
She shrugged and glanced away.
“You lying witch,” I muttered.
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s not the kind of thing you say to someone you’re trying to convince to give you a favour.”
“I am a positive element in her life.”
“You’re welcome to think so.”
“I am a continuity of love and acceptance, giving her strength,” I said firmly.
She scoffed. “You’re a continous source of pressure and obsession.”
“In a good way.”
She tried to look serious, but she had to stifle a snort of amusement.
“So will you help?”
“Oh, quit looking at me with those mushy, puppy dog eyes.”
“What if I write you a song?”
Her eye lashes fluttered. Perhaps she wasn’t completely out of Aphrodite’s influence after all.”
“Just for me?”
“Well. To keep you in harmony, I suppose I’d better compose a verse for each of your sisters as well.”
She sighed, “I suppose you must,” and gave me the most coquettish look I’d ever seen from a single eyeball. “But my verse will be the best one, aye?”
“Indeed. You will help?”
“All right. Come over by the door, and we’ll discuss the details.” She gripped my hand and pulled me along behind her. She was surprisingly strong, and I was reminded that despite her wizzened appearance, she was not to be trifled with. Her verse would have to be the best.

 

the other side of the pitch February 18, 2012

Filed under: Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:40 pm
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When I attended my first writing conference- the Surrey International Writers’ Conference in 2009- I was told about The Elevator Pitch. This is the 30 second blurb about your book that establishes the protagonist, conflict, theme and audience. You need one, because every time you’re asked, “What’s your book about?” you should be able to answer concisely, in a manner that catches the person’s interest. I worked with author Carol Mason to polish mine, and when I presented it to Crystal of Gumboot Books that afternoon, it earned me a “Yes, we’d like to see more!” and eventually a contract.

I wondered at the time, what is it like for an agent, publisher or editor at these events? They’re the ones being pounced upon by every would-be writer in the building. Everyone there has something to pitch, and the APEs are the ones being pitched at. The image in my head is someone standing in the middle of the room, frantically covering his head while baseballs rain down from every direction.

Mark Glenchur has written a delightful poem that gives a hilarious view from the APE side. Unfortunately, the writer in the poem did not have a 30 second elevator pitch polished and ready.  Read and learn.

 

write the magic February 15, 2012

Filed under: OUTLANDERishness,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:48 pm
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Little things kind of reveal themselves to me in the (process of) writing. A lot of people think that magic happens when you write, and it does, but they think, “Well you must be struck by inspiration, this magic bolt hits you and then you just sit down and … it must just pour out of you.”  Well no.  First you work and then the magic happens, if you’re lucky.  (Diana Gabaldon podcast Episode 3: The “Kernel Process”)

You have to write to find the words.  I tell my high school students to “think with your pen, not your brain.”  It’s an odd concept at first, but once the pen is moving (or the keyboard is clicking), the words tend to find their way onto the page (or screen).  If you wait for the thunderclap of inspiration, you’ll never get the words.  If you sit, ready to work, they flow by themselves.  Perhaps there won’t be thousands of them, perhaps they won’t all be brilliant, but there will always be something that you can use, even if only as a jumping off point for something else.

Think with your pen, not your brain.  That’s where the real magic is.

 

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)

 

7 keys January 26, 2012

Filed under: Commentary,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:56 am
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Charlotte Boyett-Compo, author of the Wind Legends series among other things, (www.windlegends.org) shared this brilliant bit of extended metaphor about publishing at Linked In the other day:

There is a round brass ring. From that ring are dangling Seven Keys.

All Seven Keys are needed to spring the Publishing Lock.

The keys diminish in size from Key One to Key Seven.

The largest key is Key One and it is named Desire.

Key Two is Determination.

Key Three is Perseverance.

Key Four is Endurance.

Key Five is Patience.

Key Six is Luck.

Key Seven is Talent.

If you use all seven Keys and the lock refuses to open, one of those seven Keys simply isn’t strong enough to make things tumble into place for you. Perhaps the Key to your future lies on another brass ring.

