Take a Step Back and Take in the View

 

You've been at this awhile. So it's time to do a couple of things. 

First, give yourself a pat on the back for having come this far. Not too hard, there's a lot of tough sledding ahead. 

But remember, at one point you didn't think you would ever have your own writing piece staring up at you.

It's time to take a step back and see where you are. Read over what you have. Maybe a few times. 

 I suggest you don't touch anything, except perhaps in your head. Just read it over, as a critic, a teacher, a writer, a reader and see what you think. Honestly.

Now a small disclaimer, if you find out you have made a real cockup, or you see something that is way out on the continuity scale, jot it down for the next step. You will need it. But if you can avoid it, touch nothing at this point. Remember the old saying, "Do no harm"

Now at this juncture you can evaluate you've done in the logistics department. How is the grammar, spelling? Are you going to need a major overhaul or just a few "fix-its?"

Feel free to make notes on the side, but once again, resist the urge to mark up your screen.

Be honest now. How do you feel things are going in general? 

Are you ready to get down and dirty? 

Remember all those rules and guidelines I told you to ignore? Well they haven't totally gone away. They've just been standing on the sidelines trying not to interfere with your creative genius, but in the next stage you are going to have to welcome them back and decide what kind of relationship you are going to have.

Second Verse Same As The First

 

The next step is pretty easy. Just do what you just did the last time only a bit more carefully. With a bit more scrutiny. Maybe a bit more discrimination than the last time. 

You've hopefully scraped off the unwanted goop from your story. You now have the outline down. Read it over again and see if it makes sense, if it's what you want to say. If it is, then you're ready to proceed. If it doesn't make it yet, you may have to do some tweaking. It's your story so I can't make suggestions here. I repeat, it's your story. But what you are going to do next is to take that rough stone in front of you and smooth it down a bit. 

See if there are any words that don't feel comfortable. Look for better ones, words that really are a fit for what you are writing. See if there is still excess baggage in your sentences. Are you being repetitive? Instead of loading your story with adjectives are there some good action words you can use? 

Avoid the one of the biggest pratfalls of new writers, admiring your work too much. We new writers are discovering we have a gift for the printed word, and the more words the better. So the next thing you know, instead of saying what we have to say, we start adding and embellishing, like Whitney Houston trying the find the last few notes of a song. Pretty soon our nice phrase is weighted down my byzantine language until it sounds pretentious. And if it sounds pretentious it probably is. So please, look it over and read it like an outsider, someone who has never seen your draft. What's your impression? Are there places it gets weighed down with excess verbiage. Does it sound like the writer is trying to impress himself? Economy is sometimes the way to go.

You notice i haven't mentioned rules yet. They are coming. Just not yet. 

Renovation Time

 

The first thing I need you to do before your read another word, is to go back and look at the title of this post. Yes, that's it, the one that says Renovation Time. Do you notice there is a word you don't see. Let me help you. The word is "edit". You know that tedious word that back in high school meant going through what you've written and checking the spelling, grammar, punctuation and all those annoying rules that made so many students writing class. Well good news. There will be none of that today. Today is the day to first congratulate yourself for having come this far, and second to look over what you've written and decide if it matches your original vision. That means adding anything you want that will add to your story, and slashing and burning everything that takes away or detracts. 

Sometimes this means just making a few tweaks, if you were really on a roll  when you wrote your first draft. Other times it involves being ruthless, and brutally honest. Either way, this is a huge step in turning a bunch of ideas into something people will enjoy  one day enjoy reading. 

This is one of the satisfying parts of the writing process. It's like watching that liquid mixture of egg and water magically turn into an omelet in the frying pan. Something is happening here. And pardon the cliche, but nothing is cast in stone. You will probably do this a few times, so enjoy the process.

So for now, put aside the rule book and just read over what you've done and see what works and what doesn't. Remember you are renovating, not editing.

Here is a quote that I suggest you consider, from a man who does know his way around a manuscript.

It's Go Time

 

So you're sitting there looking at your handiwork which consists of a bunch of pieces of paper with little notes jotted on them. Or perhaps staring at some Jamboard messages on your phone. 

