The visual dimension: tips from film-makers

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Before I begin my writing day, before my mug of decaf cools, I check my email, Twitter, a few websites. Today this blog by Alexandra Sokoloff on visual storytelling resonated, especially with respect to rewriting.

I am in a slow, difficult crawl through my third draft. This is the draft that (to paraphrase Kingsolver), "brings the meaning up and turns on the lights." I have to fill out the visual dimension—which, for me, requires quite a bit of research.

Read the Alexandra Sokoloff blog. I like her film-making suggestions for thinking in terms of "establishing shots" and "master shots." Approaching a Big Scene is intimidating. I'll see if it helps to mentally put myself behind a camera.

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Lauren B. Davis's excellent essay on rewriting

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I'm keeping to my writing schedule, although I continue to feel a bit lost. Middles!

When I finished today, I puttered: rearranging my books, entering titles into my bibliography, putting articles in binders. Getting books up off the floor. (I've a long way to go on this.) I like order in my spaces — which helps explain why I've been a little frantic.

I'm also trying to organize the blogs I'd like to read, and so finally tackled setting up Google Reader. In doing so today, I read writer Lauren B. Davis's excellent blog post on rewriting: The death of my darlings. I highly recommend it.

I loved her Chekhov quote, his advice on description:

“very brief and relevant . . . one ought to seize upon the little particulars, grouping them in such a way that, in reading, when you shut your eyes, you get a picture.”

I'm reading Evening by Susan Minot. She writes beautifully spare descriptions.

Snooping on readers

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I always try to see the title of a book a stranger is engrossed in. Sometimes I've had to refrain from simply asking. And sometimes I've lurked, coming around from behind, so great is my urge to know.

Of course the ultimate "catch" would be to discover someone reading one of my books. Would I reveal myself? Would I be believed? This scenario has yet to be tested.

All this came to mind discovering the delightful blog, SeenReading.com. Torontonian Julie Wilson takes book lurking to a new dimension: she documents where the reader was sighted, what he or she looked like, was wearing etc., and what book was being read. She gets close enough to see what page the reader is on, and then goes to a bookstore, finds the book, and copies out a passage. (She got into a little trouble, doing this.)

And then she writes a fictional paragraph about this reader. Here's one example from March of this year:

When her son was young, he was a curious collector. In particular, he liked to take random Polaroid pictures, filing each one away for future consideration. One morning, she came across a dragonfly that had died on their back deck. Before she could remove it, her son had pushed past her, camera poised. He took the picture, pulling the tab and counting down. “I love the light of early dawn,” he said, kicking the dragonfly between the wooden slats.

What a writer! I understand that she is giving up this blog for another project. I hope she continues to post, even if only now and then. In any case, the archives are full of such treasures. Enjoy!

A writer's writer

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Perhaps the highest praise a writer can give is to say that a someone is "a writer's writer," someone whose writing inspires.

Merilyn Simonds is a writer's writer, and I invite you to read her new blog, the Frugalista Gardener, on gardening. "Blog" seems too crude a word to describe what are beautifully-crafted essays. (A word I love, coming from the French essayer, to try.)

It's not often that a blog is noticed by the media and reviewed, but not only did the CBC radio cover it, but it was given the following review by January Magazine:

If you love beautiful writing or if you love gardening, you will likely find something worthwhile here. If you love both, you’ll be bookmarking in haste.

I am invariably awed by Merilyn's craft, the beauty of her words, her thoughts.


Link to the Frugalista Gardener: http://www.frugalistagardener.com/en/