The Joys of Revision

There's a terrific quote from Katherine Paterson (author of that famous and heartbreaking children's story called The Bridge to Terebitha) that goes like this:

I love revision. Where else can spilled milk be turned into ice cream?

I can relate to that, because my initial writing--the first splats on the page--is rarely anything I would show to anyone, ever. It's inherently messy, probably reflecting my own internal creative disorder, which I sometimes think resembles the primordial universe: ideas either exploding, or oozing, into existence; great empty voids where not a whiff of inspiration can be found; and galaxies whirling away so fast I hardly know which ones to explore. It's impossible to manage until the images are captured in typeface; then the fun begins.

And I mean that literally. I love rewriting, and revision, and editing, and fixing, and polishing. This is where I get to make it good. This is where the gems emerge from the rough matrix. This is where all the excitement, and all the danger, lie. Not to mention the treasure.

It is one of those unfortunate facts of writing, however, that I can't indulge in revision without having first written something to revise. This no doubt explains (at least in part) why I rarely reach the end of a sentence without stopping to revise the beginning.* I suppose I'm just impatient for the good times.

James Michener said: "I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter."

Yeah. Silk purses out of sows' ears. Ice cream out of spilled milk. I'll bet the most talented writers are actually the most talented rewriters. It's not what you start with; it's what you end up with. But is it just a matter of doggedly revising until it gleams? Can anyone produce pearls out of oyster innards?

Probably not.

But on the other hand, bad writing can always be cured by revision.

(*In case you're wondering, yes, I did revise that sentence before finishing it. :D )

Fictional Weather

currently reading... Fiction: In the Ruins by Kate Elliott. Non-fiction: Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey; The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman. Just finished: The Hallowed Hunt, by Lois McMaster Bujold. One of the things I really love about her writing is the freshness of her description (comes from using strong verbs and nouns in interesting ways), and her gift for conversation. Notice I didn't say "dialogue," because conversations are not limited to what is spoken. She brings such intelligence and wit to the page that it's a joy to read.

Sunday night we returned from a visit to Indianapolis and GenCon. Well, I didn't attend GenCon. My son did. I sat in the hotel room and wrote. A good time was had by all.

I had the best of intentions when we got home to throw myself immediately back into writing, but it was not to be. What is it about being home that saps my will to work? Well, I think I know the answer to that: too many distractions and the difficulty in establishing a set routine, which I desperately need in order to be productive. Another thing that helps productivity is knowing that I will not be interrupted, that I'm not "on call." Consequently, I am happiest when when my husband is available to fend off interruptions and manage crises.

Which is so rarely possible these days.

Today I have wrested an afternoon from the press of obligations. It's very nice to be back out on the screened porch we had built last year, but which I haven't been able to use since June, due to the heat and humidity. Today the temperature is moderate, the humidity bearable, and there's a lovely breeze. The porch is bathed in green and gold light where the sun shines through the trees.The cicadas are sawing incessantly as well, but you can't have everything.

And this brings me to the subject of today's entry: the weather.

I think it's interesting the role that weather plays in our stories. Some writers don't pay it much mind, and their characters seem to move around in settings of perpetual sunshine and unremarkable temperatures. Other writers always have something going on, metereologically speaking, maybe even using weather to establish a mood (or contrast with a mood). Maybe they take it to the point where weather becomes a metaphor for some deeper theme or a recurring motif, or even a character in its own right.

I tend to notice weather a lot in every day life, and that carries over into my writing. Just as I usually show how the light falls in any given scene (a topic in itself, but for another day), showing the weather is a way to introduce tactile sensations in our writing. And to convey other, more subtle messages as well, if that serves the story.

Do you write about the weather?

***

She felt an acute need for fresh air and bright light. With her black coat pulled tightly around herself, she followed the tunnel up and out to a world turned white.

The high wind was gone and the storm with it, leaving the sky a dizzying blue. She breathed in a mouthful of knife-sharp air, though it made her teeth ache and her lungs rebel.

The landscape had changed. Snow eddied among the trees in an icebound flood, drifts splashing the trunks like frozen surf. Accustomed to the constant harmony of gulls and waves, she thought the forest shrouded in an unearthly quiet, as if the blizzard had buried all life. A low sun scattered rays through the treetops and painted the snow in a lattice of amber and black.

The position of the sun stopped her breath a moment. Rather than the early morning she had expected, they had slept through much of the day. She felt a sick certainty that when they reached the Wall, it would be too late. Someone—he—would be there, waiting.

(from The Knife-Giver, ch. 8, "Moriana's Secret")

Mood Music

A thousand words today, and a chapter finished. (Or mostly. It still needs a little editing.) Pretty good for a snail like me. It helps that I've been mostly sequestered in a hotel room for the last three days. I can punch up some mood music on the Zen player and slip away into my own little world. (One of my sons owns a t-shirt that says, "I live in my own little world, but that's OK--they know me there." Appropriate.)

Speaking of music--

I know some writers write in silence, and sometimes I do, too, but often just the right music can open paths to the sub-conscious, where all the real creative work is done. I can't listen to anything with lyrics--that's too distracting; I prefer emotional, evocative music, the more minor and plaintive the key, the better it works.

