New Poem Published in Club Newsletter

Big deal. It's in the September 2010, Writers Talk right there on page 8, my newly published poem. (Somebody told me twenty years ago I don't toot my own horn enough.)

I'd sent it in, like, a year ago, so I wasn't expecting to see it.

I'd just won the 1st Prize Challenge Award for poetry in the newsletter for "My Wife's Ghost," best poem that made the newsletter for the previous six months. The Award Certificate is hung proudly on my wall next to two other poetry awards. I had a nice dinner out for two on the $40 cash that came along with it!

This month's published entry is entitled "What Do I Want?" It begins like so:

   What do I want?
   Really, what do I want?

   Give me a minute; a day; a year.
   Now I’ve thought on it;
   It’s getting clearer.
   I’ve made it through the silence.

   So here goes:
   Why not start with stuff that really counts?

That's all I'm giving here. Now here's a problem for you budding poets out there. If the above were the beginning to your poem, what would the rest of it be? Don't peek at mine until you've given a couple day's honest effort and at least a session polishing it. (I recommend not doing the polishing until at least a week after you've put your first inspiration down. Often, I'm still polishing 8 months later--not that whole time, of course.)
 
Then, and only then, you are allowed to find my version on our club's website (we are South Bay Writers, a branch of California Writers Club), and look for our newsletter page, September 2010, page 8, remember? 
 
The main reason for this article, I haven't really gotten to yet. I read it a year later (tonight, when I picked up my mail), and I like it. Still! Maybe, even better than when I wrote it. Usually, I cringe a little when I see my stuff in print. It's got pace, some worthy goals; it's got a certain energy a lot of my best work has. Not comletely devoid of melodramatic sentimentality, but it's honest, straight forward writing, easily understood.

Enjoy. Or give me helpful feedback. It's nice to know when someone reads something I've created that wasn't anywhere on earth a year ago. --rb

Receiving Feedback

Receiving feedback on your novel writing--my novel writing, to more accurate--can be a trifle traumatic. Which may be the understatement of the century.

My critique group meetings, in all honesty, were sometimes stressful for me, especially when giving feedback that I knew the person didn't want to hear (but he needed to hear). Fist fights; thrown dishes; tears; blood. I'm kidding. C'mon. Thrown dishes? I don't think so.

Even helpful, right-on-the-money corrective analysis, from experts, and factoring in that all writing judgments are subjective. A little questioning by the receiver of the feedback is a valid activity. Still, this sought-after feedback can cut a writer to the quick.

I'm having my present novel in-progress, Sagebrush at Stony Creek, content-edited by a skilled editor. It seems there are five or so consistent, systematic show stoppers throughout the first half of the novel. The first half is all I could afford to have reviewed, but I get that there are issues that need improving, from her viewpoint.

Stepping back from the defensive emotions I had, I can see there is plenty that is substance in her commentary and so I'm setting out to correct them. But to show the point that it is emotional, I'll give you a peek at my first response letter back to her.

"Hi Xxxx,

"After picking up the pieces of my heart and gluing them back together, I will wait a few days, so as to let my high emotions die down. I was so glad to finish this thing, finally. I’d hope it wouldn’t be perceived as awful…but I did wonder. Thanks for an honest & expert appraisal...."

My reply goes on from there to each point that "needs work" and defends the mistakes, explaining my silly thinking at the time, going into what I plan to do about them, but the real action will start after we talk on the phone and work out an efficient stategy for putting out a most-publishable version of my story. Is it that hard? Well, for some, they have their strengths and their publishers down, those like John Grisham and Steven King, maybe it comes a lot easier. They have written a lot more fiction than I've ever dreamed of writing, and they do it daily.

Perhaps, that's the most important thing about our differences in skill and publishability. I take heart in the fact I heard somewhere that Samuel Clemens took more than seven years to write his Adventures of Tom Sawyer!

And, in those days, they didn't put such an emphasis on brevity. Seems Clemens contained some 230,000 words in his "little" book about Tom, Becky, and Injun Joe. My much-too-long piece weighs in at 110,000 words.

I Recommend This Course

I took a writing course given by Random House Struik, a department of Random House, being taught out of South Africa. It's mostly teaching how to make a story (novel or short story) and up its quality to make it publishable. Much of it is applicable to documentary or historical fiction, and non-fiction, as well. When I took the ten week course, through Internet (Feb - Apr this year, 2010), the facilitator was an expert content editor and college teacher, employed especially by Random House, Ron Irwin. He's personable and non-threatening, but also detailed and very student-oriented, ready to deal with all levels of authors and future authors.

It's taught via Internet,  a highly effective medium for this course with great support on the South Africa side. It's in English.