That’s quite profound, isn’t it?  Even with my limited experience here at the beginning of the journey I know there is a lot of truth here!  It is hard work to get your work out there.  Big or small, the publisher requires authors to be skilled in story and active in the promotion and marketing of their work.  Every writer has to develop his/her talent and keep plugging away at the craft in order to have any success at all.  It’s a hard reality I think.  Sometimes you have the luck, and sometimes you don’t.  Sometimes you just don’t have the ability to stick it out.  Sometimes you don’t have that special spark of talent that makes your work worth the effort.

 

Kharon drops in January 24, 2012

Filed under: Grace Awakening Myth,Mythology,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 12:03 am
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Further to my determination to squeeze out some writing or die trying, I thought I’d share the day’s efforts on Grace Awakening Myth (Book 3 of 4 in the Grace Awakening series).  It’s a first draft, remember.  To be honest, there are already some changes, but you’ll get the idea.  This is 1230 words.  My goal is about 1200 a day, (5 pages) or 6000 words (25 pages) a week.  That was the pace for the first 2 books in the series. 

As I sat down to write, the image in my head was of blackness.  I wrote about that while wondering exactly why it was so black, and then Kharon walked in… 

Truly, I just take dictation.  The story is just floating out there, waiting for me to listen to it.  Ben is narrating.

It’s a black night, Stygian black, as they say. That’s very black. The River Styx drifts, black as crude oil, roiling and burbling with the murmuring sibilance of thousands upon thousands of lost voices. Its thick waters seem to suck the light from the sky, and leave all around it in an inky grey wash. Kharon the boatman floats along on his ferry, pole in hand, pushing it away from the banks, gathering the departing souls and taking them safely to Hades, for the price of a coin, of course. He shows up at the stops to collect what Hermes has dropped off: the confused half-shadows, some still not quite aware that they are ghosts, reclaimed from new graves. The shades dazedly cough up their coin, and they load into the ferry as Hermes waves to them heartily and wishes them luck on the next part of their journey like some jolly tour guide. Hermes can be quite an ass. The vacuous faces hardly stir in response, though. Those without a coin are on their own to get across the Styx. If you’re on your own, you’re not going to make it across. Simple.

I shivered at the memory of that blackness and the descent into the sucking void of the underworld. This was earth though, and not the underworld. This was Grace, not Eurydice. It was a Stygian black night, though, and the oppressive gloom was creeping into my gut.

“Hey, there. Ben is it?” The low voice held a faint glimmer of amusement.

“Hello Kharon.” I nodded courteously, recognising him at once. Had my thoughts summoned him? Or was this dismal atmosphere a result of his presence? “What brings you here? You’re a little far from the river.”
“Not so far. A guy needs a bit of a break from water now and then, after all. The river flows where it needs to. It’s near enough that I can step ashore for a moment.” He looked around with interest. “I thought I’d come have a chat with you.”

“With me?” My heart stopped for a moment. “I’m honoured, of course,” I said with a polite incline of my head, “but…uh…why?”

He smiled. His long nose and slightly blue tinged skin made it a rather eerie expression. Though it was probably meant to be reassuring, it made him look a trifle morose. It didn’t lighten the mood, at any rate.

I waited while he stood ponderously thinking. His thoughts seemed to move like he was punting through them with the stick he used on the ferry. They moved slowly and methodically in one direction. Patiently was the only way to communicate with Kharon. He would not be rushed.

Finally he said, “It’s about the girl.”

I took a deep breath. “Which girl? Grace?”

He shook his head. “No. The other one.”

“Other one?”

“From before. You know. The snake bit her, and you went to Hades to try to get her out? You snuck by the dog with some singing and got everyone down there all in a mush of sentimentality with your music, and they let you take her. But something happened and she had to stay, after all.”

“I looked back.” I whispered, suddenly cold.

“Ah.” Kharon nodded sagely. “Oh right. Looking back can cause a lot of problems for a person, can’t it?”

“Apparently.” I tried to bite back the sarcastic tone in response to his unintentional understatement.

“Yeah. Well. She was at the river bank the other day when I went by, and she asked me to give you a message.”

