Gratitude Monday -- Ask and Ye Shall Receive Edition or: Oh, My Hat

I decided the other day I needed a conical hat. I needed it to help me get in character and get back into the manuscript I am editing.
I finished the first draft of it last June. It went down a few different paths, one as far as chapter 14, but I eventually found the story I was to tell and it got done.
It sat for several months.  I wrote something else that is now simmering on a mental back burner as I fix this one up.
But back to the hat.
I often have a prop or two around when writing to help me focus. I bought cowboy boots for the vampire western, a fedora for the story of the man who went to the wrong side of heaven and had to do God's dirty work to get a new life, and for this story I made myself a pine staff and took up drawing.
It wasn't quite enough. I wanted the style of hat commonly associated with witches.
I said so on Facebook on Friday. There was some loose talk of a cousin maybe making me one. She'd already sent me an infinity scarf which helped me with the first draft of this story ( thanks again, Terry) so she'd already helped in a big way.
I thought I might check the dollar stores as one never knows what one may find on a shelf. Meantime, my husband offered to make me one.
As there were none on the shelves Mike did make the hat for me.  Black construction paper,  a leg from a pair of pants that my once belonged to my dad later worn by Mike, and the cheap hat I bought in Australia in the early nineties.
Mike rolled up the paper, cut it down several times, glued on the pants leg and pinned it all to the hat.
It is wonderful, and for it all I am grateful.
It has a nice weight to it, if a bit heavy, but it is a good place to store my thinky thoughts while rewriting.
Because no description can ever do it justice:

Hat with infinity scarf.

A character photo, this time with reading glasses and staff.

Please click to enlarge photos for the full glory.

Some Twains Shouldn't Meet

Original

Edited

What it should be

I've been thinking about the latest nonsense about changing the wording in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
In our sanitized, lest- we- offend world the idea is to take the word nigger which was in common use in Mark Twain's time and change it to slave.
The words do not mean the same thing.
They may have been virtually interchangeable at one time, but they are not now nor have they ever been literally interchangeable. If Twain had meant slave I am confident that's the word he'd have chosen.
He didn't and it is not anyone's place to make it seem he did. It is not okay to change a word we don't like in a written work.
It dulls the point.
Rather than rail about it I decided to say it with pictures.
One the left we have a perfectly fine photo. To the right is the picture changed to sepia tone. It loses its flavour. It tells the same story, but in a bland and boring way. The photo has no point.
Below it is another view. It's closer up, head on, the colours stand out more. It is more interesting.
I took it through a window. It has a reflection.
Good literature is a reflection of its time. It should be head on and in full colour, not bland and monotone.

Tuesday Twosome -- Oh, Deer

Inquisitive mule deer take an afternoon stroll around town.

Readers of my blog know that I recently faced a happy problem: which manscript do I edit next?
I decided to go with the vampire western. It's been sitting a while now and is in need of some attention. As I read over a hard copy yesterday I realized my gift for understatement. It needs a hell of a lot of attention.

Here's a wee bit from Biting the Dust:

" 'You're granddad is a full-blood. It would probably set his canines on edge to have to smell that saloon.' He smiled broadly. 'Or you.' "

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Reading's taken a bit of a beating lately. I devoted most of my efforts to finishing the rewrite of The Legend of Shallal. I'm pleased to report I got that done last week and have since printed out a copy for my husband to read.
Once that was out of the way I turned back to reading. I'm about to start L. Frank Baum's, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., 2005)
I didn't read children's books when I was a child. I'm making up for it now.
From the inside jacket:
"As beautiful and vibrant as Oz is, Dorothy still wants nothing more than to go home. But only the all-powerful Wizard of Oz can help Dorothy and Toto get back there."
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I've only ever seen the movie.  I saw it young and didn't care for it. The Scarecrow reminded me too much of a clown and the Cowardly Lion annoyed me.
I'm so looking forward to getting my mind changed.
For more or to get in on the fun, please see the Women of Mystery.

