Pam Bustin
creator, editor, story tender
52 Films by Women #2 – Drone
Yesterday, we watched Drone – a documentary written and directed by Tonje Hessen Schei. It’s one of those films that has been on the Raggedy Man’s Netflix “to watch” list for a while. It’s heartbreaking and ache-making look at the use of un-manned drones by the US.
Schei takes us into Pakistan to meet families whose lives have been shattered by drone strikes and activists who are trying to help them. She introduces us to a few former drone pilots, a fellow who builds and sells drones, and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was secretary of state, who sums up the efficacy of using drones against terrorists incredibly well when he says,
How can we win this war when with every time we kill four, we create 10?
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson also makes it clear that the use of drones will spread. Near the end of the film, he says,
There has never been any technology of warfare that isn’t ultimately adopted by your enemy or enemies.
Then comes an aerial shot of Lower Manhattan.
The kids broke my heart, of course. Children in Waziristan playing with missile pieces in the rubble after their parents and siblings have been killed–the parents blown up beyond recognition.
Brandon Bryant broke my heart as well – a former drone pilot with PTSD who is now speaking out in support of restrictions on drone use.
It was a hard one to watch. But I’m glad I did. We can’t just close our eyes to this stuff.
Whenever I hear how many drone strikes there have been, how many deaths have occurred under Obama… I get so sad. The first time I heard it, I was shocked. Now I am just sad. What I NEED to get to is… angry enough or sad enough to…do something about it.
Maybe posting about this film is a wee step towards doing something. Not much, I know. But here it is.
Here’s a short review that appeared in the Montreal Gazette: http://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/movies/movie-review-tonje-hessen-scheis-drone-has-montreal-connection
And an interview with the filmmaker from when the film was screened at Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in 2015: https://www.opencanada.org/features/the-trouble-with-drones-interview-with-filmmaker-tonje-hessen-schei/
Stay safe, my friends. But let’s not allow them to make us stay AFRAID. And silent.
go easy~p
52 Films by Women #1 – Tomboy
Hullo you.
I am settled in, back at the shack, and am finally embarking on my mission to watch 52 films written and/or directed by women this year.
I took the pledge over at Women In Film http://womeninfilm.org/52-films/
Hop on over to their site if you’re interested in taking up the challenge. They have some great lists to get you started.
I plan to post a few thoughts on each film—mini reviews, I suppose. I know if I aim for full on reviews of each movie, I will fret too much over the writing of them. Mostly I just want to track my viewing and offer up these films for your consideration.
I’m starting out with films I’ve found on Netflix. I’ll make a note with each film on where I found it.
I’ll also include links to the film on IMDB and a full review written by someone else for those who want to explore more.
So… to begin…
Tomboy (2011) Written and Directed by Céline Sciamma
Found on Netflix
Lovely. Lovely. Lovely.
The story of a young girl exploring life as a boy for a summer.
Beautifully shot and delicately told with AMAZING performances by the kids, especially Zoe Heran as Laure/Mikael, Jeanne Disson as Lisa and my absolute favourite— Malonn Levana as Jeanne. Brilliant.
A beautiful review and summary of the film by Roger Ebert at http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tomboy-2012
An interview with the filmmaker at http://www.filmindependent.org/news-and-blog/filmmaker-interview/#.VtcUbMdln6Y
The urge to write more is strong upon me… but needs must return to my work.
Drop a comment if you watch the film – or take up the challenge. Be great to hear from you.
Go easy~p
PS: Any suggestions of movies to watch much appreciated. Especially Canadian Films if I can get my hands (or eyes) on them somehow.
I’m starting out watching on Netflix. Bit broke these days. But am entirely willing to support our filmmakers with DOUGH as well. Or swap them a copy of my novel for a copy of their film (wink).
on honouring our Work…
This morning, at breakfast, I was gifted a very very wise piece of advice passed from Louise B. Halfe through David Carpenter (Carp).
On learning that he called his manuscript “the thing” and had it shoved in a drawer…afraid of it…overwhelmed by it… she advised him to never mistreat or diminish his work like that. She told him that she offers tobacco for/to/with her manuscript. That by doing so, she honours it. Not just the words on the page, but everything that has gone into the work.