I swallowed. Then swallowed again. My mouth was the Sahara all of a sudden. I croaked, “She asked you…to give me a message.” She had never tried to communicate with me before. Why did she need to send a message now? What did she know?

He nodded in confirmation at my dazed expression, then after making sure that I was paying attention he looked up, as if trying to recall her exact words. He cleared his throat and intoned, “She said, ‘If you have a chance to see my love, when you’re above. Tell him that the song has many verses, some rich with hate and curses, but that he deserves whatever joy, that girl can give a boy.’”

“She rhymed it?”

He shrugged. “I think she thought it’d help me remember.”

“Oh.”

“I think she misses you,” he added. “She looked sad.”

“She’s been in the underworld for a couple of thousand years. Of course she’s sad.”

Kharon shrugged again. “Not everyone is. They get used to it. Everyone has to be there eventually after all.”

“I suppose.” It hurt to think about Eurydice. It hurt to remember that my failure doomed her to that two thousand years in the underworld. She wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t been inept. My failure. Mine. It wasn’t Kharon’s fault. “Thanks for passing along the message.”

He nodded. “I think she was afraid Hermes wouldn’t deliver it and Iris doesn’t have reception there.”

“Oh yes. Of course not. I appreciate you taking the effort.”

He stood waiting for something, with a studied nonchalance.

“Oh, wait.” I rummaged in my pockets and studied the coins. “I don’t have anything ancient. Will a twonie do?”

He eyed the polar bear on the two dollar coin dubiously. “A little on the cheap side, but whatever. Next time we meet in the Other Realm, you can top it up.” His mouth twitched in something that might have been a good-humoured smirk, but might not.

I chose to interpret it positively. “Thank you, Kharon.”

He started to stroll off with that particular, unsteady gait of sailors walking on land, and then looked back over his shoulder, “You take good care of that new girl, you hear? Don’t let looking back blind you to the possibilities ahead of you. What you’ve done before doesn’t have to bind your future.”

His words hit me like an arrow and I reverberated for a moment from the impact. When I went to answer him, he’d disappeared. With him went to ominous atmosphere of blackness, and I was able to take a deep breath again. The fresh air oxygenated my lungs and cleared my head, but his message sat heavily on my heart.

I thought of Eurydice from time to time, of course. If I was being honest with myself, it was her that made me most anxious about Grace. Eurydice was my first and greatest failure. My first love, my first wife, symbolized such an essential lack in my character that any thought of her ensured my elemental humility, despite the loud accolades about my brilliant talent. Such bone deep awareness of inadequacy is not overcome. Ever.

It is also why I am afraid that I won’t be able to protect Grace this time.

I’ll tell you a secret. I’m pretty sure that it is also why they appointed me her guardian. They don’t expect me to succeed. They think that it will appear they’re giving her a guard, when I’m actually so useless that she is doomed.
I know it.

I know it, and despite being overwhelmed with the awareness of my own inadequacies I am so damned full of pride that I’ll risk it anyway, rather than let Mars or Alexandros have the job. What kind of fool’s paradox is that?

Mine.

 

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.

 

slow December 24, 2011

Filed under: Grace Awakening,Writing — Shawn L. Bird @ 1:16 am
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What I’ve learned about the publishing industry:

It’s slow.

Everything about it moves like a comatose tortoise. True, like the tortoise, sure and steady gets there eventually, but it can be ridiculously frustrating watching from the sidelines.

If an agent or publisher says they’ll get back to you in a week, s/he means a month. If they say it’ll be a month, expect to hear around four months later. Four seems to be the number to multiply by.

Ironically, I was also told that from completion of novel to publication the average book takes 4.5 years. Coincidence?

Is patience a virtue?

Perhaps. Electronic publishing speeds up many aspects of the process, but the most important one, the editing and proof-reading will still take just as long as ever.

I’m counting the days until Grace Awakening Power gets back from the editor, I can make the required changes, and it can be released by Lintusen to the world!  I was expecting it initially in November, four months after it went to the editor.  If my multiplication scenario holds, I will see it in 16 months, or perhaps 4 months after November, which puts arrival in March.

Patience.

The watch-word for the author waiting for a book.

It’s a slow process.