Twofer Tuesday – Stringing a Few Words Together

I’ve been doing my best to get the editing done on my first manuscript. I’ve found I prefer raw creation to trying to fix up writing that may not amount to anything later on. It’s good exercise, though. Best way to learn is to do.
Somewhere between blogging, getting the usual daily life matters under control, going away for an extended weekend to BC and recovering from same, and occasionally opening up a file to edit, I’ve picked up the guitar again.
It feels good. I’m not very good at it as I inherited my musical talent from a relative who had none to spare, but I’m enjoying it.
I had the sense to spend the money and get a good one, a Larrivee, with a wonderful, soothing sound. This helps considerably when I do something . . . unmusical.
It had been so long since I’d held it in my arms I’d forgotten which key tuned G and which tuned high E. I was madly turning the nut and nothing was happening. Eventually I caught on and got it done properly.
Not only is it soothing, it helps me write. I can think better as I strum or pick and the effects last.
This brings me to something I read this week. The very first song I learned to play was Down in the Valley and I played it again recently.
Here are a few lines from it:

“Writing this letter, containing three lines, answer my question, will you be mine?
Will you be mine, dear, will you be mine? Answer my question, will you be mine?”

The songbook doesn’t list any writer attached to it, but I found this.

As for me, well, I’ve gotten a bit done here and there. Here’s something from The Legend of Shallal:

“Darahfenn brought his antenna around from the back of his head and stroked his recalcitrant face scale. He’d always hoped the gesture made him look thoughtful.”

For more, or to find out how to participate, please see the Women of Mystery.
And thank you for stopping by. I appreciate it.

NaNo and the Dead Fish

Mt. Lorette Ponds, Kananaskis

I started editing my Nano* novel other day. I read it over to find the obvious mistakes and thought I might take care of them first. Then I realized bits of Chapter Two and Chapter Three are really Chapter One.

Knowing this, I started using my mad cut -and-paste skills. This led me to do a bit of rewriting and now I'm correcting in some chapters and rewriting in others.

It's hard to say if said novel will amount to anything other than an exercise in learning how to write a book.

As I read it I cannot help but come up with a tortured metaphor concerning the above photo. Like the pond it is shallow, rocky at the base, and offers the occasional dead fish on the bottom.

The above pond has been artificially deepened and is fed from underground water if memory serves. It is also stocked for fishing and is quite popular.

I'll be deepening my manuscript as I go and stocking it with whatever it needs. Perhaps something may come of it someday and it will be popular.

I hope no one sees the dead fish.

*Nano is NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Contest held each November. It's a contest you have with yourself to write a 50,000 word first draft in 30 days. I didn't register for it last year as I didn't know I was going to do it until the last minute, but I played along at home.

Bloodletting

I killed off a useless meditation in my WIP the other day. It had to be done.

Originally I thought it was very useful.

I have had this particular meditation around for years and it doubled as deepener. That’s a method for enhancing a relaxation to induce a deep state of hypnosis.
Deepeners often use a counted level method such as riding down an elevator, or visualizations, or both. This one had a combination.

And now, four manuscripts after having cooked up the thing I still can’t find a place for it.

I’ve added it in to each of my manuscripts and then taken it out. In the first ms it didn’t last long as I came up with it late in the writing and it truly was superfluous.
It was great in the second manuscript. It stayed until near the end of the third pass before I finally had to admit it wasn’t right.
Ditto the third manuscript.

And now the end has come again in number four. It was in the first version of the fourth manuscript and I killed all of it off in June. I added it back in version 4.1 and it stayed for a bit more than two months.

I want so much to use it. I’m proud of it. But so far all it does is kick up my word count.

Sigh. Maybe it’ll find a home in my next manuscript.

Me And My Typeaus

Faux French spelling aside--I did it on purpose--I routinely find typos and editing jewels in my blog posts.

I’m sorry.

I do the best I can. I can reasonably conclude from recent history that my best is woefully inadequate. For example, a recent post contained the gem “tipped his hat to me other . . ." While it does offer a lovely Irish-esque lilt, it makes no sense.

At least I do eventually find them. When I do I go in and make the correction. Can’t help myself. Even if no one will every see it again I feel the need to make it right.
It’s my writing. It’s got my name on it. If I am going to make wild allegations about the Web that I am a writer, then I should make the copy as clean as I can.
I’d like to find someone or something to blame but I can’t. It’s all me.

Oh, sure, I had laser eye surgery seven years ago and that’s certainly a . . .well it definitely plays a . . . no, I can’t blame my eyesight or the weather or lack of chocolate or an improper chew toy regimen. I simply think that everything is as it should be when I post.

Later I find out that I am once again wrong.

Sigh.

All I can do is my best and hope I catch every slip of the finger later on.
If I don’t, then any chance we can write it off as part of my charm?

I Wonder What That Means?

It’s bad enough that I sometimes can’t read my own handwriting. I occasionally forget what I meant by the scribbled noted in the manuscript margin.

