To edit or not to edit…

Gwynn Scheltema

You write Chapter 1. It flows like paddling a canoe in a strong current, a few J strokes and you are heading forward fast. Yes!

Chapter 2 starts out that way too, still moving well, still splashes of enthusiasm and creativity, but the current flows a little slower now. You think back to Chapter 1. Did you start in the right place? Perhaps you should go back to the beginning and make sure?

So you retrace your steps back to the start and paddle through Chapter 1 again. For the moment you are convinced that, yes, you started in the right spot. But you find a short cut on an upper stretch that improves the trip, so you make it. Chapter 1 feels really good now.

Back on the route of Chapter 2, you look for similar shortcuts, note the beautiful spots you don’t have time to explore, make notes about bad spots you’ll avoid if you come this way again.

In Chapter 3, your writing river opens into a lake. You’re not sure exactly which way to point the canoe, so you figure you’ll go back to Chapter 2 and explore those beautiful spots before you continue.

And while you are in Chapter 2, you figure you probably missed a couple of beautiful spots in Chapter 1, so you go back to Chapter 1 and….

Sound familiar?

The internal editor

It’s certainly the story of my writing life. But I know I’m not alone. The urge to rewrite before you’ve finished the story is powerful. Many discarded, unfinished manuscripts have polished first chapters that would keep readers reading…if there was more to read.

It’s all the fault of that dastardly writers’ internal editor. The one that tells us that our writing is “crap”; that we are disillusioned at best and arrogant at worst to think anyone would want to read what we write. The one that tells us we need to be perfect.

And the truth is, most first drafts are not publishable. As Hemingway so succinctly said, “All first drafts are shit.” First drafts will have strong parts and weaker bits, and bits that should be axed and areas where more needs to be written. That’s NORMAL. That’s what the editing process is for.

But if you heed your rational, analytical, internal editor, and constantly loop back out of the writing process and into editing, you will run out of creative energy. And you will push the unconscious creative writer in you further and further away.

In her book on writing, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott wrote:

The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You just let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page… Just get it all down on paper because there may be something great in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means.

No editing on a first draft?

So does that mean that you should never edit as you go. Of course not.

I get momentum for a new chapter by going into the previous chapter—not back to the beginning of the novel— to read it and often edit it. That’s productive. You get into the voice of your characters again, you renew your sense of place in the story. And the time invested is not huge. More importantly, you do it as a way to move forward, not as an excuse to not move forward.

Perhaps like me, part way through your manuscript, you feel that the wrong character is telling the story, or that the POV should be first person instead of third person. I think it makes sense at this point to go back to a previous chapter or two—again, not necessarily the beginning—and rewrite and decide. But make that decision and move on.

Time and circumstance play a role too. If all I have is the forty minutes on a noisy train, likely editing is a better use of my time.But maybe not. Maybe just thinking through a plot hole or a character’s reaction in an upcoming scene would be better for keeping the novel moving forward.

It’s definitely tempting to go back to edit when you can’t think of what to write next. I do it all the time. But I’ve found some effective ways to overcome that urge:

Go for a walk and think my way through the plot or character problem and then write forward again.
Use targeted writing prompts
Freefall write
Write a brief summary of the scene I’m stuck on, and go on to the next scene.
Persuade myself to write just one sentence…then one more…then…

It all comes down to how much your editing loops are preventing you from writing new material. We all create and work differently. If a bit of editing gets the creative juices flowing, go right ahead. But if it’s a procrastination tactic, fight the urge. The main goal of your first draft is to get the whole story down.

How do you stop yourself from using editing as procrastination? Share your tactics in the comments below.

Been there: Using real-world settings in fiction

Gwynn Scheltema

I’m always fascinated by the worlds that writers create for fantasy and sci-fi novels. I think I’m fascinated by the sheer complexity of creating an entire culture from its laws and religion to its people, plants and landscape.

But basing our stories in the “real world” we all know (or think we know), can be just as complex.

Keeping facts straight.

Using real settings—real towns or cities, real street names, real landmarks— can seem easy because you have everything created already. You don’t have to invent culture, landmarks or names. If you mention the CN Tower or Westminster Abbey, you need only give a few details, and readers can fill in the rest.

