What to do with a good poem with multiple good endings

I generated 4 or 5 Haiku [poems] using a cold experience in June in Turlock, CA, where it's supposed to be hot this time of year. Here's part of my e-mail exchange with a friend, in which I count syllables just to show I've got legal Haiku. But note how many nuances there are with easy-looking changes.

______Spring Forgot - [original] ______

[5 syllables]   Spring forgot her mission.

[7 syllables]   In May, she warmed one day, then

[5 syllables]   Back came wintry cold.

______Spring Forgot -B______

[5]  Spring forgot her mission.

[7]  In May, she warmed one day, then
[5] Blew fresh, powd’ry snow. 

______Spring Forgot - C______

Spring forgot her mission.
In May, she warmed one day, then
Blew fresh, fluffy snow.

______Spring Forgot - D______

Spring forgot her mission.

In May, she warmed one day, the

Next day, slipp’ry snow. 

______Spring Forgot - E______

Spring forgot her mission.
In May, she warmed one day, the

Next day, slipped-in snow.

…only to prove 1) you can re-write till hell freezes over; 2) the hard part is picking the best for readings/publishing.

Analyzing the different versions.

A) I thought the original, while true to the day on which it was modeled, seems a bit bleak. Maybe, not enough in keeping with what I want my audience to hear.

B) Therefore the search is on for something less bleak. Version B emphasis a light, fluffy, non-dangerous snow, yet still puts across "a cold day" after a warm day.

C) Changes powd'ry, which is a great newly-invented contraction word, with a word "fluffy" that provides onomatopoeia. The two f words "fresh, fluffy" in a quick succession add lyrically, although "fluffy" is, perhaps, more mundane than "powd'ry."

D) "Slipp'ry" changes the whole of emphasis to a funny slipping and sliding, i.e., now warm May day (safe and comfortable) is followed by a rather hazardous day. The coldness is implied, but not very emphasized. It's a fun or ending (bad, uncoordinated thing happening to a person other than the reader).

E) "Slipped-in" is a play on words that suggests two completely different meanings (but the hyphenated words put it squarely as one meaning. In this meaning, the personification of May is emphasized. May has a quirky mind of her own and, this cold day, is a bit mischievous. May is given a real personality, and that is done very economically, and, in addition, reminds us one can slip and look uncoordinated or even break a bone.

Now the only question is which one do I choose to publish? I don't know! Writing is a game of choices. What should the next sentence say? There is no one correct answer, apparently.

Grand Canyon via Helicopter

There's a story about how I saw The Grand Canyon, you know, that big gulch caused by the Colorado River and a rising of the Kaibob plateau about 10,000,000 years ago. My trip was from Las Vegas to that canyon in AZ, but the story is not written this time. I made a 15 minute video some of you might want to see.

I'm just testing if I know how to "embed" it per instructions of YouTube video. This video I shot on my early May vacation

Mary Travers Poem Completed

Wilby, a.k.a., Bill Belew accused some of us in the club of living off what we already wrote and doing no significant current writing. That I applies to 70% of us (my guess from the lack of contributions to the Writers Talk Newsletter). Well he made me feel guilty so I finished a poem I'd started months ago when Mary Travers (of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame) passed away. I include a few snippets here (it's a two page poem).

To Mary Travers

Richard Burns Copyright April 2011

Mary, with the crystal voice,

You beside the two bearded ones.

Dedication, passion, talent, luck, ambition, your time in history

Melded to make Peter, Paul, and Mary. 

You with Peter Yarrow, the sensitive intellect,

Noel Paul Stoockey, the showy one with sound effects,

Strumming and singing,

Some tunes new, some familiar,

Harmonies honed to lean perfection. 

Practice sessions searching, rearranging,

Seven months of finding out what works,

Your group’s debut at The Bitter End,

A happening place,

Built of brick on Bleaker Street,

Greenwich Village.

That's how it starts. Here's how it ends.

Thanks for the sound of hope.

Thanks for the feeling that

“Things are pretty terrific and will even get better.”

Thanks for that fire you and Peter and Paul lit in me

And the fleeting vigor that can still pulse in my blood

When I hear truth sing.

I heard that children loved you

And you loved children.

I know many, many adults will miss you.

I can hope I won’t miss you as much.

Eight of your albums lean in original covers,

Still right next to my turntable and hi-fi.

I keep it in good repair.