Either way you have all this great stuff in front of you and your hands are poised, ready to take some action. Only you don't know where to start. Then i have just one word for you. Write!! Seriously, it's that simple. You've already organized your ideas into some semblance of order. You know it's a great plot. So what's the problem? You want to be a writer, so it's time to  write. Put all those little phases into sentences and get them all down. 

Here's the beautiful thing. You don't have to worry about any of those annoying grammar and spelling rules. Dangle your participles, write run on sentences, forget capitalization, don't go to spell check. Just write what you have. Ideas might come to you as you go, put them in. Thumb your nose up at your grade eight grammar teacher. You don't need them now. You are writing. It's your show, you can do what your want. Nobody is going to correct or critique. It's just you and your writing device and your own creative genius. 

And when you feel that's all you can do, simply stop. You aren't on the clock here. You'll pick it all up tomorrow. And in the meantime i guarantee something wonderful will happen. More ideas will come, for you have opened up the door to all that stored up creativity. Put a pen and paper by your bed because you may find your self waking up with a few aha moments during the night. Don't ignore any of them, no matter how silly they seem. This is when your story begins to write itself and when that happens you are on your way.

                               

Putting the Pieces Together

 

So you've been faithfully taking your ideas and putting them on sticky notes or bits of paper, and you feel it's time to do something with your ideas. This is the big leap of faith where something in you says, "i can do this, i can write something worthwhile".

The next thing you do is to assemble all these thoughts and see what you have. YEs, i am stating the obvious, but it's amazing how far that will take you. look at it as a jigsaw. You've been putting this together for awhile now, so you know that somehow, somewhere the pieces fit.

In this mess of notes is a starting place. So pick one. if it isn't where you want to start it'll fit somewhere else. pick a couple of more lines that seem to fit and write them in. Keep doing that until you have all the bits of paper sitting in a pile, and all the words written down. 

or you might just arrange them all in front of you and play around a bit until you are ready to put it all down.

What you have now is the bones of a skeleton. It may not be much to look at and even less to read, but with out the skeleton the body can never stand.

INSPIRATION

 

A lot of people want to write but they say they can't come up with any ideas. Oops, first misconception ( i like that better than mistake). You don't come up with ideas for a story any more than you decide to invent something if there is no need for it.  All the ideas are out there already. Your job as a writer is to recognize them. All of life is fodder for a yarn, if you just open yourself to all the untold  stories around you.

If you sit at your desk and try to think of ideas you will just end up with a headache and perhaps a bunch of crumpled bits of paper on the floor. 

Just promise yourself that you will be wide awake, totally aware of the world and all the players out there and you'll be amazed at the ideas that start to land around you. Something that seems insignificant to the average person can end up being the catalyst for an epic novel or at least an enthralling short story. 

When you get that "ah ha" moment, jot it down, record it on your phone, repeat it in your head ten times, anything that will keep it fresh. And then if it really is the right one, something marvelous will happen; you will start getting the next pieces of your puzzle. Be ready. Collect them as well. Don't sweat it if they don't seem to go anywhere. You're a writer, you can take care of that later. 

Once you have that little stack of sticky notes or one liners recorded, simply sit down and write. I'm serious, it is that simple at first, even if it doesn't remain that way. It doesn't matter what it looks like at first, you've left the starting gate and you have your notes to guide you. Just write. When you run out of words, stop for the time being. Let what you've written marinate in your mind, until the next few pieces of the puzzle come to you. And then do the same all over again. 

There will come a day when you start writing and you won't be able to stop. It'll be as if your fingers are just channeling directly from the universe, without that troubling business of thinking. 

That's the first and biggest hurdle. The rest is for another day.

In Praise of the Short Story

 

Don't get me wrong. I don't have any problem with the novel, even if it is an epic extending over five generations of family history, several wars, countless tragedies and countless hundreds of pages of print. It worked for Tolkien, Tolstoy and numerous others spinners of lengthy yarns.

Personally, am quite hopelessly ADD (not that there's anything wrong with that) and that precludes me reading, never mind writing such tomes. 

