Reading your work out loud

At my creativity group this afternoon, I read two long chapters from my novel. Reading to groups is a bit problematic, especially a group that meets once a month because the story goes on and they don't know the intervening chapters or events or character issues, but it does me great good to read it and hear it for myself, whether they get anything out of it or not.

I get a chance to hear the language and especially the dialog, where it works and where it clunks. Where I go on too long, where details of description seem superfluous, where I find myself wanting to skip ahead because that sentence that seemed so important--and so well-crafted--doesn't add anything and I didn't see that before.

I enjoyed getting feedback from my listeners and one had a couple of great ideas, but even more important was my own sense of the writing and the story. I also felt fully re-engaged in the whole process and eager to get back to work on it.

As a professional editor, I've encouraged my clients to do just what I was doing--reading aloud--but I hadn't fully grasped the importance of it for myself until today.

Eliminating possibilities

My good friend Tamara has spent a lot of the last week decluttering in her large home. Tamara is a woman of many talents and many interests and her stuff reflects that diversity. And it was all driving her crazy. For example, when she sorted through all the stuff in her creative space, she could sort it into 18 different interests and related projects. That's in addition to the tons of stuff she could easily let go of--throw away or give away.

She took a picture of all these interests and then started thinking about her time, her need to get proficient or expert at some of these, her desire to bring some projects to completion. And she began to analyze and reduce. She thought through each impulse, each longing, each idea and then she settled on the five that really sang to her heart. She let go of all the rest.

As creatives, I think we are easily seduced by the possible. There are so many tools, materials, classes, ideas out there. There's always room for more knowledge, for more improvement, right? And related things are of great interest. If you're a novelist, you might want to write some essays or a biography or a screen play or poetry. Or maybe doing some collage would make that next chapter of the novel come easier.

I'm all for cross-pollination. But some times, all those possibilities are big distractors from our real efforts, our real loves. So sometimes, it's good to go through the creative files or baskets or closets or rooms, sort it all out and let a lot of it go.

Honoring your writer self Part 2

A couple of posts ago, I listed Judy Reeves' ideas about honoring your self as a writer. At my Second Thursday writing group, I handed the list out and asked each person to write for a few minutes on one of the ideas. I started off writing on one and digressed and came back.

Make a comfortable place for your writing. Since I live alone and work here too, it would seem easy to turn my whole spacious apartment into a writing and art studio and I don't know why I never thought of this before. In 2000, I did a project called Zen Home and renovated the interior (new colors, new furniture arrangements, fixing what didn't work) so that my place could more easily support the kind of life I wanted. Now I think it may be time to do that again as what I'm up to has changed.

In 2000, I didn't see myself as a writer and artist. I hadn't started my memoir, I was not doing collage at all. I was just taking an occasional drawing class. Now my whole concept of my self has changed and perhaps my apartment needs to too.

I'm not sure what changes to make but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Here are some of my ideas:

• Get some kind of a light over the dining table for better illumination.
• Really reduce the clutter in the office, like no kidding.
• Get some kind of cart for creative supplies or use the lower shelves of the living rooms bookcase (hidden from public view by the sofa) for such supplies so they are handier
• Make better use of the office storage.

How might you set things up to support your creative endeavors?

Feeling stymied

My novel is in a transitional place. I've come to a big break in one of the main stories and am in the bridge to the second. This wasn't quite how I imagined the novel occurring but it has taken its own direction and I'm going along. I need to sort out some of what happens next but my current struggle with a viral condition called shingles is making that hard.

Usually, when I'm stymied, I'll spend an hour with my notebook creating possible scenarios and twists and turns for the characters. Since they're at X, what's one of 20 logical Ys? Then I'll contemplate those for a while and the right one will make itself known.

But shingles involves a lot of pain, both the nagging, aching kind that sits in the background but is never very far away and the sudden truly miserable kind that shouts PAY ATTENTION TO ME! Last night when I was awake every hour or so, I tried to shift to Ellie's dilemma and what might happen next and I just didn't have the presence of mind to focus. That's frustrating to me for it's been more than a week since I wrote anything and that makes me nearly as restless as the pain.

Honor yourself as a writer

1. Name yourself writer.

2. Make a comfortable place for your writing.

3. Get the best equipment and accoutrements you can afford.

4. Make time for study and practice.

5. Schedule time with other writers.

6. Read your writing to others.

7. Print out computer documents.

8. Submit material for publication.

9. Celebrate when you’ve completed a section or work inprogress.

10. Accept compliments gracefully.

Adapted from A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

I submitted a book review for the Oregon Writers Colony newsletter today and thought I'd share it with you.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print

By Renni Browne and Dave King (Second edition/soft cover, 280 pp., 2004, HarperCollins)
ISBN: 978-0-06-054569-7
Review by Jill Kelly, PhD

As a 15-year veteran of freelance editing and writing coaching, I’m always on the lookout for books that will help my clients both write better and self-edit better. Most of the people I work with aren’t wealthy and the services of a good editor aren’t cheap, so the more they can do themselves, the happier they are.

Browne and King’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers is a book I consistently recommend. Here’s why:

• The writing is clear and helpful. It’s more like a conversation with knowledgeable friends on a subject you both love: good writing. There’s nothing didactic about it, none of that pompous “I know and you don’t” style that often appears in writing manuals, especially those by academics.

• The topics and examples are helpful for writers at all levels. Whether you’re working on the fourth book in a published series or figuring out how to self-edit for the first time, the ideas here can help you improve your writing. I learn something every time I read it.

• The book is thorough. It covers all the main skills of fiction writing and how to improve them. I especially like their chapters on interior monologue and using physical beats to distinguish speakers. When you combine that thoroughness with the thoughtful and provocative nature of the exercises and the extensive answers in the back, the book becomes a mini-course in good writing.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers does assume a solid knowledge of basic grammar, parts of speech, and standard punctuation, so it will not cure your comma errors or dangling participles. But again the tone is kind and clear, and writing terms like dialog, analogy, point of view, etc. get explained in context. And while this book is aimed at fiction writers, much of the information and the exercises will prove useful to those writing prose poems, memoir, and non-fiction. So while it isn’t a substitute for hands-on work with a good developmental or text editor, it can take you a long way.

the point of a scene

I spent the day writing a transition chapter. I need to move my heroine from Pittsburgh to New Mexico but I decided she needs to stop and see her ex on the way. She hasn't quite hit bottom yet and I think he can be instrumental in getting her there. But I don't yet know how. That's the next chapter to write.

But this chapter of travel, of road trip, needs to have its purpose too. While there's the possibility of using an occasional brief scene or chapter for glue, just to paste some things together, I'd rather not do that. So when I sat down to write the road trip, I felt a little stymied. It wouldn't take many sentences to have her drive to from southern Pennsylvania to Houston. In fact, I accomplished most of that in about 6 sentences and still said something about her state of mind.  But that wasn't enough.

So I thought about other things I could convey that would contribute to the plot or character development. Her distrust of men. Her fear of the killer. Her desire to stop being in fear. Her sorrow at leaving her best friend behind when that friend might also be a prey. Somehow I needed to convey all of this too. I wrote a draft of a chapter in which she thinks about some of these things but my challenge next time I write will be to see how I can create that through "show," not "tell." But at least I've identified what I want to communicate.