Poetry, Anyone?

Although I think of prose as poetical in its rhythms and cadences, I haven’t thought much about poetry in ages. Like many writers, I wrote poetry in the beginning of my writing career … finding my way with words … like the pieces of a literary jigsaw puzzle.

Today I wonder about the place of poetry in our society. Will it help us to find our way in a distracted, fearful society? Where is its place in our lives?

Can a text message or a tweet with its economy of language ever be poetic? E.G.

A New Year Unfolding

Every year when I reach the handful days before Christmas I heave a great sigh of relief and take a few days away from my writing to enjoy the season with my family and friends. Usually by the end of the first week in January I can hardly wait to get back to my abandoned writing project or fly off somewhere else with a new one …

This year the days of January have crept past me without beckoning me to follow them into my study and begin again where December left off. I can hear my characters chattering and grumpily  remarking on my absence but still I linger elsewhere.

I thought that if I told you about this absence I would feel an instant need to rush to my desk and help René through his breakdown … Circle of Intent … but it is a rainy Friday afternoon and I am drawn elsewhere … to places like the stacks of books beside my reading chair beckoning me with their yet to be discovered delights. Perhaps tomorrow …. E.G.

The Failed Painter In Me

When I look at my writing I can see that I look at life in pictures. Despite a number of attempts at both painting and photography I can’t seem to capture what I really see. So I rush to the nearest piece of paper and write about place. I write and write, not always happy but feeling like I can paint over the words that aren’t communicating.

But I am also an avid observer of human interactions. If you asked me I would say that my books are decidedly character driven. They ‘talk’ to me all the time … hardly ever leave me alone … become real entities.

My characters take me on adventures trusting that I will follow, filling in the details, resolving our arguments about their behavior and where they want to take their story. I have learned over time to listen to them and not to put my own ideas of what they would do and where they would end up into their story.

I’m currently working on Circle of Intent which is Rene’s story. My impatient, high-strung French painter has been pushing me to get going for months [I was busy finishing Warren's story - Circle of Attachment.]. At the moment Rene is having a breakdown. I have ideas of how he should resolve that but he is not listening so I am off to see what kind of day he is having today.

E.G.

My First Time in Print

A friend, new to writing, called last Thursday to share their excitement at having a short piece published in a magazine. The very first time you see your name in print you feel as though you have finally arrived as a writer. What’s more, you will remember that experience for the rest of your life. When other larger successes are forgotten it will still loom large in your memory’s eye.

Decades on I still remember my first print success. I had a short poem published in a 1984 autumn edition of the The Lady, a British weekly magazine … in continuous publication since 1885 and widely respected as England’s longest running weekly magazine for women.  A friend had egged me on to submit my work to the editor, to start somewhere. She had faith in me when I wasn’t as sure.

And did I immediately go to the local news agent’s and buy up his entire stock  [10 copies] to share with friends and family. You bet I did~!!!

Now with the publication of many more poems, short stories and novels I have forgotten most of those successes except for the most recent ones.

How do you remember your first time  in print?     E.G.

The Passion Continues to Run High

Although most authors will say that writing is hard work, we are all passionate about doing it. Sometimes that passion gets distracted by every day life but when we are on a roll, we are on a roll. This year has been a year when the passion has run high and dissuaded me from many other distractions.

I  published September Gales in September and Circle of Attachment earlier this week. Now I am intent on Circle of Intent which is René ’s book. He has been nagging at me for a while to get his story told so I am hard at it again.

René leaves the experiences of war behind intent on forgiving his mother and grandmother, becoming celibate, returning to the safety of Catholicism and exploring his inner life through his painting. He will never leave France again. He will carve out a life for himself within the confines he has set. He will be in control. The blue cloak of the Virgin Mary will become his mantle. But like all sinners he will stray. Attempts at mind control and the dogged intensity of faith will fail him in the end.

E.G.

Author Last Seen Happy Dancing

For the second time this year I am ‘happy dancing’ … well in my mind at least. Circle of Attachment was published today. Often in book publishing, schedules become  fluid as books reach their publication date. Even in this age of digital publishing and e-books, there are many hands involved in bringing a book to the reader.

Circle of Attachment is the second book in the Circle series. It centers on the life of Warren Marshall, the  retired FBI agent we met in Circle of Beginning. Set against the back drop of the late 1950′ and early 1960′s Warren moves from the suburban safety of the 1950′s into the open-ended rhythms of the 1960′s.