Provided you get it right.

You can be sure that if you get it “wrong”, someone’s going to tell you. Or your reader will be aware that you made a mistake once, and be on the alert in case you do it again, so now there is a subconscious element of distrust as they read. At the very least, it will kick them out of the narrative momentarily.

Your Impressions

Sure, you can control facts to a large degree with good research and careful editing, but what you can’t control is readers’ reactions to your perceptions of real places. If, like facts, readers think that you got the impression “wrong”, it will be noticed, and have the same effect as getting facts wrong. If, as a narrator, you describe a particular real neighbourhood as “dangerous”, or “upcoming” or “ugly”, that might be your interpretation, but your reader may not agree. Your perceptions of real places are valid, but so are your readers’impressions of the same place.

So what can you do?

Impressions vs. facts

As you write be aware which setting details are facts and which are opinions. Characters only should express all the impressions or opinions. Characters in this instance include the narrator in a first person story. In sections of exposition, stick to facts. This is a good rule of thumb for any details actually, not just for setting. Essentially, setting opinions expressed through exposition become “author intrusion” and open that door for “getting it wrong”.

Manipulating impressions

The moment you move impressions of real places to the realm of character, you have the opportunity to manipulate setting to support other elements like character development and theme.

By choosing to focus on the details the character notices in a setting and what they think and how they feel about it, says as much about the character as the setting. Characters usually notice the things that align with their emotional state and with their level of understanding. You can set or heighten mood and sneak in details that will be important to plot or speak to theme.

Think of a child and his mother entering a fairground. The child is likely feeling excited and looking forward to fun, so will notice details that are colourful, fun and energizing: whirling rides, flags and balloons, stalls full of prizes to be won. The mother might be jaded by years of attending fairgrounds, aware of potential danger and cost. She will notice questionable people, machinery that looks or sounds dangerous and the crush of crowds that make it hard for her to keep track of her child.

Another manipulation is to purposely describe factual details “wrong” to establish an unreliable character.

Fiction and reality fusion

Perhaps the best way to use real settings is to create a fictional piece within the real one. A fictional town in real Northern Ontario. A fictional bar in Paris. You still get the advantages of the “real world” settings, but not the disadvantages. Your fictional component should be similar enough for believability, but you have the freedom to create your own “impressions”’ of the place. You get to decide if the place is “dangerous”, or “upcoming” or “ugly”, and your readers will believe you.

There All Along

Guest Post: Erin Thomas

Today I took a life drawing class, part of a teacher meet-and-greet event at Centennial College. Unlike the gentleman who jokingly stood up and pretended to walk away when the teacher explained that there was no nude model, I was intrigued by the sound of our assignment: we were going to draw an eye.

First Steps

The charcoal felt alarmingly light in my fingers and snapped off at the slightest provocation, but I slowly got the hang of drawing with the side of it, not the tip. Shading. Playing with weight and layers and darkness. The bumps on the easel board under my paper gave an interesting texture, like leaf-and-crayon art.

The eye was a sphere, the teacher explained, and that was where we were to start—just shading a circle. With no real understanding of how the dark blob on my paper was going to turn into an eyeball, I followed her lead. Soon we were covering part of the eye-circle with lines that turned into an eyelid. A lower lid followed. I had lines in the wrong spot; finger-smudging made them paler, but they didn’t quite disappear.

“Don’t try to copy,” the teacher advised. “Just think about the shape of the eye.” But I couldn’t see the sphere of it anymore. The lid seemed to be covering an eye-blob that was a different shape than the eye-blob that was emerging.

Adding More

I made more lines. It didn’t help.

I stepped back, trying to find the beach ball of the greater eye within the drawing. It looked wrong, that was all. Unbalanced. I had drawn the eye of a crazed murderer, a horror-movie clown. And it was staring at me.

I made a line, smudged it out. Tried again, making a bigger mess each time. Eyelashes maybe? No. It turned out that eyelashes were not the answer.

Uncovering

“Good,” the teacher said. Good? Were we looking at the same drawing? Ah. This was teacher good, not real good. I have used this good myself.