She told him that we must honour our work.
He wasn’t sure how to proceed. How to honour his work. Could he set out tobacco too? “But I’m white,” he said.
She said, “You don’t have to be Native to honour your work.”
So Dave did what Louise suggested. He sprinkled tobacco all over his manuscript, as a way to honour it. He left it in that drawer for a while longer and when he pulled it out to work on it, things came together, made sense in a way he had not seen before.
When he told Louise what he had done—sprinkling the tobacco all over the manuscript, she looked appalled.
“Oh no,” he thought. “I’ve done it all wrong. I’ve CURSED my manuscript or disrespected an ancient rite.”
Louise said, “You poured tobacco all over it? But that would make such a MESS! I just put the whole pouch of tobacco in with the manuscript.”
We laughed, but as Carp told this story, I got shivers up the body… A huge YES!—bringing this story into my heart.
I, too, often (and too often) call this manuscript “the Thing”… I must make this shift. Towards honouring it.
I grow more and more conscious of the fact that am weaving this story (and all my stories) along with the Creator. How can I then … dismiss… judge…wound and degrade this work?
Back in my room, I sit and contemplate this story. The wee voice inside begins to speak to me.
Not to build it up – but do you not think that this is your sacred work?
Yes.
And why do you think that, to speak of the work this way is “building it up” into some snobby/elitist thing? It isn’t. It is a simple acknowledgement of what is.
I like that. I feel that is true. And yet, I am stunned by it as well. I turn away from the wee voice and begin to scribble, which is how I work things out for myself. I write…
It’s all well and good for really great writers like Mary Oliver to say this sort of thing but…me? That’s just kooky-banannas talk and horribly presumptuous.
And the voice comes back…
But we are not talking about you. About building your self up. We are talking about the work. This work (writing) is sacred. Right? And by “sacred”, I do not mean “precious” as in–oh my words are so precious. That isn’t it at all. What I mean is … this is holy work. This is prayer. This is incantation. This is hard, sacred, work.
I stop. I whisper, “Yes.” I hold this yes. I take it with me on my morning walk into town with a fellow writer.
Yes. I do think that writing–crafting stories, weaving poems–is sacred work. Yes.
I forget, sometimes, especially when I start to think, “Oh if only I could write something that would SELL!” moan moan panic moan “Then we could jack up the camp and re-insulate and… and… and…”
I forget why I do this. I get distracted.
I am grateful for these reminders, that come to me ever more frequently, about why I do what I do. Why I have built my life to allow me to do what I do.
A big part of this work, for me, is to keep the communication with the Creator open.
Yes.
And what comes of this open channel—I must not disparage.
We must honour our Work.
Yes.
Today… I will seek ways to make this shift—away from viewing this manuscript as a THiNG I am wrestling with, and towards… A gift I am being given. An invitation to work in concert with the Creator.
For now… there is this… a poem by Mary Oliver…
Messenger
by Mary Oliver
My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.
Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,
Which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever
And here is Mary, herself, reading I Happen to be Standing on NPR.
I so love her.
As I love Carp and Louise Halfe. You can find them and begin to trace the line to their works by following these links…
https://www.writersunion.ca/member/skydancerlouiseb-halfe
And…before I go back to work…and back to the thinking about the work I do and why I do it…
Here is Louise reading her poem Success in Spite of on BBC radio’s Poetry Postcard series.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01trwdl
Gives me shivers.
Go easy~p
PS – Thanks, Carp, for sharing this story with us and allowing me to share it here. Apologies if I’ve mistold it at all. You tell it better, my friend. I am so honoured to be here at St Pete’s with you right now–listening to your tales and working alongside of you. Thank you.
Also… I am ENTIRELY looking forward to our banjo sing along this evening!
a day in the life…
Sometimes I think I should do some really SHORT blog posts. Like this…
My day today was hard and good.
I found it nigh on IMPOSSIBLE to settle to the work this morning. Finally did. Got a solid hour in before it was time to go lunch. Huzzah.
Dove back in after lunch and spent 3 hours destroying a wee scene. Changed. Added. Subtracted. Multiplied the verbs. Tripled the square of the hypotenuse… Heck I did everything but ply it with bourbon! In the end… The scene is pretty much the same as it started out, with the addition of two short lines.