Hope your writing is going well.  -rb

Halloween Costume Party, CWC, South Bay Writers

This may be ancient news, but I'm practicing embedding videos. I (and Mike Freda) shot a video of the Halloween Costume Contest taken at our October 12, Tuesday night meeting. There are some familiar faces in unfamiliar get-ups. The contest was a lot of fun and some were definitely in the spirit of the thing. I'm Abraham Lincoln, so friend and great writer, Mike Freda shot that footage of the line-up with my camcorder. We are supposed to have chosen a famous writer or someone who's a character in a famous or infamous book, but really, just about anything goes. This merriment takes place at the Lookout Restaurant (affiliated to The Sunnyvale Golf Course, CA).  Enjoy.

Writer's Block

Writer's block. What's that? I got writers deluge, and have no clue where to start. I'm bailing the liquid out of my boat with two buckets and getting winded in the process.  --I posted this on Facebook minutes ago. Not sure if there's an action item in there somewhere. Write something, I guess. Anything.

Writing Tip: Leave It Out

We writers think, oh, boy, there's another creative sentence that shows up in our mind. It fits the story, the narrator's voice, the characters jargon. It's perfect. It's something more, and it's good so we put it in.

Watch that tendency to think every "good" thought that's relevant belongs in your current project. Very often it's a mistake, and too many of these wrong choices will prevent you story from getting published and/or read.

What does your brilliant new idea do for the story? To the pace of the story? Does it slow things down? Does it read too long with your brain child entered. Look at it three days later. Now, does it read long, seem clumsier than you thought, putting a goddam speed-bump in the pacing? We all hate speed-bumps. You can bet the reader hates them too. Even though the idea, sitting alone, is a brilliant idea, brilliantly stated. It's almost great, showing off, even, but heavens to Betsy, you really do like that line.

Put the brakes on. One of the talents of a superior writer is knowing when not to put the good writing in the story. Unpublished writers have a very hard time always recognizing this in practice. My guess is every single page of your project has at least one or two sentences that aren't essential to the story, to the character building, to the suspense and conflict you are trying to get across to King Reader.

With all my railing against redundancy, I'm sure I understand this and know tons of examples in my own work. But I continue to catch myself putting all my good thoughts into the story.

Tip: Most of the time, leave it out. That goes double if it comes to you during a rewriting session. You should be striving to dump 50% of your words, not the other way around.

Less is more. Remember it, and live it! Your readers will love your writing for it. They'll be turning pages like crazy.

Apparently, A Word I Use Too Much

Okay, I found another word (see previous article) that I habitually use. The word is "apparently." The use of it, even once (unless it's inside dialog or in a first person's quirky habits of use) is most likely redundant.

On to other comments: Yesterday, I polished a song I had written 20 years ago and turned it into a poem. Can rhyming poetry have a refrain line? Or a bridge section? I guess I could use poetic license and do it, anyway.

I woke up a bit too early this morning, (Saturday) Jan 29, 2011, with an extraordinarily busy mind; a thousand little poems racing around in there. Pat Bustamante's challenge to my South Bay club poetry writers is to make them short. Trite seems to be allowable. Unfortunately, I'll not remember them all. (Maybe, that's fortunate.)

Let me start one here, I'll polish it later.

It's Golf

Watch the V's in your grip,
Head down the round trip.
Straight left arm and don't rush it.
Long, wide arc, you'll crush it,
Be firm, no self-doubt,
Follow through, inside out.

I've got it wrong, apparently.
It's golf that's got its grip on me.

Hey, you know, that's not too bad. Still a little lengthy for Pat, I fear. Write on, friends.  ;^)

Creating: The Villain Next Door

This “guest post” is by one of the authors of Writing Fiction for Dummies, Randy Ingermanson, one of my heroes for creating publish-quality stories. He personally invited me to steal this article from his E-zine that I subscribe to. There are some good pointers. If you’re resistant to these particular points, at least hopefully I’ve made you think a little.

Extracted from “Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine,” received Dec 20, 2010

By Randy Ingermanson

Creating: The Villain Next Door

One of the most common types of characters in a novel is the villain--a person directly opposing the protagonist.

Writing villains is hard. The reason is that you, the author, are likely to dislike your villain. You probably find it hard to relate to your villain. You don't understand what makes him tick. Therefore, it's all too tempting to make him a two-dimensional character whose sole purpose is to be bad.

The problem with that is that villains don't believe they're bad. Villains generally believe they're the good guys. Villains believe that the story is their story.

I've been reading a book lately titled THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR, by Martha Stout, Ph.D., and I think it's valuable to any novelist who wants to write a real, live, breathing, three-dimensional villain.