“Just clean it up here and here,” she added, and with an eraser she cleaned up some of the leaf-and-crayon-like texture in the eye-white. She showed me that there is usually a space between the iris and the lower lid, and with a quick dodge of her hand, made it appear. She adjusted the shape of the area over the eye, and suddenly it matched what was beneath it.

There all Along

Now I could see the beach-ball roundness, the shape of it, the lines that belonged and the ones that didn’t. It had been there all along; I just couldn’t see the shape of it. Now, I could.

How often have I done this with a piece of writing? When something’s not working, sometimes our impulse is to keep adding lines. Add another character to supply the missing bit of information, add a plot twist to add excitement. Soon the shape of the story is obscured.

Part of what I love about my writing groups is their ability to see the shape of the eyeball underneath it all, when I can’t. To point out which lines I should erase. How many times will I need to learn the lesson that the right answer to a story problem is usually the one that’s already seeded in the manuscript? Sitting there. Waiting to be seen.

What doesn’t add…

The miracle of the eraser reminds me of my favourite piece of writing advice, one I heard from Kathy Stinson, although she makes no claim to have invented it. “What doesn’t add, subtracts.” And sometimes, it seems, subtracting is a way of adding.

Stories, it seems, have shapes of their own.

Switching between charcoal and eraser, I made an eye. This eyeball art of mine is not going to win any prizes. It was not even the best piece of rookie eyeball art hanging on the wall with all of the other rookie-art eyeballs. But it is arguably the best thing I’ve ever drawn.

I’m going to keep a picture of it handy, to remind me to think about the shape of my story. To remind me, when I’m frustrated and lost in the lines, to be patient—to step back, to try again. The thing I’m drawing with my words might already be there, waiting to be uncovered.

Erin Thomas writes books for children and young adults from her home in Whitby, Ontario. She enjoys trying new hobbies on for size, but promises not to pursue a career in fine art. For more information, visit www.erinthomas.ca.

Erin’s books:

Draco’s Fire (HIP Books Fall 2009)

Boarder Patrol (Orca Sports Spring 2010).

Wolves at the Gate (HIP Books Spring 2011)

Overboard (HIP Books, Spring 2012)

Haze (Orca Sports, Spring 2012)

Roller Coaster (HIP Books, Fall 2013)

Forcing the Ace (Orca Limelights, 2014)

The Power of Cameo Characters

Gwynn Scheltema

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.”

~ The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Incidental characters, walk-on characters, cameo characters—call them what you will—they have an important part to play in a novel. Do you remember a scene where a character appears just briefly and then we never see that character again?

When a writer includes a walk-on character, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

The answer depends on what kind of novel you’re writing, where in the novel the character appears, and what the character does in the scene.

Mister Pip

One of my favourite “cameo characters” is a woman known only as “Daniel’s grandmother” who comes to share her wisdom with Mr. Watts’ class in Lloyd Jones’ book Mister Pip:

Daniel’s grandmother, stooped and old on her canes, peered back at our class with her weak eyes. “There is a place called Egypt,” she said. “I know nothing of that place. I wish I could tell you kids about Egypt. Forgive me for not knowing more. But if you care to listen, I will tell you everything I know about the colour blue.”

And so we heard about the colour blue. “Blue is the colour of the Pacific. It is the air we breathe. It is the gap in the air of all things, such as the palms and iron roofs. But for blue we would not see the fruit bats.

You can find blue squinting up in the cracks of the wharf at Kieta. … It is trying to get at the stinking fish guts, to take them home. If blue was an animal or plant or bird, it would be a seagull. It gets its sticky beak into everything.

But blue also has magical powers,” she said. “…Blue crashes onto the reef and what colour does it release? It releases white! …A final thing, children, and then I will let you go. Blue belongs to the sky and cannot be nicked which is why the missionaries stuck blue in the windows of the first churches they built here on the island.”

What is achieved with the character of Daniel’s grandmother?

Now on the surface, she seems just a quirky character who says some strange things about a common thing we think we know about already. Rebels have invaded the island and they are all living under very strained conditions. She has been invited to teach the children something, and yet she speaks “only” about blue.