The first problem is when I’m correcting I sometimes
a) use a pencil
b) write very small
It’s usually only a typo. If I can’t read my squiggle I can still see the problem because my squiggle is right at the mistake.

The second problem is more difficult. Crossing out words is easy to follow, but adding them in is a challenge. If they’re just illegible I have a reasonable chance of reasoning them out. But sometimes the words are perfectly legible, but I don’t recall why I thought they belonged.
Yesterday I was doing the corrections on my ms. I’d read it over several weeks ago and knew I should get right at my corrections and get them done.
I did chapter one within a day or so, rewrote it a bit, and then decided to let the dust settle.
Yesterday I got back to it. One the first page of second chapter in neat hand in the left margin I found the phrase
“letting ourselves enjoy.”

It could relate to either of two paragraphs. It doesn’t.
It doesn’t fit anywhere. I have no idea what it was we should be letting ourselves enjoy.
I’m sure its stellar advice, though. I intend to let myself enjoy as much as I can.
But I’d enjoy it a lot more if I knew what it was I meant.

Editing is You’re...oops...Your Friend

I know the difference between your and you’re. They’re easy to remember and easy to use, but it still doesn’t stop me from throwing down the wrong one in a sentence and not seeing the error of my fingers.

The first one means something belongs to you; it’s yours.
The second is a contraction of you and are. It can warn of an impending opinion like, “You’re a dolt for always mixing up your and you’re.”

I’ve done it a few times in commenting on blogs. Sometimes I catch it. Often I go in a post a second comment making up for the mistake in my first comment. It bothers me that much.

I do it in my writing too frequently for my comfort and don’t always notice it. Spell check is interesting at the best of times and all but useless here.

I’ve gone over my third ms several times. I’ve had betas go over it. Mistakes were pointed out. Corrections were made.

I started shopping it a few months back and then recently went over it again.
I read it out loud this time. It forced me to think about what I was reading and really see it rather than skip along assuming that what was supposed to be there was really there.

I still found your vs. you’re mistakes.

Okay, at least I caught ‘em before any publisher asked to see it. But I wonder, if it sits another six months what other horrors will I find?

Good Working Order

I’ve re-ordered the chapters in my manuscript. It was the first order of business after reading it aloud last week. When that was done I realized my glorious manuscript was…um…randomly organized.

Now that it’s in order I feel as though I’ve truly accomplished something.
It’s got some good flow to it now, and that’ll be a great help during rewriting.

My ideas are where they should be. I can see where meditations have to be fixed, and where I’ve assumed my readers will know what I’m talking about.

Fixing the chapter orders alone showed me I needed to plump up the meditations. I also realized I should rework some of the deepening techniques I’m including to help users get to a good, working trance state.

Best if all it’s shown me the manuscript’s shortcomings.
The random order it was in led me to believe that important points needing to be covered were in it somewhere. All I had to do was find them and slot them where they belonged.

Well, I certainly meant to write them.

It’s easier to see what needs more explanation and the areas where I’ve explained something more than once. Because if this, it’s easier to spot the questions someone new to meditation and/or hypnosis would have. Now that I’ve spotted them I can answer them.

The Fourth Mess...er...MS

Gads, my fourth manuscript stinks.

I’ve been reading it aloud to find mistakes and I haven’t been disappointed.
I always knew I was writer. That’s what I grasped on to all my life. No matter what was happening around me I knew I could write. It’s always defined me, and that’s why discovering my fourth ms is a mess hurts so much. It’s painful and embarrassing to have to actually hear what I’ve set down.

This is the first time I’ve done an editing pass out loud. It’s a wonderful tool. Typos scream out their presence. “Your” vs. “you’re” becomes obvious. And clunks in the pacing hurt my ears and tear at my writer soul.

I’m about one-fifth of the way through this first pass. I started earlier this week and I’m taking my time. I tell myself that it’s best to do a bit each day so that I stay fresh and alert.

But mostly I’m going slowly because my writing is so bad it hurts.

On the good side, it can be saved. It’s got potential and I’m finding the problems now, not next year after I’ve been shopping it.

I hold my life’s dream on one side while confronting the awful evidence that I’m nowhere near as good as I thought.

But there’s hope, and that’s what I’m hanging on to today. I’ve got to go back in later on and read a few more chapters. I anticipate being done this stage by the middle of next week, and then I have to go about spinning gold out of straw.

It’s not a setback. It’s part of the process and it’s a wonderful learning experience.

Pain is a character-builder, right?