We'll define a sociopath, as Dr. Stout does, this way:

A sociopath is a person who lacks a conscience. A sociopath feels free to do anything without any sense of shame, guilt, or remorse.

You might imagine that people like that are pretty rare. One in a million, maybe. Or one in ten thousand.

According to Dr. Stout, those estimates are way low.

According to her, about 4 in every 100 people is a sociopath.

That's pretty shocking. Scary even. It doesn't mean that 4% of all people are psychopathic murderers. Those are pretty rare. It means that 4% of all people match the standard psychiatric definition of "antisocial personality disorder."

The sociopath category is pretty broad. A rare few sociopaths become serial killers. Most of them do their best to fit in with a world of people they can't relate to at all -- people hobbled with consciences.

There are plenty of places to fit in.

An extremely intelligent sociopath can do well in business or politics or the military, where ruthless domination of others might actually be rewarded.

(Obviously not every businessman or politician or military professional is a sociopath.)

Less gifted sociopaths may find a niche in some job where they exercise authority over a few others and enjoy making life miserable for them.

Sociopaths with average talents are often full-time moochers, living off somebody else by arousing pity.

Plenty of sociopaths gravitate to crime. Surprisingly, the majority of criminals are NOT sociopaths. Studies show that only about 20% of prison inmates are sociopaths. But that 20% account for more than half of the most serious crimes.

If you decide that the villain in your novel should be a sociopath, what features should your character have?

To get the fully detailed answer, I recommend that you read THE SOCIOPATH NEXT DOOR or some similar book.

Please note that reading one book on sociopaths will not make either you or me an expert, but these are the high points that I picked up from the book:

* Sociopaths know the difference between right and wrong. There is nothing flawed in their understanding of basic morality. However, when they do wrong, they don't FEEL any sense of shame or guilt. Therefore, they can justify anything they do by blaming the victim or the economy or society or circumstances or Satan or the weather or whatever.

* Sociopaths often are extremely charming. They study normal humans and learn which buttons to push in order to get the responses they want. So the stereotype of the charming villain is based on reality. This skill is critical for sociopaths climbing the corporate ladder or making a career in politics or wangling into a romantic relationship.

* Sociopaths are extremely good at detecting potential victims. Whether they're looking for somebody to marry, somebody to mug, or somebody to mooch, they quickly home in on the one who'll give the biggest payoff.

* Sociopaths don't love anybody. They may say all the right words, but they never really mean them.

* Sociopaths crave pity. This may seem astonishing, but one of the most reliable indicators that somebody is a sociopath is their relentless attempts to arouse pity in the people they're victimizing. A typical sociopath can turn on the "crocodile tears" on command.

* Sociopaths are easily bored. So are children and young teens, of course,  but normal people grow out of their boredom as they mature. Sociopaths don't. Because of that, they crave excitement, which causes them to take crazy risks which endanger themselves and other people. Those risks can lead to spectacular successes in business, politics, and war. They can also lead to spectacular failures.

* Sociopaths don't want to get better. They rarely try to get treatment unless forced to, because they think they're just fine the way they are -- it's the rest of the human race that's screwed up.

* Sociopaths sometimes "do the right thing" -- if it gains them something. That may be public approval or it may be a heightened self-image. But their reason for doing the right thing is always based on what they THINK, not on what they FEEL. Doing wrong doesn't make a sociopath feel bad and doing right doesn't make him feel good.

* For a sociopath, life is about winning. Other people are there to be controlled or to provide points in the game. Relationships with those pesky people have no value, unless the relationship contributes to winning.

In writing a character––any character––you must find a way to get inside that character's skin. You must think as they think and feel as they feel.

That doesn't mean that you have to become a sociopath in order to write a convincing villain. It means you need to be able to IMAGINE being a sociopath.

And that's not so hard. Novelists typically have extremely high empathic skills. A novelist is required to imagine that he or she is a person of a different gender, age, ethnic group, social stratum. Many novelists need to imagine that they live in a different time or a different place.

If you can imagine all that, then you can imagine that you have no conscience and don't want one. When you do that, you'll understand your villain in a whole new way.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, "the

Snowflake Guy," publishes the Advanced Fiction Writing

E-zine, with more than 23,000 readers, every month. If

you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction,

AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND

have FUN doing it, visit

http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing

and get a free 5-Day Course in How To Publish a Novel.