She appears about a quarter of the way through the novel, just as things are taking a new and frightening turn. Perhaps her only purpose in the novel, therefore, is to provide some colour (pardon the pun), or perhaps some comic relief from an otherwise serious situation.

And that would be fine, because those are two good reasons to have a walk-on character.

Is Daniel’s grandmother really just incidental?

Lloyd Jones’ character seems incidental—indeed, she could be removed altogether with no effect on the plot line—but she definitely adds to the novel.

This scene supports one of the themes of Mister Pip, which is the examination of the power of the imagination and words, and how they can achieve what is seemingly magic.

She is also foreshadowing what Mr. Watts will do: SPOILER ALERT: to delay execution, he will weave a “magic” tale from what seems at first to be ordinary things . Daniel’s grandmother has told the children in a kind of metaphorical code or allegory what will happen. She has told them to “listen” and to believe in the magic of ordinary things.

In fact, when Mr. Watts thanks her, he says, “…while we may not know the whole world, we can, if we are clever enough, make it new….We just have to be as imaginative as Daniel’s grandmother.”

Memorable and effective incidental characters…

add local colour
provide a break in mood or pace so readers can breathe
do something “complete” in their own scene so that removing them from the book seemingly doesn’t affect the main plot
can be used for wider purposes such as theme, foreshadowing and comparison to emphasize other characters
are often best left unnamed
should only show up when other main characters have been established

So cameo characters can enrich, elucidate, or refocus a novel, or they can simply entertain. Good ones usually have more than one purpose—and are always memorable.

Share a cameo or walk-on character that you remember in the comments below.

Permission To Write, Ma’am? Granted!

Imagine a sprawling kids’ camp tucked into 60+ acres of hills and trees edging a clear lake. This Ontario cottage-country paradise has everything a kid could want.

Water sports. Mountain bikes. Pine cabins. Sports fields.

Pottery studio. Dance studio with a sprung floor. Professional performance theatre.

Pottery? Dance? Performance? At a kids’ camp?

You betcha. For decades, the Durham District School Board has transformed Camp White Pine into the Durham Integrated Arts Camp (DIAC). Like magic, the arts-focused Haliburton summer camp becomes an annual arts fest for Durham Region students and this year, 350 teens soaked it all in.

Senior and junior concert bands. Jazz bands. Ensembles. Songwriting. Drumming. Dancing and movement. Music theatre. Black light theatre. Improv.

Drawing. Painting. Pottery. Printmaking. Textile arts. Sculpture…

And creative writing.

Liberated voices

I’ve recently returned home from teaching Creative Words, an elective program for the Grades 7 to 12 students at DIAC. I had 35 students spread over 3 classes. It was spectacular, challenging, surprising and gratifying.

On day one, I told them “Creative Words is not about spelling. It’s not about grammar. It’s about your words, your way.” I don’t think they believed me at first but it didn’t take long for them to discover the joy of freefall writing, the depth that writing gets to when you use all five senses, and the value of “owning your words.”

I led the class in much the same way as I facilitate my adult workshops. The students were surprised when I said “no censorship” but then I reminded them that they still must respect each other and the words on the page. Every word has to be there for a reason, not just shock value.

By mid-week, students were clamouring for “more freefall” and willingly trying whatever crazy exercise I had them experiment with. I knew things were going to be okay when students charged into the studio declaring “I love this class!” And frankly, so did I.

“Trying on” words

Creative Words students used their own work in their culminating project, aptly called “Wear Your Words.” Selecting an excerpt from a piece they created — poems, stories, anthems– they wrote them on T-shirts. Some students had just a few words. A couple had pages’ worth of words. Several added images. And some chose to let their words stand alone. At the week’s-end celebration, a few bravely read their work in front of other campers, and three participated in a poetry slam. Most of the students wore their T-shirts to the celebration, and so did I.

I was immensely proud of my Creative Words students. All of them took risks. All of them wrote every day.

There were a few tears as we wrapped up. Some of those tears were mine because it is really an honour to be among young people who are exploring their narrative voice. For most of them, my workshop was the first time they had feedback from a professional writer. It’s an intense few days of exploration, discovery and acceptance. But encouraged to express their words, their way, they found their voice.

