The need for an editor

Writers must be readers. This is what teaches us voice and proficiency of language. It also helps with those grammar skills, especially if you chose something that challenges you. You have to read things that are a tad laborious, but nonetheless rewarding. These are the same skills we use in learning a foreign language. And, more often than not, it does not fix our problems but it does make us more aware of them. Sometimes, it's enough to trigger a little voice that says, "this is not right."

That's why we cannot rely on computer spell check and even worse, computer grammar check. I recently completed the first half of a client manuscript where my very talented client knows that she is a very abysmal speller. She also knows she cannot trust spell check.

Her fantasy manuscript is riddled with errors like being executed a "trader" for dealing in "fowl" magic. Yep, can't barter for chickens in this universe.

And today, "he is quiet cleaver, though none here knows how cleaver."

Ah, the work of an editor...

The right place

I haven't had much to say in this blog lately because I've been thinking. I can't even say I haven't been writing, although I did take December off. Since that time, I've only written a chapter in my w-i-p. Yet, the entire time I entered this slow spell, my behavior was deliberate.

I wrote a poem summarizing about 500 years of world history for my history final. (Got a 98!) 

I wrote an extensive paper for my social research methods class titled, "Seducing the Masses: How Haute Couture sells Prestige for Fashion Houses." (Have no idea what the prof thought, other than the fact that my ideas were "highly original" and my final grade in the class was an A- and my exams in the B range.)

I have written some scenes out of order relating to my current fiction universe.

I have edited about 125 pages of a client's fantasy manuscript.

And, since I was not writing my w-i-p, I used the time to read (on paper) and edit (with a pen) the first 280 pages of that late stage draft. I'm so close to the end, but have worked on this project for so long, I wasn't sure how smoothly I had worked all those odds and ends toward resolution.

Certainly productive.

Plus, I read. Always good.

Now, the new semester starts in exactly one week and one hour. This leads to soul searching and plotting. I watch the dialogue between writer colleagues and it makes me ponder. For one, a friend of mine who's learning to fence (and using the experience to write better battle scenes) reminded another friend that you have to "want it" and "go get it." One of her friends reminded her that you also have to be in a ready mindset, because doubts will pull you down.

Am I ready? Are you ready?

Another colleague wrote another brilliant blog entry today about how publishing success relates to luck. There's humor and truth in what he's saying. If you want to read it, look for Jon Gibb's blog on live journal "An Englishman in New Jersey." 

For any success, in anything, there's a good deal of "being in the right time at the right place." As strangely lucky as these things may seem, you have to get to a place where you might be closer to the "right place." As for the right time, all you have is now. There's no other time. Unless you're some sort of physics phenom who can build a time machine.

So, where are you going? What are you doing to try and find that right place? Chances are, it's not inside your house. It's not on facebook. What haphazard stumbles we make through life create our luck, and maybe the right place.  

January GLVWG newsletter column

There's no way to write a column in January and avoid the clichés of the new year. Yes, I said, "new year," lowercase. I'm not talking about a holiday or festivities because let's face facts. Does anyone keep resolutions? Does anyone put more than a day's thought into what's possible, what's practical and what's not? 
I stumbled about some superstitions that amused me briefly. Apparently it's good luck to wear red underwear in Turkey, Spain and some other countries during New Year's celebrations. The reason we like to make noise and stay up late is traced to the belief that a hearty ruckus will chase evil spirits from our lives and give us a clean start.
And those resolutions... I won't be losing weight or heading to the gym or eating vegan any time soon. I won't be writing every day, nor will I set word count goals like 1,000 words a sitting. Chances are I won't even manage to set my pen to my journal once a day. 
Let me propose a new kind of goal setting for writers that doesn't revolve around time limits or statistics. You know what you are capable of already, and you already know if you'll make or break your resolution. So, let's try something a little less clear-cut, something harder to define in terms of success or failure.
This group provides tremendous opportunities for networking and support, but with that comes the unavoidable comparisons. Some people can write everyday, for hours (I used to, and my average writing session would go 5,000 words). Some can't. We all should. I don't deny that. Someone else might be published, and you're not. Well, an unpublished author doesn't have to worry about marketing like the author with a new book. This are some of the reasons why even at GLVWG, we're not equal peers.
My proposal is to avoid comparing yourself to the successes and to the goals of others in this group. Instead, aim to work more like your favorite author. Do you know the work habits of that person? Can you find out? Do they write longhand or on a computer? Do they have a day job? They once did, I'm sure. How do they balance the demands of life and literary art? What inspires them?
Maybe, just maybe, by researching the habits of someone who's work we admire, whose work we'd love to emulate, we could approach our work with a new freshness and sense of purpose. The motivation would come from our own attraction to words, and those individual tastes that appeal to each of us.
I adore Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. There's a diversity in his writing that I hope one day to achieve. He wrote letters, detailed accounts of what was happening in France not just his personal comings and goings. He wrote accounts of his flights across the world in the early days of aviation. He wrote the classic children's story, "the Little Prince." 
I don't know when or how he wrote, but I know the themes that emerge again and again: responsibility, country, what's right, and how we view the world (especially as we grow older). I know many of the details in his life that made these themes important to him, or at least, I think I know. 
Now that I reflect, I realize that coming from a family of nobility gave him this sense of responsibility toward his wife and his country. This responsibility would restrict his behavior, but in the end he did what he felt was right, what needed to be done, not what would please him. Or so I think. 
As creative people with families and jobs, don't we make the same sacrifice to our responsibilities? Perhaps Saint-Ex can help me balance the responsibilities I have created for myself.
I'll also heed the warnings of Saint-Ex and let my six-and-a-half year old guide me more. Her instructions for today were quite clear. She told me to do no more than five chores. Then, she listed them: tap dance, edit the manuscript I have from a client, write a column for the GLVWG newsletter and cook dinner. Don't count them. It's only four. That's the brilliance of her plan. 
Yes, Saint-Ex may inspire me to a very good year. Maybe I should learn to fly a plane...

