writing Archives - Page 120 of 204

June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

Parallels in Music & Writing

Last week, I sat on a committee assigned to interview someone for a choir director position. There are two things you should know about me and choir:
1) I don’t sing. Unless I’m alone or trying to get my kids’ attention;
2) “choir” – and “committee” – mean interacting with others in close quarters. I’m a writer. I hang out on the fringe. I observe, take notes, sweat at the thought of “small talk.”

Still, for unknown reasons, I was asked to join the group of interviewers, and, even more surprising, I said yes. Sometimes it’s good to get out of your comfort zone.

The person we interviewed was as passionate about choir and music as I am about writing, a testament that creatives aren’t that different, no matter the medium. He spoke of music in ways I understood. I sat there, smiling, nodding, almost imagining myself in the ranks, singing alto, belting a tune or two.

Almost.

I definitely took notes on how he viewed music.

Music as invitation.

Music keeps us engaged, he said. Once the notes fill our ears and graze our hearts, there is an irresistible pull to lose ourselves in song. Music begs us to participate.

Much like a good story that hints at questions and prods us to seek answers. A good story, with vivid images and inescapable narrative, stimulates our brain with “sights, sounds, tastes, and movement of real life,” as Lisa Cron says in her upcoming book, Wired for Story:

That’s what accounts for the…visceral reactions we feel when we can’t stop reading, even though it’s past midnight and we have to be up at dawn.

When was the last time you stayed up late to finish a book? Or to listen to one more song on your favorite album? And, what was it about that story or song that held you?

Music as relationship.

Music is the glue that connects us, a medium that brings us in communion with each other with notes and harmonies that surround us and instill one message or another.

Writing, too, brings us together through experiences shared in a memoir or in the empathy and emotion evoked in poetry or fiction. A small detail or a passage strikes a chord with us; we immerse ourselves in the story, because we relate.

Music as spiritual experience.

The melody in a song has, at times, taken hold of my heart and squeezed it a little bit, just enough, then released it so I may catch my breath again. Other times, it the words intermingled that strike me and stay with me.

Certain stories have done the same for me, shifted my perspective on the world. I’ve read a particular Stanley Kunitz poem over and over, because, each time, it soothes a pressing ache.

While the person we interviewed spoke of music and its effect within the walls of a church, so much of what he said translates into a broader spectrum of understanding, in music and in writing. In this interview on The Rumpus, Nikki Lane hints at what must have been a spiritual experience for her, with music, and she wasn’t anywhere near a steeple (I’m guessing):

I remember the day I first heard Neil Young; I remember what everything looked like, what tennis shoes I was wearing. It just blew my mind.

You know it’s good, the story or the song, when, years later, you still remember the shoes your wore.

* Photo credits: imelenchon on morguefile.com and mescon on flickr.com

Pass it on.

June 13, 2012June 13, 2012

2 Questions That Will Stunt a Writer’s Progress

Writers are inquisitive people. We’re always asking questions, about our characters, our story, plot points and structure. About the spelling of that word we read every day but that looks all wrong as soon as we type it on the screen. There are two questions, though, that writers should be wary of asking too often:

Am I a writer?
Am I any good?

Spend more than two minutes obsessing on those two questions, and you’ll find yourself shutting your laptop and watching Netflix movies that you’ve seen a hundred times already. Or knitting dishrags. Not that I’ve done either one of those things.

Am I a writer?

This question kick starts a writer’s insatiable search for the perfect qualifier: a blog that people read, a published piece, then two. Maybe an award. Yes, that’s it. When I win an award, then I’ll be a writer.

I’ve been calling myself a writer for a few years now. I even have a t-shirt blazoned with Mother Writer on the front, and I wear it. On occasion. When I’m feeling extra brave. You see, even with my work published and an Honorable Mention on my resume, I still let that question sink its teeth into my confidence. I don’t get paid to write, and, as Carolyn Roy-Bornstein says in this post on Beyond the Margins, “Here in America, [doesn’t] that still disqualify me from calling myself a writer in public?” Sometimes I let it.

Am I any good?

This one gets me even more. Just when I stake my claim as a writer (which should have been self-evident already by all the books, pens, and paper I carry in my purse), “Am I any good” creeps on up to the surface of my conscious and brings with it a nasty little lackey: “You’re probably just wasting your time.” On a bad day, I check my email with the sole aim of finding a message in my inbox from the universe (or some editor of this or that) that will confirm my late-night efforts at this writing business, give me a boost of confidence, and keep me going for another year. Because, as long as I dwell on these kinds of questions, I can’t find that confidence in myself.

What helps is to read what others are saying….

Jody Hedlund, on the brinks of publishing her third novel, addresses negative self-talk in her post, “Is All the Hard Work Really Worth It?”:

[I]f we ever want to ‘make it’ we have to practice the power of positive thinking. . . . when we fill our minds with ‘is this really worth it?’ we’re essentially talking negatively to ourselves. While we’re wise to evaluate our situations from time to time, we can’t let those negative thoughts cloud our view—at least for long. We can’t walk around threatening to quit every time something discourages us. . . . the writing journey is a marathon not a sprint.

…and to listen to sage advice from those who’ve gone before us.