Reading At Pruneyard Bookstore

Barnes & Noble is community-minded enough to allow our club, South Bay Writers, to have a reading there every month. Five us read and listened when the others read. I read four short poems from my new collection, Fine Lines of Mine (see previous post) plus about eight minutes worth out of a short story I wrote three years ago. (I need to sit down and really polish that one to a fine sheen; cutting out 50% of the words might be a good place to start.)

I thought my story, Teen Trials #17, was pretty sensitive and realistic "first-date" dialog--that was my story's situation, so that's a good thing. But it did get a little too explicit with sex, at least it felt that way with this small audience (four people). The audience felt like it started to squirm and that made me feel squeemish about reading on more.

With the recent honest, sometimes harsh-feeling feedback I've received from editors working with me on my novel, I'm likely getting a better feeling for my ideal audience and what kind of explicitness is going too far. (I want to go further. However, the reality today is different. A lot of great short story publishers will put up with the implicit quick sexual innuendo, but not long dwellings on love-making, in detail, or explicit naming of body parts, etc.) If my story is not mainly a sex instruction book, it works against the meat of my story to get too detailed and dwell too long there. I felt that tonight, and there probably is no other way to get that kind of extremely useful information. I call it "listening through the ears of the others."

I need to rewrite Teen Trials #17--tonight, even!--to keep the good stuff and trim off the less than good. I'm not saying never to have sex in your short stories, but make sure it is appropriate to your ideal reader and the probable publisher and award committees that you wish to impress. In the 60s, it was different. We have a more conservative audience these days, so, a word to the wise...

At tonight's reading, the main trouble (ignoring that the microphone had a low frequency hum that would crescendo out of control if you breathed on it) was there were not enough listeners sitting in the chairs out there. Thus, there was less chemistry, less buzz, less feedback and less heart and warm bodies out there. At our readings, listeners are often the readers--that was the case tonight--so we also didn't have enough authors or prospective authors reading. Too bad.

Did you ever throw a party and no one came?  It was a little bit like that.

If you'd like to bolster our crowd or you write and need to get used to reading in front of people (in a interested, supportive atmosphere) you should come. It's usually 3rd Friday of each month, Pruneyard Barnes & Noble open microphone, 7:30PM, sponsor: California Writers Club, South Bay Branch.

See you there... I hope. Bring something newly written to test out on us.

My New Poetry Booklet

I'm a novelist who also writes non-fiction as well as some poetry. Well, some of my poems have won awards, for example third prize at East of Eden (2006) Writers Conference. Friends have requested that I publish some of them since they like my work so well they wanted to have a collection at their home.

It seem like a good idea, so I spent five days away from novel writing, putting together a little booklet of 18 of my favorite poems, including all my award winners: "I Wished," "TV Is Somethin'," etc. I wouldn't have gone through the trouble if I didn't think they were good, and I'm proud of this collection. The title of the collection is Fine Lines of Mine. It'll be something I can have available to sell wherever I read my poetry. ;^)

(If you think I'm happy you're right! -from a Dave Dudley song written by Carl Montgomery and Earl Green.)

In getting them together, I've found a word here and a line there to improve, and there are some never before seen in Writers Talk or anywhere else. When my novel writing begins to get to me, I can turn to poetry to pick up my spirits. Every day, I'm making progress, little by little, in my writing. I hope you have a good writing day, today, too.

Memoir Class Was Memorable

Linda Joy Myers, PhD., taught a very good six hour memoir class, sponsored by South Bay Writers, given on November 6 at  Lookout Restaurant banquet room in Sunnyvale.

First, I have to admit, the memoir I was writing was not a memoir at all—it was too long and detailed—it was a journal.  It seemed to attempt to chronicle about every minute of my life—wrong!

A memoir should be more focus than that, be focused around a definite theme that can be gleaned from my life, and generally cover a shorter time period than one's entire life.

To get a handle on what my theme might be, she gave us a blank timeline handout and told us to think up 5 to 10 major turning points that existed in our lives—major telling decisions that affected the future, perhaps disasters, unusual family situations. But, in order to cut down on superfluous detail, she said to try to limit them to six or seven (or less) key turning points. I should then boil these down to perhaps three or four—they must have to do with the selected theme, and that theme probably would be reflected in the title.

Other than that, treat the memoir as a novel, a story: draw the reader in with an especially interesting, exciting midpoint occurrence, and, like any good story, the story should have drama, narrative summary, scenes with action and dialog eliciting emotions in the reader, sensory detail (to make it real). Your story should have a beginning, middle, and ending.

