ARE YOU A WRITER, AN EDITOR, OR BOTH?

By El Ochiis

It’s my humble opinion that behind great pieces of writing, is an even greater editor.  No, Tolstoy, I don’t believe your spouse, Sophia Tolstoy, was just the co-progenitor of fourteen offspring; she copied and rewrote your work – yeah, Sophia polished Anna Karenina and War and Peace, making it possible for you to write the best novels that you could.  

Edmund Malone, not only edited Shakespeare’s works, but, was credited for making James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson entertaining.  It was novelist, Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s astute advice to Charles Dickens, about Great Expectations, that encouraged Dickens to change that final, yet wonderfully ambiguous line, in which Pip sees “no shadow of another parting from her” – in lieu of just a finality wherein Pip and Estella didn’t get together.

TS Eliot was asked whether editors weren’t just failed writers, Eliot replied: “Perhaps, but so are most writers.”  This was a facetiously charming response coming from a man whose famous poem, The Waste Land, was edited by Ezra Pound, who, himself, edited other poets and novelists as part of his job at Farber and Farber.

How does a new writer get his or her manuscript in front of a ‘Pound or Malone’?  Or, when does he/she decide the editorial route? Well, first, you must decide what kind of editor you want; or, which kind you desire to become: developmental; structural; line?

As a writer, you’d want a professional editor who would be as much a psychologist as a prose technician – a sports coach who would get you in the right frame of mind for the race.

As a storyteller with compelling messages to share, I want a seasoned mastermind to brilliantly bring to life, the emerging aesthetics of my story – one whose life goal is to find the next James Baldwin or Leo Tolstoy – yes, I dream big, when not self-deprecating.  You see, writing can be tantamount to giving a chunk of sugar to a raccoon – with its odd fastidiousness, the raccoon will wash the sugar in the water until there’s nothing left – an editor would definitely help with that.

The repetitious advice is to read the jacket of published writers in your genre and see who edited the novel and contact him/her.  My suggestion would be to do what I do when I need a good accountant, I go to the professional organization published by the IRS; There’s one for editors, the Editorial Freelancers Association.   Yes, it’s hard, but it’s my observation that if you can complete a great, or an anomalous, novel, finding the right editor should be the easy part.  Or, maybe your propensity is more editorial:  Do you enjoy developing and shaping content; Can you work with multiple voices; Are you a natural problem solver who’s comfortable delivering constructive feedback?  You could be an exceptional editor who becomes a profound scribe - the next Toni Morrison - an editor whose work was ‘emended’ by one of the most acclaimed editors, Gottlieb - Or, Sophia Tolstoy, sans the fourteen childbirths.

WRITING in a PANDEMIC

By Sharon May

Some people are hurriedly drafting works about living in a pandemic. You may be one of them. Occasionally, the thought crosses my mind. Then, I remind myself a few weeks experience isn’t enough to write about. Best to keep a journal and consider writing about it when it’s over, assuming we survive it, and when I have had time to reflect on the “so what” of the experience.

Regardless of what you like to write, I do hope you’re writing something. It obviously can be difficult to do so in times of personal and world turmoil. In 1991, I was supposed to be drafting a thesis for graduate school, and the Iraqi war began. You may remember it: a “live” broadcast on the news, the first time for a war and, so far, the last. My classmates and I couldn’t stop watching, ignoring the fact that we should have been writing. Fortunately, the live battles didn’t last more than a few days, and we returned to our work.

Despite knowing better, I am, at times, more interested in COVID-19 than I am with the hard work of revising a novel. I try to limit how much news I watch, which helps me not to become obsessed. Doesn’t mean I am devoting my spare time to writing.

A fellow writer, and coincidently a classmate who watched the war with me, says the pandemic could be a gift to writers: a mandate to stay at home, lock oneself in a room, and produce reams of work. A wonderful gift if you have the ability to distance yourself from reality and lose yourself in your writing.

But how many of us have that luxury? Some of us are too distracted by the pandemic, too worried about their health. Then there are those tracking down toilet paper, home schooling, cooking meals for the first time in years, sharing space with family that used to be theirs exclusively. Children and animals may want more time and attention, and after all, who can resist that? Then, there are those who are working more hours than ever as “essential employees.”