I didn’t discover my narrative voice until I was nearly 40. So I’m happy these young writers didn’t have to wait that long.

School with a difference

DIAC is a temporary school, complete with a principal, administrative staff and teachers. Granted, some of the teachers are on mountain bikes or in canoes, and some of us (me, for example) are guest instructors without teaching degrees, but it is school nonetheless. We take attendance. We have rules. But we also have fun. Best of all, we encourage students to explore their creative selves, to see themselves and the world in relation to arts and culture. And to celebrate all that it means. Because, after all, to an artist at heart, it means a lot.

The value of keeping random ideas.

Gwynn Scheltema

Ever write a story that seemed to go nowhere? Ever thought of a brilliant opening line, but never wrote the story? Ever found a line that you thought might make good dialogue, or a line in a poem, or the premise of an entire novel and lost it?

Rummaging around in discarded ideas will invariably turn up something unexpected, surprising, fun or usable.
That’s not to say that every word you write is gold – saleable gold – and that none of it should go to waste. But ideas don’t always come at a time when you are ready for them, and if you have no way to revisit them, then even the good ideas will go to waste.

Increase your wheat-to-chaff ratio with an Ideas File and pop them in there. Actually, have several ideas files:

Ideas Files

hard copy file folder: for ideas scribbled on napkins and other scrap bits.
computer file for the same. Make sure you develop a way to easily navigate through them. Naming each one “good idea” won’t be too helpful when you have 400 “good ideas.” Make use of “version” and “date” options if you have very similar drafts of an unfinished story:
- horrornovel_v2_2016
- babypoetryRev3March
- trilogy_idea3

Personal coding system

Create a personal coding system to mark up journals or notebooks for easy browsing retrieval. I use coloured highlighters: I underline or asterisk possible poetry ideas with yellow, novel snippets with blue, non-fiction article ideas with green, etc.

Other people’s ideas

Expand the concept to ideas beyond your own writing

In another hard copy folder keep cuttings from newspapers and magazines, old letters or theatre tickets or postcards or photos. Expand to new subfolders as ideas begin to consolidate.
In computer folders, keep ideas suggested by blog posts, or anything internet related, including email copy. Be sure to include URLs if you want to reference later.
Create a Pinterest board. This is especially useful in the early stages of a novel. Pin pictures of faces, buildings, landscapes, objects, or anything that stirs up ideas or cements a visual for you. Here is one I started for my MG novel.

Scrivener users can likely consolidate all of these methods into a dummy project called “Ideas” and harness Scrivener’s reference tools.
- Go to https://www.literatureandlatte.com/ for a free-trial download. If you want guidance on using this power program, Heather O’Connor is Writescape’s resident Dr. Scrivener and she makes house calls.

Of course, having all these ideas is pointless if you don’t do something with them.

Here is a creative exercise to try:

Take these two random pictures and write a scene that will somehow link them together.

When pairing ideas, don’t worry if they seemingly have nothing in common when you begin– that is the point of the exercise. The struggle of creating the link is what gets your brain going.

One Day I Will Write About This

Guest blogger: Erin Silver

When my husband left me to be with another woman — when he confessed he was in love with someone else — there wasn’t much I could say. But I do remember telling him one thing: One day I will write about this.

At first, I couldn’t write about my experience. The feelings were too raw. The emotions too heightened. I had no perspective on what had happened to me and what it meant in the grand scheme of my life. If I had tried to write about my divorce when the process began four years ago, it would have been an angry jumble of words. Words I may have regretted sharing one day.

Something told me it was time

But within two years, I was ready. Something clicked inside of me. Something told me it was time. By then, I was no longer angry. I had grown as a person and a writer. And suddenly I had a story to tell; a story about someone who was betrayed and bewildered, left to start life over from scratch. Someone who had to rediscover herself and find a way to become happy for the sake of her young boys.