Circle of Attachment explores Warren’s discovery of the underlying spirit of people who have survived a brutal war. He seeks to become his own man by leaving the life his mid-west parents have carved out for him and espousing a new one on the west coast. Warren desperately wants to belong but is never quite hearing the same tune as everyone else. He tries to be the dutiful son and can’t. He no longer knows whether America or Europe is home. He feels an outsider in both places. His affair with Angelicka, a Norwegian beauty affects him so deeply that he is unable to form any lasting relationships with American women of his own age. Returning from Europe he slips into the purple twilight world of San Francisco’s North Beach, eking out a living as a private dick and writing pulp fiction. Will he ever manage to rise above this shadowy existence?

Enjoy Circle of Attachment … E.G.

The Measure of a Good Book

In response to comments made about my October 2nd  post – Finding the Rhythm - I have engaged in a dialogue with various friends about what ultimately draws a reader into a story. It is a given that it must be a good story containing those elements of form that we have come to expect. Simply, it must have the shape of a story.

When you settle to read a book, the story needs to be both seemless and entertaining to keep you from putting the book down. A writer friend said that if you focus on the rhythm of the language then you will miss the story. My response was that if the rhythm is not there then you keep tripping over sentences and never really settle into the book no matter how great a story it is.

Let me share this personal experience with you. Many years ago when I started to read the books of Margaret Atwood I just couldn’t get into her work. It was so bad that I thought they might take away my Canadian citizenship.

A few years later, I had the opportunity to meet her at the ICA [Institute of Contemporary Arts] in London, England. Once I heard her speak and read from her work I got her rhythm. Now I can pick up any of her books, settle into her rhythm and lose myself.

How do books speak to you? … E.G.

The Birth of a Novel – Part Two

After all the mulling and research are done and the stacks of paper on my desk have some sense of order, the day comes. I can’t always predict it. It is like the wild geese flying south each year. Some internal signal triggers. You must do it, no questions asked … grin …

I sit down and the story pours onto the pages. These are long days and even longer nights … but as any writer knows so exhilarating. Once that is done I collapse in an exhausted glow, sleep, eat, and return to the normal patterns of life.

After some time has elapsed … sometimes seemingly too long … I type the manuscript into the computer editing as I go. It is mostly a process of correcting spelling and grammar errors and ‘fact’ checking.

I admire people who write every day and edit their work the following day but that is not for me. I tried it once and hit the most horrendous writers block.

My stories pour out of me in a rush to be born. I have no control over what comes. I can only tweak it later.

So the mulling on Circle of Intent is almost over. Rene, my main character, is becoming impatient to have his story told.

How are your stories born? … E.G.

The Birth of a Novel – Part One

A friend recently asked how the work on my new novel, Circle of Intent is going.

“I’m mulling it over,” I said.

Every writer comes to writing from a different approach. For me, the main character or the story line are triggered by some every day experience. For example, the idea for September Gales was conceived when visiting The Barbican, London [http://www.barbican.org.uk] to view an exhibit of paintings by The Group of Seven [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists)]. Notes were scrawled in a notebook and the idea festered and grew over the next several years into the story of a man of the same era and many of the same experiences but on a much different Canadian journey.

Other novels are conceived over an idea that I want to explore. For example, I am often searching for ‘where is home?’ and ‘what does it look like?’

After the idea or the main character are in place, I start by doing some research – i.e. what songs were playing in 1962? I build the back story for each character as a large profile of everything about their lives … almost none of which will directly hit the page. What the profile does is inform the character’s decisions, behaviour and actions throughout the novel. I then research ‘place’ including where the characters live.

When all of this material is strewn on my desk , I collect it into ‘subject’ piles and I begin. I write my first draft by hand. There is something very close and organic about the pen forming each word on the page.

Then I mull it over for a time. It is not always a conscious, surface sort of conversation between myself and my characters but it sometimes is. [See September post - Hearing Voices]

So I am off to ‘hear voices’. Let me know what approach you use to get your writing on the page and ready for its audience. E.G.

 

Finding the Rhythm

I thought I would like to share with you a little of the struggle that goes on between authors and editors when preparing a book for publication. Every writer has a  unique style which the editor must balance with the Chicago Manual of Style … smile … have you met that tome? … and other ‘readability’ factors.

The engine that drives my style is not form but rhythm.  The organ which communicates that is the listening ear as opposed to the reading eye. It entails a fidelity to the rhythms of speech rather than the tracking patterns of the eye. It is a certain cadence in the turn of phrase or length of sentence. I rely on these constructions that you hear to convey mood and character. If you have ever listened to voices through a closed door, you will have noticed how it is possible to understand the general meaning of a conversation even when the specific words are muffled.  The tones and sentences with which we speak are coded with a ‘sound’ sense. It is through this sense, unlocked by the rhythms of the speaking voice, that I think my writing communicates most profoundly.

I am just about to send the next book in the Circle series -  Circle of Attachment  for editing and thus preparing to do battle with my editor … smile …

When something affects you deeply does your spoken response in all of its encompassing gestures and tones  communicate  better than your writing?            … E. G.