This month, The Sun reprinted excerpts from Citizens of the Dream, Cary Tennis’ book of advice on writing and the creative life, and that very question – “How can you tell if you have talent?” – is answered with these wise words:

[Writing] is an important act regardless of whether it garners fame or praise. So your question about talent is moot. It is more a question about how to persist in writing through the fear, discouragement, and disappointment that are endemic to the activity. . . . All the practice you get makes you better. Whatever stops you from practicing makes you worse. One thing that may stop you from practicing is the belief that you are no good. So the belief that you are no good may prevent you from becoming good — unless you persist in writing despite it.

Then, and most importantly, he says:

For reasons psychological, spiritual, and philosophical, one must learn, through practice, to regard one’s creative work with some compassionate detachment and not to equate it with one’s worth as a person.

Negative mind-chatter will kill my creative energy and ruin my day. I can choose to listen to it, or I can recognize it for what it is: fear, and a bit of a bruised ego at times.

One final note from Carolyn Roy-Bornstein’s post:

Attitude is important. We may be what we do for a living, but we’re so much more than that. We are our goals.

How do you turn off that negative self-talk?

*photo credit: Guudmorning! on flickr.com

June 6, 2012June 5, 2012

Bringing an old manuscript back to life, and to print.

Please welcome guest blogger, Pete Abela, author of WINGS, as he talks about unfinished drafts, the gift of time, and the importance of quality feedback.

The publication of Wings has been an exciting and proud event for me. I’d nearly go so far as to say it rates in the top handful of achievements in my life so far. However, Wings almost didn’t get published. It spent close to a year in my drawer as a half-written manuscript: unloved, ignored and forgotten. Today I’ll talk about how it got to that point and the sequence of events that enabled me to turn an incomplete and fault-ridden document into a published novel.

Although Wings is a work of fiction, it is heavily based on the story of two men I admire: my grandfather who was a WWII fighter pilot and my brother who is now a commercial pilot. I thought they had both led amazing lives and so I started writing Wings using the bones of their stories as the basis for the plot. I did not plan the entire book. Wings is the first novel I have attempted so I did not know how to go about it. I simply sat down and started writing.

I continued this process for many months, writing almost every day. I enjoyed the process of writing and seeing the story come to life. I enjoyed it, that is, until I came to a grinding halt. I woke up one day fed up and discouraged. I resented the process of writing and the time it consumed, particularly given I was unsure whether what I had written was any good. I wondered if I was wasting my time. Worst of all, I had no idea of the ending and did not know what to write next.

I decided to take a short break from writing. During my break, I read a book about stock market investing using the Value Investment approach. It got me hooked and I began spending significant amounts of time researching stocks and tracking my shares. Whatever time had been spent writing was taken up with my new interest. Wings faded from my consciousness and was soon forgotten.

It was almost a year later that I chanced upon Wings as I hunted for an elusive file on my PC. Out of curiosity, I opened it and began reading. I was surprised at the quality of the writing and read the entire manuscript in a day. Wings was much better than I remembered and I was immediately struck by its potential. Even better, an ending popped straight into my mind.

I was seized by a new burst of enthusiasm and finished the first draft of Wings within a month. I spent another month polishing it, then sent it to a publisher and prepared to wait.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“We like it,” replied the publisher within a week. “But it’s not of publishable standard yet. You can pitch it to other publishers if you like, but our recommendation would be to obtain a reader’s report.”

I took their advice and requested a reader’s report, which is a manuscript assessment by an accomplished editor. While I waited, I began writing a second novel. After six weeks, the report came back. It contained general comments about areas of weakness, as well as a specific example of where the weakness could be found in my manuscript. It was up to me to understand the comment and example and work out how to apply the feedback to the remainder of the manuscript.

The two major weaknesses were a lack of revelation of the character’s emotional response to major events and a scarcity of description about setting. They did observe that my natural writing style was lean and uncluttered, so they cautioned me against going too far with my descriptions and emotional responses. There were also some mechanical issues such as an over-reliance on “ly” adverbs and a passive writing style through the use of words such as “had”, “was” and “am”.

The reader’s report was an excellent initiative and assisted me to make the leap from “gifted amateur” to “polished professional.” The suggestions rang true and the fact that they used examples of my own writing to point out the areas for improvement helped me to grasp their suggestion and apply it to the rest of the novel. The fact that a publisher expressed interest in my work provided more than enough incentive for me to continue the process of refinement.

It took me a couple of months to rework the manuscript in accordance with the feedback. Within ten days of submitting Wings to Really Blue Books, I had an offer to publish. I’ve been floating ever since, although working very hard on further edits, establishing a social media platform and planning publicity.

On May 21^st, the big day finally arrived. Wings became a published novel and I can now call myself an author.

It’s a great feeling.

Wings can be purchased as an eBook from the publisher,
Really Blue Books
or
on Amazon.

Pete is an author from the city of Wollongong, just south of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia. For most of his adult life, Pete has been a left-brained computer scientist whose love of reading eventually led him to take up writing. Having surprised himself and those around him by getting Wings published, he’s now having fun dreaming up marketing strategies and publicity stunts – tasks he never could have envisaged doing ten years ago. He continues to stretch the boundaries of his right hemisphere and is now working to complete a second novel.

His left brain hasn’t been totally neglected through this process. Pete works as an IT Manager in order to help keep his wife and four kids fed and clothed. When he’s not working, reading, writing or enjoying the company of his family, Pete likes to sneak away for a bit of exercise – either tennis, soccer or a laborious run.

Category: writing