Editeyes

According to Chris Baty, the creator of NaNoWriMo, “The biggest thing separating people from their artistic ambitions is lack of a deadline.”  That’s why the plan to write a novel in a month works so well. The event creates a deadline. To reach the deadline and the goal of a 50,000 word novel, you have set the pragmatic goal of 1667 words per day.

This is my second year signing up for NaNoWriMo and the power of the deadline is what brought me back. In early October, NaNoWriMo popped into my head as the perfect solution to help me through a considerable layer of procrastination.  I needed to get started on a book-length project I had agreed to work on. My friend Julia had done a great deal of research on modern women inventors and I had agreed to worked the material into a cohesive package. It occurred to me that I could create the book she was looking for if I sat down and organized the material at a rate of 1667 words per day–the daily rate when one signs up for NaNoWriMo.

I’m working outside the box of NaNo this year because I’m not writing a novel; I’m working on a non-fiction piece. The contest is so personal that it allows such freedom.  Nobody is watching me to say I’m breaking the rules because the entire motivation for this event is intrinsic. Just because I signed up, I feel a compelling urge to write at least 1667 words every day. Though I know people who have not signed up but are working as if they had, it took the formal step of logging on to the NaNoWriMo site to call this urge forth in me.

Many successful writers operate under the principle that they simply have get their bottom in the chair each day and write. Some writers set a goal of X number of pages. During the month of November, there are 125,000 writers who set a goal of 1667 words per day.

The goal is not magical; it’s practical. But the experience of typing those 1667 words day after day is definitely awesome! Having a deadline really works!

Tags: Free Write, Word Wise, Writing First by ph
1 Comment »

I first learned about making the abstract physical during a seminar offered by Paul Lisicky, one of my instructors at Antioch University.  We took the study of “show don’t tell” deeper, looking at how writers make the body–its sensations and movement– integral to an image. My understanding of “embodiment” and writing deepened when I read Gayle Brandeis‘ book Fruitflesh.

During a recent trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, I revisited the power of physicality in writing while taking part in an actor’s workshop. Our workshop focused on how an audience views a play through a cultural lens. We did a number of exercises to get in touch with cultural and societal concepts, particularly those in the last 60 years, and then we looked closely at language in the plays we would be seeing, teasing out specific images and working with them.

Most importantly, we got actively involved with the imagery. For instance, in one activity we were broken into groups to study a small passage from “Midsummer’s Night Dream.” Our instructions were to chose a line of text and create a tableau that expressed that text in terms of the culture and thinking of the 1950s. What was most interesting was the process of finding a way to express the words visually so that our audience (the rest of the class) would get it. Here is my group’s line of text and a picture of our tableau:

Egeus speaking to the Duke after Hermia, his daughter, has told him she wishes to marry Lysander rather than Demetrius, his choice for her:

Egeus:  “As she is mine, I may dispose of her.”

We made the image graphic by having one of the men shove a woman’s head into a trash can while the other women cowered submissively nearby, with one exception.  In the background, this woman was “just” stepping up onto a chair, beginning to rise above such patriarchal behavior, to signify the rumbling of change in the 1950s.

I walked away from this workshop considering how effective ACTING is in feeling the meaning behind an image. We actually took the line of text into our bodies as we worked with it.

Now my question is how can I bring this “knowing” into my writing? How do I get more engaged physically as I write? I have a few ideas but wonder if you, dear readers, have your thoughts about embodiment and writing?

Tags: Imagery, Word Wise by ph
2 Comments »

I’ve always been fascinated by the fluidity and flexibility of the English language. While other English teachers found the use of contractions and slang in student papers a fault, I wanted to take a closer look and see if perhaps the student’s word choice revealed a sub-text or at least more than one level of communication at work in the paper.

I find it exciting to watch new words emerge and take hold in the language. For instance, I’ve watched with fascination as the word “text” has turned from a noun to a verb with the advent of text-messaging.

Journalists are perhaps most effective in creating, adopting, and adapting new words that eventually make it into the lexicon through formal inclusion into the dictionary. I haven’t done the research, but I suspect that poets are also a source of new words (though perhaps not quite so rapidly and directly as those moved forward by journalists), for poets know and enjoy language with particular relish.

My friend, poet Mary Meriam, has written a poem in which she introduces a new word for same-sexed partners who join in marriage. I’m not going to reprint the poem here as it is awaiting its initial publication in the CHIRON REVIEW. However, I do want to showcase the word which I initially read on the Lesbian Writers List-serve when Mary first posted her poem and the word with its definition.

Mary’s poem is lovely in setting the stage and rational for this new word, so forgive me dear poet if I do the word a disservice by plopping it down here without the poem:

The word is marae.
Will you be my rae?

rae [RAY]
-noun - the affectionate, legal, and religious term for the spouse or partner of a gay or lesbian person.

marae [ma-RAY]
-verb - to join as spouses or to take as a spouse, in the marriage of a gay or lesbian person.

The neologisms rae and marae are derived from “My Rae,” the name Lillian Faderman gave to her courageous and devoted aunt. As a new term for gay and lesbian partners, “my rae” honors Lillian Faderman’s tremendous courage and devotion to gays and lesbians. “Marae” means “sacred place” in Polynesia. At the marae, culture is celebrated, customs are explored and debated, and weddings and birthdays are held. [(c) 2008 Mary Meriam]

So what do you think? Will this word make its way into our lexicon? Would you use it?

Tags: Word Wise by ph
3 Comments »

In her book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg has a chapter called “Be Specific” in which she tells writers about the importance of naming:

Give things the dignity of their names. . . It is much better to say “geranium in the window” than “flower in the window.” . . . When we know the name of something, it brings us closer to the ground. It takes the blur out of our mind; it connects us with the earth . . . Learn the name of everything.

As a teacher, I instruct my students to use concrete nouns in order to give their writing substance. But what if the job is to bestow a name upon something, like a child or a pet or a blog? Dignity originates in the giving of the name.

We went through 4 names before we settled on Tweety as the right and most dignified name for our cat– a tiny svelte creature who was at once feisty and comical. When naming something, the intent is to get the right fit. But a name should also provide useful information. Tweety is small, courageous, and more than a tad goofy, just like her namesake Tweety Bird.

In the world of business, naming is called branding, for it is a marketing method that sends a message to the consumer, a promise about what can be expected. Branding is important enough to writing enterprises that Kristen over at the Inkthinker blog is hosting a branding bootcamp in upcoming weeks.

Editeyes is a business blog, a place were I wish to sell my credibility as a writer and attract a readership who will not only find worthwhile information but who are interested in creating relationships around the issue of writing. Though I can’t honestly say I was thinking about branding when naming this blog Editeyes, I knew that I wanted the name to send several messages along with a clear promise to address these points:

• We write with our eyes and our ears (and nose, tongue and skin too). As a name, Editeyes plays with sight and sound to convey this message;
• The playful spelling and atypical use of the suffix in Editeyes is a purposeful way to communicate the intent of this blog to explore the edges of writing “right.”
• The editing and revising stages of writing are essential and can be satisfying as well as insightful. The message in the name Editeyes is that I value this stage of the writing process.

Tell me what you think of the name Editeyes. What was your first impression? Did it change after reading this post? Be honest. Writing has so much to do with audience, so I want to know what you are thinking.

Tags: Mispeld Wirdz, Word Wise by ph
1 Comment »