I had worked through some real lows with my therapist and eventually came to realize that I wasn’t actually worthless and unloveable. Among the lows were some really bad dates and the feeling that I might never find love again. That was a terrifying thought: not knowing how my story would end or if the eventual ending would be happy. But there were some highs, too: taking my boys on a road trip all by myself, being accepted into a Masters of Fine Art in Creative Nonfiction program, meeting someone special and watching our kids grow to care for one another. I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything.

Sharing my story

I began scouring my brain for different angles, different facets of my story to share with new audiences. I pitched certain ideas to certain editors, and I followed up and followed up and followed up until I began selling pieces.

I wrote about taking my son to therapy for Today’s Parent, co-parenting for the Globe and Mail and going back to school for the Toronto Star. I pitched a blog, A Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce, to UrbanMoms.ca and write regularly about my everyday experiences. Before I knew it, I had developed a portfolio of articles and blogs related to divorce, single parenting and co-parenting. I’m now writing an intimate and even funny “foodoir” (memoir plus food) about the last four years of my life.

It’s not necessarily been cathartic, as you might think. I’d prefer to describe it as a mandatory part of my existence. I can’t explain it or rationalize it. It’s not like I want to talk about it; I want to move on. I don’t want to confess my private life to people I’ve never met; it’s not pleasant dredging up memories and feelings I wish I’d never experienced. When I get into the thick of it, it’s actually quite painful. I write as I cry and I cry as I write. But I’m drawn to it not because it’s fun, because I have any interest in bashing my ex, or hanging onto the past. No, it’s just something I must do.

Because if I, a writer, don’t write about it, then everyone else going through the same thing will erroneously believe they are alone.

It’s how I felt when it happened to me. Like nobody understood my pain or suffering. Like I was the only one who was ever cheated on, betrayed, and divorced; who had to date after being dumped, put my life back together, and manage as a single mother. If I write about it — all aspects of my journey, my innermost feelings and thoughts — someone else might realize that things happen for a reason and that you must rise above challenges, face disappointments head on, to get to a better place. It’s truly what keeps me going.

Writing your experience

If you feel drawn to a particular or painful topic, like me, here are a few tips that can help you write about it:

Wait until you’re ready. Don’t rush the process.
Keep a journal, then refer to it later.
Take the time to reflect on your experience, even if it’s painful.
Be honest with yourself. Is that really how you felt?
Don’t hold back. If you’re uncomfortable with what you’ve written or feel too exposed, you can always edit it later.

More about Erin:

Erin Silver is a writer, editor and blogger with work in Good Housekeeping, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Today’s Parent, Chatelaine, ParentsCanada, Best Health and Clean Eating magazine, among others. Her blog, “A Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce,” appears on UrbanMoms.ca. Erin also blogs for the HuffingtonPost.ca. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction at King’s College in Halifax and writing her first book, Burnt: Cooking My Way Through Divorce.

Step by Step

Gwynn Scheltema

Lately, I’ve been trying to increase the number of steps I walk each day. I bought a pedometer to record them. At first I just went about my regular routine to see what I was achieving already. Sad. Very sad. Some days I didn’t even break 500!

Apparently, you need to do a minimum of 6000 a day to maintain good health, and well over that if you want to lose weight or increase fitness levels. After several months, I now consistently do 7000 steps and some days even more. One day last week, I topped 15000. Yay me!

Lately, I’ve also been trying to increase the number of words I write in a week. I made a wall chart to record them. At first I just went about my regular routine to see what I was achieving already. Sad. Very sad. Most days I didn’t even break 500!

The difference is, after several months, I’m better but still not averaging a decent word count. I don’t expect to do 7000 a day, but I definitely need to average more if I want to finish my novel any time soon.

A first draft in one year

At first glance, if you do the math, an 80,000 first draft written over a year, five days a week, 50 weeks in the year, would only require a measly 320 words a day! A 100,000 word book is only 400 words a day.

But let’s face it. Not every word you write is golden. And there needs to be time in there for research or plotting with sticky notes or just plain thinking. So aiming for a minimum of 500 words a day and will allow you to produce enough “good words” for a first draft.

I prefer to think of that as an average of 2500 good words a week for 35 to 40 weeks of the year. That still leaves plenty of weeks for research or holidays or whatever.