Even stuck safely at home during a pandemic, we truly do find ourselves with the same daily demands that we must, or can, choose over our writing. We struggle to juggle schedules, to find a quiet time to write regardless of what is going on around us. That is the life of writers. A pandemic just magnifies the demands on artists.

But now is the time to write and create. Consumers are turning to the arts as entertainment while safe at home. And, you could probably use the distraction.

If the muse has left the room, as I’ve said before in other blogs, the key is to write something down on paper (or keyboard as the case may be). Doesn’t matter what you write at all. Eventually, the muse will join you.

HOW DOES ONE WRITE DURING a TIME LIKE THIS?

Ruth P. Saunders 

I must confess at the outset that my muse has deserted me, and I don’t know if its absence is a temporary or a persistent state. Along with many others, I am overwhelmed by witnessing the end of the world as we know it. I was not prepared to cope with a global pandemic, but then how does one prepare for that? I find it difficult to carry on ordinary activities, including writing.

My only urge to write in the last several weeks was to return to academic writing, to identify and synthesize information from credible sources to help me understand what is happening as a way of getting through it. That fleeting impulse was gone before I got to the keyboard.

I have been able to write during challenging periods in the past. Some of my best poetry came during times of emotional lows. Something about inner darkness is conducive to deep reflection and expression for me. Finding the right words brings light.

My more recent creative nonfiction writing grew from the pain of losing my parents, first my mother to dementia over 10 years and then my father five years later. I began writing to deal with these losses by focusing on the good memories. The writing process has helped me celebrate and honor the lives of my parents, appreciate how early experiences shaped me as a person, and value the present positives in my life.

But feeling down or sad due to loss are personal responses to the “world as we know it.” The COVID-19 pandemic and the global reaction to it seem to signal a more fundamental and pervasive change in human affairs. The passage of time will provide some perspective on current events, their impact and what the “new world” will be like. For now, we must live with uncertainty.

For this blog, I had hoped to provide practical suggestions for writing during uncertain times. But that would be disingenuous, given where I am with my own work. Thankful for modern technology during these days of social distancing, I searched the internet to learn from other writers.

I found two bloggers with useful perspectives and suggestions for writers during the unfolding pandemic. I am not familiar with the prior work of Jenna Avery, a sci-fi screenwriter, or Tim Waggoner, a fantasy and horror writer. I continue to glean ideas from them, hoping for a spark of inspiration that converts to action. Perhaps you will find them helpful, as well.

In the meantime, I try to be patient with myself and to trust that my muse will return.

WRITING IN “THESE UNCERTAIN TIMES”

By Kasie Whitener

For the last three episodes of Write On SC, Rex Hurst and I have been discussing Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the national and international response to it. We started with books that feature disease, moved on to the 35 kinds of drama that might create great stories during the pandemic, last week addressed dystopian fiction, and yesterday talked about overused words.

Our mandate as a local radio show is to provide relatable, relevant, and informative content for our listeners. Many of those listeners are not writers.

In the past, I’ve expected non-writers would just have to go along for the ride with our show. If they wanted to keep listening, they would just have to allow that some of what we discussed wouldn’t resonate. Maybe we should be talking to readers, watchers, and listeners. Consumers.

Our radio audience could benefit from an understanding of just how to recognize the stories they’re being told. How to recognize and dissect them. How to understand their deeper meanings. How to read subtext and interpret nuance.

Writers work through complex emotions like grief and fear. We write because we need to put language to the senses, to describe our experience so that others can connect with it, with us, and so we won’t be alone.

We writers, despite being frequently solitary and pensive, are also deeply social in that we recognize the connectivity that exists across this human experience. We write to get closer to sharing it in empathy and love.

There are stories yet to be written about “these uncertain times” and many of those stories, on the fingertips of the writers living them, are a way of metabolizing what’s happening. I say that frequently on the show: writers write to metabolize what they’re experiencing.

So many of us are taking to the page and to the internet these days to help make sense of what’s happening. To provide context and reassurance. Still others are magnifying fissures and exposing failures.

All while consumers read. Listen. Watch. And try to understand what it is we’re actually doing during these uncertain times.