Linda Joy Myer prefers upbeat endings, illustrating some victory or some learning that occurred that would appeal to your prospective readers.

Oh, yes, we are talking about a memoir you want to sell commercially, to have published, and go through bookstores (or to self-published and market it yourself).

I have more detailed notes, of course, and I hope to get back and read them and apply them if I ever really get focusing on my memoir. I am still writing my novel on Shoshoni Indians and my characters distinctions aren't good enough so I'm working on them.

Making out a written, physical timeline is a very powerful step in keeping your memoir focused and telling a relevant story. Think of turning points as transformations, opportunities for growth, whether successfully exploited or not.

Then she went into the fact that, even though your memory may be imperfect, it's all right—in fact, expected—to invent scenes from your recollections and put quoted dialog, even though 20 years later you surely do not remember every word and every gesture. The reader needs this feeling of tangibility, and, if the essentials of the truth, as you see them (may be made more dramatic), are there, who could complain?  Caveat: I'm not a lawyer and neither is Linda. At the present time, I see more info here.

She went into detail and answered questions on whether or not to change names to protect your loved ones from embarrassment and that sort of thing. The answer seems to be situational, depending on the sensitivity that you know these individuals have, and your ability to smooth stated remembrances over with them. No two people will remember the same event the same, so the writer needs to recognize this to, and learn when he is treading into sensitive territory. If someone is alive, you should go over the sensitive part with that person and see if that is acceptable with them. Caveat: I'm not a lawyer and neither is Linda. I see more info here.

Pack your memoir with thoughts (at the time of the story and/or at the time of narration) to elicit emotion--show trouble and how it was overcome.

Linda Joy Meyers, Ph.D., MFT, President and Founder of National Association of Memoir Writers, is a skilled workshop presenter.

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.

Agent Pet Peeves

Here's a "good advice" for fiction writers I just discovered, or I may have rediscovered it:
http://www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Agent+Advice+Cherry+Weiner+Of+The+Cherry+Weiner+Literary+Agency.aspx

Try it, especially if you are as yet unpublished, would like to know something more about what your receiver thinks of your work.  -rb 

I went to Niagara Falls recently,

which was an exciting day for my cousins, my friend, and I. Someone mentioned that I probably came back with a few good new poems (or a short story). "Well, no," was my answer. Now I wonder why not. :^\

Another Short Story

I have written a short story (four years ago, now) about a Christian and a Muslim meeting by accident to do good, in the conservative Bible-belt region of the U.S.A.

It is entitled, "Mark and the Storm" and can be found and read for free at :

http://www.sandhillreview.org/2006/index.htm .

Or, if you can find a hoarder of them, buy a copy of Sand Hill Review 2006.

Good Conference in Salinas

The East of Eden writers conference is a two day plus Sunday writers conference put on by South Bay Writers. It will cost a little money and you may need a motel to stay at if you don't commute there, but I've always found it well worth the price of admission. You can pitch your novel to an actual agent besides a meriade of classes and such. A gala dinner with key-note speakers comes with it. Last time, I ate dinner with another agent (other than the official one I met earlier). Both were very interested in my novel. Do preactice your pitch on your project before you get there. You have maybe 45 seconds to make your first good impression.

I especially recommend it if you're a serious writer and early-to-intermediate on your learning curve, though there will be plenty of veterans there, too. Not to be missed. This link gives more info and a place to register using PayPal or by check.

Join the short story contest (or poetry or novel contests). Get your name and face out there. Maybe I'll see you there.

Early Edits Received for My Novel

I received back from my new editor, we'll just call her Leslie, her red marks on the first 72 pages (double spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman, of course) of my novel-in-progress, Sagebrush at Stony Creek, and I devoured her comments and had a good glance at my own writing style as well. Now I wonder if my beginning hooks the reader enough. It isn't particularly clever, but it does immediately bring into play an ominous knife (and knife thrower), later to play some role in my novel. Might that hook someone. It's an Indian vs. Rancher tale. I can see this knife being a main element on the cover of the published novel, but that would be the call of the publisher. What's up with that knife? That's what I'm hoping the browsing shopper would think. Even the final title will be determined by the publisher; that's what I've heard.

Well, anyway, I use these things " ... " too much and commas not enough. Most the marks were just not getting hyphenated words right and make some homonym goofs. I saw a few word clusters she caught. I'm thrilled and will get busy implementing the corrections I think will help the story, probably 90% of the editor's suggestions. Somehow, it's easier to feel motivated when someone else is active in the project with me.

Write on. ;^)