The problem

The problem is, when I think of 2500 a week, every week, I find that daunting, in the same way that I found the prospect of 6000 steps a day daunting. But I succeeded with the steps. So what did I do to get my steps up that I could apply to my writing?

The solution to increasing my steps:

I wore my pedometer every day as a constant reminder and motivator.
I coerced my husband into wearing one too so we could motivate each other.
I didn’t try to do all 6000 at once during the day.
I found times of the day when I could get in a quick 1000.
I discovered that jogging got them done faster.
I realized that every little bit counted towards the whole: walking while on the phone or jogging on the spot while waiting for the kettle to boil.
I “rewarded” myself with a check mark on my chart for every day I achieved the 6000.

Therefore…the possible solution to writing 500 words every day:

B.I.C [Butt in chair] every day. Doesn’t matter what I write, as long as I write, or actively work on the draft in some way.
Find a writing buddy so we can motivate each other.
Write in several blocks of time if it’s hard to do them all at once.
Identify quick items that move the project forward to do in limited time slots: look up a missing fact, decide on a character name, weigh up plot options.
Use freefall to write quickly and get ahead of the internal editor.
Realize that every little bit counts towards the whole – keep a notebook handy and use it: on the train to work, while waiting in the car….
“Reward” myself every week I achieve the 2500. Chocolate? Solitaire? A new book?

What do you do to keep your word count clocking up week after week?

Find Your Way to First Place

Dorothea Helms, a.k.a. The Writing Fairy.

Writescape shares sage advice from award-winning humour writer and writing contest judge and administrator, Dorothea Helms, on entering and winning writing contests. Dorothea offers her special branch of magic and insider insights in The Top Drawer.

Winning writing contests is one of the most exciting things I’ve experienced during my career. In addition to validation for my writing from an objective source, the wins have brought money, publication, plaques, prizes and prestige. Oh, and surprise. I once came in third place in a poetry contest with a submission that didn’t begin “There once was a …” Contest wins listed on my writer’s CV have also added credibility.

I don’t know of a magic formula for winning (even though I’m The Writing Fairy), but I do have some tips I’d like to share on how to increase your chances.

Be creative in your approach to the contest topic
Follow the rules
Write with abandon, but polish your writing with care
Follow the rules
Enter
Follow the rules

Sound simplistic? For years, I have served as a writing contest judge from local to national levels, and I have run several contests myself. I’m always astounded at the number of entrants who ignore the rules. To be fair to all competitors, contest judges must eliminate those who don’t follow the rules.

Here are some reminders:

Word Count Maximums

If the maximum word count is 2,500 and your entry is 2,501, it will be eliminated before it’s even read. I’ve had to axe entries for this mistake many times. What a shame; often, they are brilliant submissions.

Published versus Unpublished

If the rules stipulate that the piece has to be original and unpublished, make sure it is. It’s easy for contest administrators to do a Google search for a sentence and find out if it’s on a website somewhere. I’ve done that and found published work that has been entered as unpublished.

Entry Fee

Many respected writing contests include entry fees. It costs money to run a contest, even when there are volunteers involved. Some journals give you a year’s subscription to their magazine as part of your entry fee. Some give you feedback on your entry. If you choose to submit to a contest with an entry fee, remember to include your payment. This is part of the rules you need to read.

Read, Read, Read Those Rules

The best way to start following the rules is to read them. In one of my Writing Fairy contests, after I published the names of the ten finalists, one of them contacted me to say he had just read the rules and that his entry had been previously published in a major US newspaper. I had to eliminate his piece, and it took time and effort to figure out who was next in line to take his spot in the top ten.

Enter

When it comes to increasing your chances of winning writing contests, the only thing worse than not following the rules is not entering. If you read winning contest entries and think, I can do better than that, then do better than that and send it in.

Oh, and did I mention—follow the rules?

Read more about Dorothea Helms, a.k.a. The Writing Fairy, at www.thewritingfairy.com

Want to know more about entering and winning contests? Dorothea Helms teams up with Writescape’s Ruth Walker for Write to Win, a one-day workshop that covers everything from entering, to judging, to winning, to celebrating. Write to Win is a winner of a workshop.