I have a large collection of Celtic, Native American, classical, some new age, and movie soundtracks. The latter seem to work best for me lately, maybe because movie music is more emotionally resonant than your average Celtic mellow.

My current favorites are the two soundtracks for the new Battlestar Galactica series, which is not only a very good show (it bears little resemblance to the original series, and for that we are thankful), but boasts one of the most gorgeous soundtracks ever composed. The sf series Firefly is another good one. From actual movies, I particularly like these (in no particular order): Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, Braveheart, Titanic, Princess Mononoke, House of Flying Daggers, Kingdom of Heaven, Chocolat, Rob Roy, The Last of the Mohicans, Tristan and Isolde, King Arthur. And some others I've probably forgotten at the moment. One of the best movie soundtracks ever made was for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's hard for me to listen to that while I write, because the music is so evocative of Tolkien's (and Peter Jackson's) world that I end up transported to Middle Earth, which is not especially helpful when I'm trying to write.


***
His hand closed instead around the bone flute lying stark and elegant on a brindled wolf's pelt.

The mouthpiece was cool against his lips and the tentative notes he blew were sweet and haunting. They curled into the air, evoking the smell of rain and the feel of wind under wings. The spark at his center swelled into a flame and the flame into a bonfire, shapeless and brilliant and filling him to the brim until he thought it might spill over to scorch his skin. He paid no attention to what he played; it only mattered that the songs kept rising like smoke to float in the air in a procession of glimmering shapes that blossomed and grew, tangled and dissolved.

(from The Knife-Giver, ch. 3, "The Bone Flute")

The Compleat Heroine

In "The Evil Overlord Devises a Plot," I discovered tips for heroines (it's actually under the section called "If I am ever the hero's own true love...") near the bottom of the page. In skimming through these, it occurred to me that today's heroine has to meet some pretty high standards. She has to be tough, clever, independent, witty, smart, and well armed. Nothing wrong with any of that, but I wonder sometimes if she hasn't usurped the hero's job, leaving him with little to do but stay out of her way and eat dust. No self-respecting heroine these days wants to be rescued--she'll do that herself, thank you very much--but every self-respecting hero wants to rescue his lady love, or any damsel in distress, for that matter. That's not just what a hero does; that's who he is.

On the other hand, sometimes the hero takes his own place in the universe a little too much for granted...

Tip #40:

I will learn armed combat.

"Ah!" Ruri's crow of triumph had nothing to do with the stone; he'd unearthed a long, curved sword submerged a few paces away.

Lir glanced over, then stared. She knew that sword, or rather, had known one like it.

Diffuse sunlight gleamed across a long silver smile of lethal steel. Ruri blew sand off the lacquered grip, stained and dark with age. "This looks like a good sword."

It was better than good; it was a Tsuroi takira, and would garner them a princely fortune in glass or gold, if a wealthy trader happened to be lurking behind the next dune.

Ruri swished and lunged experimentally. He was clearly ignorant of the spare, elegant forms of Tsuroi sword play, but he was a trained warrior nonetheless, and moved with a combination of grace and savagery that Lir found fascinating. She studied the ropy lines of sinew in wrist and hand, the bunch and roll of muscle under that once-fine gray tunic, the fall of morning light on the excellent bones of his face. Not for the first time, she wished for a block of soft wood or a decent chunk of marble.

"You're doing it wrong, you know," she said.

He shot her a narrow-eyed look, teetering somewhere between affront and amusement. "I was not called the prince's Hand of Death for nothing, kitten. I haven't lost a duel since…well, not for a long time."

"Using one of those great bludgeoning broadswords, maybe. The Tsuroi fight differently. They don't…whack and stab."

"For someone who said she hasn't lived among the Tsuroi since she was a babe—" he skewered an invisible but clearly incompetent opponent, "—you have a remarkable memory."

She flexed her fingers. Never mind sculptor's tools—she was suddenly famished for the feel of a sword in her hands. It had been many years since she'd wielded anything but a knife or a stout stick. "I can show you."

He stopped his exercise to wipe sweat out of his eyes. "You're not bad with a short blade, kitten, but this is no guttersnipe's knife. It's a man's sword."

"It's anyone's sword who knows how to use it." She held out her hand; after a moment, he gave the sword to her, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.

"Am I to believe you took notes on swordplay from your cradle?"

She ignored him, wrapping both hands around the grip, the ancient lacquer warm and damp from his palms. Light swam in the subtle ripples of many-folded steel, while memories rose like incense: intoxicating, blood-heating, painfully sweet. It was a fine sword, but old and had seen hard use and perhaps neglect. She gently thumbed a nick in the razored edge.

"Watch yourself, kitten. You might accidentally cut something off," Ruri said, with an unfortunate lack of wariness. "So show me some moves. How does a Tsuroi warrior kill a man?"

In a flash she whirled the sword above her head and swung, a mighty arc that split the air with scarcely a hiss. He jerked back but not fast enough. The blade stopped just short of slicing his head from his shoulders.

"Swiftly," she said, lowering the sword. "She kills her man swiftly."

(from a story in progress)