Totally Worth It.
Walked and ate and worked again.
Went downstairs and watched some DEADLY fast ping pong playing.
Came upstairs, made some ginger tea, sat down at the typer machine, fully meaning to KEEP GOING and…
Dunno if I will.
Sipping tea now.
Debating if tis better to slog on or to rest and begin anew in the morn.
Beginning anew is winning.
go easy ~p
Learning when to let go…and whom to invite in.
Today is changeover day at St Peter’s. I’ve had to bid a fond adieu to the writer’s headed for home, and soon a whole new gang will be arriving.
For a few hours, Tracy Hamon and I are alone on the floor. I’d say, “Sure is quiet.” But every day is quiet here – at least between 9-5 when all of us beaver away on our writing projects.
Tracy is a poet, the programs manager for the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild (SWG), and a good friend. I’m glad she is here for a few more days with us.
Last night was wonderful. We gathered in the lounge with drinks and snacks and had a chance to taste each other’s work. What a gift. We also got to listen in (and say hello) to the Mennonite Literary Society Satellite Launch of the newest issue of Rhubarb Magazine. Bernice Friesen (one of our cohort) is the new Executive Editor over at Rhubarb. She read a poem by Wes Funk, a Saskatoon writer who, I’m sad to say, passed away recently. We all gathered in the kitchen as she read the piece out across the interwebs. There were wet eyes. It was lovely and heartbreaking.
Oh what a gift this whole experience is to me.
I am so glad I came here.
This morning, I sent off my first submission to Gail Anderson-Dargatz.
I was incredibly nervous. Aside from a Canada Council jury and an Ontario Arts Council jury, Gail is the first person to see any of Sanctuary on the page.
I’ve read bits of the novel to various audiences over the years (yes…years…it takes me a long time to write a novel), but no one has really SEEN it. It is incredibly hard for me to let go of things.
It wasn’t always this way. When I worked as a playwright, I loved getting into a room with actors, a director and a dramaturg and workshopping a new piece. Even more, I loved the opportunity to serve as a workshop actor or dramaturg for other people’s scripts. The Saskatchewan Playwrights’ Centre (SPC) was my home as a playwright and also one of my favourite gigs as an actor. I also cherished my time serving on the Dramaturgical Committee (DC). Working on new work is soooooo rewarding and fun and challenging. I love it. I miss it.
I grew accustomed to letting others see an early draft of my plays. Not a first draft. Not even the second. But somewhere in the early stages, I would submit a play to the DC and meet with the SPC Dramaturg to talk about my work. Then, when I was ready, I would submit the play for a workshop (1/2 day or full day) and maybe even apply to have the play in the Spring Festival of New Plays where it would receive a couple of days of workshopping with actors a director and the Festival Dramaturg and then be presented to the public as a staged reading. All of my plays went through this process.
So what the heck is going on with me that I can not seem to let go of even a BIT of a novel until it is… super far along?
Dunno, man.
I know that novels feel…. BIG… to me. HUGE. There are so many…characters and scenes and… stuff to remember and keep straight. A full length play is also huge, it really is, but I can somehow HOLD a play in my mind. In my heart. Whole. It is harder for me to hold a novel, and so I tend to work them in… parts. And then fit the parts together. And every time I add a bit, I have to go back and re-work the bits that came before and so… how on earth can I show it to anyone until … I actually figure out what the heck I am doing and make sure that it all hangs together and… well, you see my problem.
I worked in this fashion with my plays as well, working on this scene or that one, or as the Raggedy Man likes to say, “I’m just gonna take a look at that bit in the middle.” But… for some reason, It is harder for me to let others into my writing process as a novelist than it was to let the actors, directors and dramaturgs in to my plays. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that, as an actor, I had already been in that room. I knew that everyone there, tough as they might be, were always fighting for the BEST THING FOR THE PLAY. Interesting.
So… I began writing scenes for the stage, and as I write this novel now, I write it as scenes and that’s sort of working for me but… well… maybe a big part of my fear that I’m not doing so great with this one is that it just doesn’t feel as… straightforward as working on Mostly Happy did.