The Unoriginal World of bobbi leblanc

Gwynn Scheltema

I was reminded about poetry when I went to the ballet this week. And not necessarily what you may expect…expressions of beauty through pattern or escape to a lyrical world (although that certainly happened).

No, I was reminded about the quest for meaning in art and the effect of succumbing to fads and affectations.

The Quest for Meaning

The National Ballet’s mixed winter program began with two offerings of classic Balanchine choreography: The Four Temperaments and Rubies. As the knowledgeable and always eloquent creative Director and Principal Ballet Master, Lindsay Fischer reminded us in the pre-performance talk, Balanchine choreographed always with the music uppermost in his mind. He didn’t start out with an idea he wanted to express. Instead, he listened to the music and let the music suggest the movement.

When you listen to a symphony, you don’t spend that time wondering what it means. You let it transport you and enjoy the way it makes you feel. Balanchine’s ballets are like symphonies. You enjoy them for the emotions they stir in you, for the beauty in the patterns that delight you, for the surprises that please you when you least expect them to.

Good poetry is like that too: the music of the words and rhythms, the surprise of juxtapositions and turning points, the satisfaction of found mutual experience and ah-ha moments. And the delight of images that make you feel like you see what the poet sees. To paraphrase Chekov, poems that allow the reader to experience the moon by seeing “the glint of light on broken glass”.

And always emotion. It’s not necessary to read poetry looking for meaning. Allow the images to evoke whatever emotion or memory they do for you. There is no right or wrong reaction to what is written. Like a symphony, or a Balanchine ballet, let the poem transport you and move you.

Fads, Trends and Affectations

The final offering was a new work by Swedish choreographer Alexander Ekman called Cacti. At first it was disturbing, confusing, but it didn’t take long to become comical, in fact, hilarious.

It poked fun at all the trendy things we’ve seen on stage and in dance competitions: androgynous dancers; bizarre props that seem to be symbolic but aren’t; weird, intrusive (and often annoying) lighting and stage sets; contorted body positions and music that isn’t sure what rhythms or mood it’s going for.

In short, it was using conventions and trends that others had been using, in fact, overusing. And did it result in “art”? Was it trying too hard to be “art”? What resulted was a parody of art.

In this case, the choreographer was going for that and succeeded brilliantly. But it was a heads up to those who forget to open their minds and let the muse be original.

It took me back to 2004 when Ruth and I were on the editorial board for the literary journal LICHEN Arts & Letters Preview. Submissions of poetry went through a “fad” at that time, where everything was lowercase, even the pronoun I, and the poet’s name. Poems were made up of numbered parts, had words in italics, parentheses and were often divided by slashes. And all of them (it seemed) started with a quote from someone else or notes on what inspired the poem. That’s not to say that these devices cannot be used; there are some very fine poems with one or more of these elements in them. But what we were seeing was random, put in there without meaning or context because the poet had seen it elsewhere and was imitating without understanding why it was like that in the first place. That’s the pretentious part.

Given that we had to deal with hundreds of submissions, it was frustrating. Our 2004 spring issue was the “fun” issue, so as a lark, and to do much the same thing that Ekman did in the ballet Cacti, we (the editorial board) collectively wrote a poem that parodied all these affectations. We published it as “The Typical Canadian Literary Journal Poem” by a fictitious poet called bobbi le blanc (Notice: non-gender, possibly French and/or English and all lowercase name.). It was a hoot. But in the fun, like the ballet Cacti, there was that same heads up to those who forget to open their minds and let the muse be original.

It was a long poem with many numbered parts (of course), but just to give you a taste, here are the first two stanzas. Enjoy a giggle.

Can You Use Parody?

Interestingly, parody is a great way to loosen up the mind and your writing. Try taking something you’re editing and rewriting it in the same style of a well-known writer, say, Ernest Hemingway (simple, direct and plain prose) or William Shakespeare (image-rich, iambic pentameter, 16th-century prose) or Margaret Atwood (precise, ironic and witty). When you are finished, consider how your own work is different. What makes your style, your voice, unique?