My big brother encouraged me to read the Hobbit when I was young. I lasted about  four pages. 

Now imagine having to keep track of every detail in a book spanning several hundred pages. I for one would lose track by the time I wrote page 15.

But the short story is like a perfect visit with relatives, in and out in 30 minutes. Everything you need; action, humour, drama, joy, heartbreak is laid out frugally so the reader can move on to the next adventure without having to scroll back and find out who that character they swear they've never heard of is.

When i write a short story, i don't plan it's length. I just write until i see I either paint myself into a corner and need to abort,  or i am pretty sure i am pretty sure the reader has been satisfied with the  journey. 

I am often told that i should add on, continue the story. Usually I decline, because that's as far as I can take this boat load of characters. We're at the shore and it's time to disembark. Often i leave my readers hanging a bit, but I'm convinced in every case, their imagination will carry them the rest of the way.

So, long live the heavy weight novel, it has it's place on the bookshelves of literature. 

But let's praise the short story for it's ability to take the reader from here to there and back again, but at warp speed.

The Quick and the Quirky;

   There are a lot of reasons i have for embracing the short story, and i'll get to them later, but for now suffice it to say that i have long been a fan. I have been writing short stories for the past decade, but without having a sounding board, they largely lay on my hard drive, or sat silently languishing on a few brightly coloured USBs. 

I joined the Parliament Street Writer's of Toronto about 12 years ago, and it was go time. Time to bring out my stories and subject myself to any abuse or praise i received. Happily, i found they were warmly received, and i was given helpful, positive suggestions. I went back to the keyboard and rewrote,, edited, slashed, added, completely rearranged in some cases, until i started to think, "Hey this ain't bad." 

Fast forward a dozen years or so, and it was time to give my dementia an outlet. Over the period of several months, with the help of my amazing formatter, Joan Frantschuk, "The Quick and the Quirky" became a real, live, breathing (well maybe not breathing) collection of my favourite creations.

They run from, sci-fi, horror, fantasy and stories about writer's and their characters; all coming from my rather dark, slightly skewed sense of humour. Despite the typical anguish of the writer, i can say i thoroughly enjoyed writing them and putting them into something i can share..

I hope you will give it a try. 

Amazon.com: The Quick and the Quirky: 9780995960329: Porter, Stephen F.C.: Books

Teaching in the Spirit

Teaching in the Spirit:

I spent many years working as a classroom teaching in the Public

Education system. I later specialized in working with kids with social, emotional and behavourial issues. It was a wonderful, wacky, and sometimes frustrating ride, and I came to know some very special young people.

My main takeaway was that everyday we teach in the same worn out paradigm, we are missing an amazing opportunity to show our kids there is a better way to live. 

As adults we may think we have life all sussed out. But we're stuck in Ground Hog day. The same old shit just repeats itself in every generation. 

The world won't change through through religion, politics or even activism. It will come from each person who passes through it. If our kids come to an awareness of who they really are, learning compassion and equanimity, then maybe there is a chance for a better world. 

That gives adults a pretty awesome responsibility. We can't just wing it anymore. Perhaps we have to first admit that we haven't been doing such a crack up job of guiding our youth.

Teaching in the Spirit is meant to be a path to helping our kids towards that better way of living. Drawing on many of the messages of the masters throughout history, with practical ways of implementing them in the classroom, it offers teachers and others who work with kids, ways of putting meaning into instruction, without upsetting the sacred apple cart.

 

Welcome to the Show

Greetings and welcome. This is my first post, in my first new blog since publishing my second book.

This will be a place for me to talk about my journey of writing, give some hints on this wonderful and maddening process, and of source, to flog my books.

I hope you will visit me often, and i promise to try to find something fresh to say every few days.

The font for this post is Ubuntu, which is a Nguni Bantu word which roughly translates into "I am because you are." The Buddhists might call this emptiness, and the common English expression is "no one is an island". This is something i strongly believe in and have made it the basis of my first book "Teaching in the Spirit."

There, you've learned something and i haven't even finished this post. 

Here's looking forward to bigger, better and more.

Steve