A. Bean was screaming in my head by the time I got down to writing that book, and…
B. With Mostly Happy I sort of built in this idea of working on the story bit by bit into the very structure of the book. I could explore each item in the suitcase individually– find out what it meant to Bean, why she carried it–and then weave them all together. Simple. Aside from the puking. (She laughs hysterically – sorry, inside joke.)
I do remember that it wasn’t that simple. I wrote about WAY more items than there are in the book. I had to write about ALL of them in order to find Bean’s story for myself, but only some of the items made it into that red Samsonite. In the editing process, I cut some items out all together, and some of them became… a line here, or part of a scene there. I had to hone the tale down to the items that helped Bean bring her story through to us the clearest.
Early drafts of Mostly Happy were… incredibly long and an incredible… MESS. The story was BURIED under a ton of STUFF. I did finally let my trusted first reader, who I like to call Bear, read the work. He helped me find my way to the heart of the story beneath the jumbled heap of Bean’s treasures.
Bear’s an actor who reads A LOT. An incredibly talented dude and an invaluable workshop actor (aHA – this may be why I trust him so much with my bizness). I think his experience working on new plays has made him my perfect first reader– he has such and eye, ear and nose for Story and such a rooted/grounded/solid understanding of Voice and Character. He also knows me and my work on a deep deep level. He can tell, somehow, what I am TRYING to say. He can ask me the questions that will lead me to the True.
That said…
I haven’t showed him this one yet.
Oh wait… I lie. He has seen a bit. He helped me pull one of my grant apps together, so he’s seen a bit of the book. I’m a fibber when I say Gail is the first. But still…he hasn’t seen much.
He hasn’t seen a complete draft yet because… oh… this one is so scary for me. As much as I trust him to have my back, I am just not ready to let him see this one yet. It is still too….much of a… I dunno. Oh, how about “It’s incredibly long and an incredible MESS!” Sounds familiar, right?
Everything I write is scary for me, but with this one…. Well I am really stretching my self, learning new skills and taking on what are, to me, incredible challenges. There are A LOT of characters in this book. It started out as a seemingly simple tale of an unusual friendship and now… An entire town is involved, an entire VALLEY! And though the book takes place over 7 days, I found myself digging back and back and back into the history of this place and these people and…. well heck, one book can’t contain it all.
There is also… magic. Magic realism? Maybe that’s what some will call it.
Whereas Mostly Happy is told by Bean from her point of view, this one is told in third person and it… shifts… the telling slips from close in on this person, to close up on that person, to waaaaaaaaaay up here where a narrator that I quite adore but can’t yet truly identify sees … everything. I think what I’m doing with is called… Free, Indirect Style (Susan Swan has a great blog post about this style over HERE).
Whatever the hell I’m doing… It. Is. Hard.
For me, anyhow.
It’s also incredibly exciting when I get a passage that feels…right. When I’m reading it out loud and walking in circles (cuz that’s what I gotta do to know if my rhythm is working), and I find myself slipping in and out and round about without a hitch…..glory.
I’m glad I didn’t give up and run away from this challenge.
I hope that … by the end of June, beginning of July, I will have gotten to the point where I have the huevos to let Bear see the thing.
We’ll see.
Thanks for stopping by.
Have a great weekend.
I feel that I SHOULD get on back to work now… but Heck it’s lunch time!
Go easy~p
PS: The lag between lunch and posting time was all spent…editing. Jeez, I can’t even let a BLOG post go – heh heh.
Riding the Rails West…
Written on VIA ONE Feb 4, 2016 – on my way West.
Posted from St Peter’s Abbey Feb 10, 2016.
Hullo Sweeties!
A quick check-in from the road… I wanted to post from Winnipeg, but ‘twas not meant to be, so then I thought I would post from Saskatoon, and then as soon as I arrived here at the Abbey….
Alas…none of that was meant to be. But I’m here now with what I writ then.
Here it is…
Grabbed a chance for a quick visit/sleep-over with some pals in Saskatoon before heading out to The SWG Winter Retreat at St Peter’s Abbey in Muenster, SK. Glad I got to stop by and celebrate a birthday with my oldest friend – oldest as in I have known her the longest. I believe we met when I was 2 and she was 3. Back in the ole neighbourhood in Regina SK when things looked a lil something like this….