Something has to be different

Since I returned from France, I've written about 600 words on my novel and a 900+ word poem about Paris, not including a preliminary literature review I had to present for a research project and a narrative that is more or less a grant request for my local library.

School has hit the midterm, which means exams and projects are popping up every other day, even though I only have to classes. I started a new job at a major retail chain who has already scheduled me for more hours that I agreed to at hiring. (A trend I can hope is temporary, but I won't hold my breath.)

I spent a lot of time sick this summer, and it taught me a lot about myself. One major lesson involves the infamous cliché of taking care of myself. This does not mean make sure you eat the right foods and get enough sleep and exercise. I did all of those things and ended up sick because of neglecting myself emotionally. Or at least, that's what I believe.

Medically, at least for now, they might not be able to connect officially the severe anemia I had with the stress I had experienced over the last several years. But anemia and stress do have a link, and the doctors agree it could be possible that the stress caused the havoc in my body that led to anemia. They don't exactly have a test that says "Aha! Definitely! That's it!" because none of their tests for anything are that clear cut.

I've learned new techniques to stave off emotional upheaval from stress. One is designed for the manic, hyperactive me. When things get hectic, I ask myself: "What if this task took twice as long?" Then, I emotionally grant myself that long to get the job done. Maybe dinner ends up getting on the table at 5:30 instead of 5, but I've given myself permission to daydream while stirring the sauce and end up packing less into a day, alleviating that rushed intensity. Even when I'm at my busiest, I've employed this and so far, it hasn't bitten me in the butt.

The second technique involves my new mantra, "Something has to be different." It's about turning around moods that slide in an irritable direction. A wise therapist once told me, "I mean this is the kindest way possible, but when you're overextended, it makes you crazy." So, when I get irritable, I tell myself "Something has to be different." Then I set out to find what I can change.

So, now some of you are saying, "what does this have to do about writing?"

Well, for those of us who have a lot on our plates or a lot on our minds, sometimes, the easiest thing to change is our work. Our writing work. I didn't intend to write this morning. I planned laundry, errands, history chapters and work tonight, but no writing. The stress building in me vetoed that. I need something to be different. And I think the best change I could make today is to push aside the history book and hang out with my imaginary friends. I can take the history book to work tonight and finish reading about the 19th century at work.

For some of us, our hobbies provide an important escape from stress. Don't deny yourself that hobby time-- for writers, this is our writing time, our soul infusion-- or in the end, you'll wear yourself down.

Trapped in poetry

I am still struggling with my Paris poem, painting her as both a whore and a presence who saved my soul. I am not a poet, yet the exercise of writing a poem, especially one this important to me on a personal level, is freeing. It's using a different part of my word brain. It's practicing an economy of words that I don't normally use.

I am a goddess when it comes to meeting word counts, but a poem demands even stricter guidelines. Every word comes under scrutiny. Why did you pick it? What does it say? How does it sound? What else could it mean? These questions all matter in poetry.

What's fun about poetry is the process of distillation. You must think of what you need to say, and compose it in your head, then keep rephrasing it until you hit the right mix. As a consequence, where writers can ponder a scene for an hour while vacuuming, they cannot truly put each exact word together until they sit at the screen or at paper.

A poet, on the other hand, will work those works over and over until perhaps a six-word phrase emerges. Then eventually, those words are recorded. And reworked. But so much of the actual creation can be honed without writing anything down. And that can be really freeing.

The Poetry of Paris

On October 6, I left for Paris. I went on a whirlwind trip that despite the calendar's claim that I returned a mere five days later rejuvenated my soul as if I spent a month in France.

I didn't set myself up with a major list of things to do, because merely needed to be in Paris. The photo at left is me in Étienne's neighborhood.

 I didn't waste time visiting his church, his exact address, his office, the house he grew up in or the boulangerie where he gets his bread.

I needed to live in the rhythm of Paris without any distraction before I could scope out these things. I still have a good idea where they are, but I don't need to decide today where they will be exactly.

I like my writing to have authenticity to it, as much as I can provide. So, while I could pick a place and do a surface description, I would rather wait until I could capture the underlying sense of life within a place. The narrow streets, the odors of urine, perspiration, dog poop, wine, perfume, bread and cigarette smoke that makes Paris memorable. The demi-tasse of coffee and the warm brioche or pain au chocolat. The way the vin du table pours perhaps a tad too easily. Cramming onto the subway closer to strangers than I would normally stand with my husband.

Before I return to my manuscript, I am writing a poem to Paris. Perhaps that is how an author should find a setting, by immersing oneself in the streets until poetry comes out.

Off the cuff

I have fifteen minutes before I leave for class and I'm stuck here at the college library having finished some homework early and having no brain cells left for writing.

Last night, Étienne had his Spring 2011 ready-to-wear fashion show and I imagine he shocked the world by starting the show with the models in full burqas. A couple weeks ago, the French legislature passed a law banning burqas under the French policy of maintaining a "laïc" society. The separation of church and state has led to a severe type of absence of religion from everyday life in France, and there are very real reasons why these policies developed.

But, from a practical standpoint, and a cultural/societal one, the ideology in question is not going to work and the law will cause problems.

Although Étienne is not Muslim, he has friends that are. And he sent those models down the runway in burqas to make a statement. He did finally show the clothes, but even then, every model had a headpiece, i.e. a form of the veil, and he made a statement.

I started editing Chapter 21 of Courting Apparitions, and in that chapter, Étienne flies to France. In a few days, so am I, so this is exciting. Our lives overlap. In a good way.