I highly recommend this course for all levels, as there are hands-on exercises that will test your skill, whatever your present writing level. There were about 80 in my class. You will get a chance to critique the work of three of them, per applicable assignment, and get critiqued by them. You will also be able to compare student critiques with Ron Irwin's always thorough critique. It works best if you have a novel, finished, but not ready for prime time, or at least a third of the way into your novel/non-fiction work. This will play a part in some of your assignments. So the class is geared for people who are now actually writing something, not just dreamers.

I found the course well worth the $825 I paid; about 5 hours per week for 10 weeks. You will also make friends (network, network, network) with other aspiring writers, mostly residing in South Africa.

The price might be different now, so do check it out and see if the timing is right for you at http://www.getsmarter.co.za/creative-writing?utm_source=sugar&utm_medium=email&utm_content=creative_writing_2010_09_sugar_email_set_3_cw_writing_group_info&utm_campaign=creative_writing_2010_09 .

If you already have an MFA degree in writing or have already published novels with traditional publishers, I'd guess you've been through a lot of this before, but others ought to take a look.

Progress on Making Corrections

Do you remember, I received back the edits on my novel, 513 double-spaced pages of manuscript? Now I'm inserting the commas I should have known belong and changing my "Em-dashes"--there are quite a few of these critters for some God awful reason.

Maybe, you're thinking, "Well, good, he's about done."

T'ain't that easy. I have to find the place on the computer screen (my working [master] copy of my novel), then re-find the redmark (in the manuscript stack), then make sure I decide which I prefer--usually the editor's way, except sometimes I'm removing whole paragraphs and making minor repairs on either side of that. I find a few begin quotes and stuff that neither of us caught (I don't mind, because it means my editor got caught up in my story). After putting in the correction, I have to recheck that I took out the old incorrect thing. Say, there's about three markups per double spaced page (yes, I'm pretty error-prone; don't think it's that unusual), a couple chapters of that, and I'm bushed. I'm now on page 172 of M/S. That makes 172 x 3 = 516 corrections made (approximately, of course), not a small amount of work. And only about a third of the way on this--ha, ha--"final edit."

At chapter completions, I re-read the chapter aloud and fix things that still aren't fixed or that make my tongue stumble.

Every couple hours, even very dedicated writers need to get up and take a walk around the block, lift some weights, do some chores, get their feet up, watching TV. Well, I do anyway, to keep my blood circulating and bones right. I know a few others like Rita St. Claire, a romance writer, who completely agree with me, and some who agree, but don't do the exercise breaks nearly enough. Anyway, do watch your ergonomics. Your writing will be and stay better if your healthy.

Back to editing: I found a number of words I may use too often as I once again see my work both through my eyes and through my editor's eyes. (There's a lot of brain work going on in this process, though not much typing per se.) I'm making a list of these overused words and will do a Search-Find in MSWord to count them and see if I can think of better replacement or if I can delete the whole sentence without screwing up the story. Here's my list so far (I'm sure it will get longer as I go):

damn
darn
dang (want to make sure these are attached to different characters as their unique dialog pattern)
f*** (yes, I have some of those. Sorry, Aunt Tilly.)
f***er
sh**
you know
tears
also
I guess [this is how I speak; well, all my characters shouldn't talk like I do)
nodded
eyebrows
raised eyebrows
Jeez
smirk; smirked
smile; smiled; smiling

Every authors "word-abuse" list is different, I'd guess.

It's not so much that they really are overused. I just want to check them. Seems like they come up a lot, especially in dialog, and I use a lot of dialog.

I've already learned to try to not use weak verbs like forms of "to be" and "have". Some of my sentences are much too involved for todays dumbed-down public, and they need to get broken-up into shorter sentences.

I miss putting in a lot of "?".

I'm still spelling the last name, "Charlie" as "Charley" once in a while. I can't believe it.

Time to get up and stretch. Take care, all.

PS: Some of the writing in my story is pretty darn thrilling.

A Poem (That Grew Out of Another Poem)

A Fine Hike
Richard A. Burns
August 2010

The Santa Cruz Mountains,
A fine hike up.
A superior view at the top.
A good look at the smallness of life in the bustling valley.
I feel young, beyond the reach of problems.

Then, we are coasting down the other side,
Where red-barked Madrone limbs hang low over the trail,
Smooth and cold to the touch,
Like touching cold water pipes,
So unexpected a sensation out here in the warming wild.

If I come up here in May, the sticky monkey flowers
On the sunny side of the trail
Are thick and in golden bloom.
Near the bottom, deer are hidden in the shadows.
Look carefully through thick woods along the stream.