OK…. Regina didn’t look quite like this when we met. But I do believe this little ditty was still a hot number…
I found my old pal a card and some Puffed Wheat Cake at the Human Bean in Winnipeg. There’s a 4 hour stop in Winnipeg now on VIA One. Whenever I am headed west, I jump off and head over to The Pancake House, at the Forks,for a nice leisurely breakfast. Usually waffles!
I didn’t get much WORK done on the first travel day. Spent a lot of time gazing out the window and loving the sway of the train in motion. My favourite way to travel.
I woke early and headed to the dome car to sit and watch the light come. I love early mornings. Used to be I only saw them when I stayed up the night before. Now I love to rise up and be there for the cross-fade from dark to light.
Loved this pick-up around 7:58 AM.
A woman hopped off near some camps. This fella met her. Not sure why he took the baggage first, or why she didn’t jump aboard with him. We pulled away before I could see if he came back for her or she walked in.
I read quite a bit. Loving up The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel. I blush to confess that I’d never heard of her. Discovered her while browsing short story collections in Overdrive. Saw this in Rick Moody’s intro essay…
It’s all about the sentences. It’s about the way sentences move in paragraphs. It’s about rhythm. It’s about ambiguity. It’s about the way emotion, in difficult circumstances, gets captured in language. It’s about instants of consciousness. It’s about besieged consciousness. It’s about love trouble. It’s about death. It’s about suicide. It’s about the body. It’s about skepticism. It’s against sentimentality. It’s against cheap sentiment. It’s about regret. It’s about survival. It’s about the sentences used to enact and defend survival.
And…
… the Hempel stories where urbane, witty, somber, dazzling, oblique, and quietly, desperately heroic. In Reasons to Live, one had a sense that the author really was trying to use sentences to save lives.
Holy CRAP, right?
I finished the book yesterday (that’d be Feb3rd) and… I have a new love. If you haven’t read any Amy Hempel… I say, “Run. Run now and find some!!!”
While I am in the quoting mood… I will say that Hempel’s work brought one of my favourite “why I write” quotes to mind.
There are writers who write for fame. And there are writers who write because we need to make sense of the world we live in; writing is a way to clarify, to interpret, to reinvent. We may want our work to be recognized, but that is not the reason we write. We do not write because we must; we always have a choice. We write because language is the way we keep hold on life. With words we experience our deepest understandings of what means to be intimate. We communicate to connect, to know community. Even though writing is a solitary act, when I sit with words that I trust will be read by someone, I know that I can never be truly alone. – bell hooks
Lovely, isn’t it?
And so true, for me.
I especially love that hooks turns her clear eye on that idea that “we write because we must” that is so often… spouted. I spout it myself. I’ve said that I wrote Mostly Happy “…because Bean wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone.” This is true, in a sense, but the deeper truth is that I wrote Mostly Happy because I am still wrestling with a lot of things from my childhood and through Bean, I found a way to make sense of some of those things.
You’ve heard me say similar things before.
You’ve heard me say that I write to make sense of the world. That I aim to create… maps… that someone, somewhere, might be able to follow out of the dark.
I entirely believe that sentences can save lives.
I am proof of that.
Swear to all the Gods above and on my Mama’s life, books saved me. They still do.
Authors that I have never met in person take my hand, every day. So many keep me company along the road. Some make me laugh and some make me cry and the best of them whisper truths to me. Truths about what it means to be a human.
May I always strive to do the same.
Thanks for coming along this journey with me.
Next stop – St Peter’s Abbey. Hold onto your hats, m’dears. Methinks there will be magic there.
Go easy~p
PS – there IS magic here. If I get my poop together, I hope to write some posts from here. In the evenings, when the days “work” is done.
For now, know that all is well. All is very very well with me.
Baby’s Got a Brand New Bag!
A brand new year calls for… Brand New Luggage!
Made a shift this year. Lil Red has headed into retirement and I have a new gal joining me. A purty blue Samsonite. Bit roomier than red was.
Our first trip this year is about to begin. I’m off in a few minutes to the Ontario Vipassana Centre – where I will be serving for two weeks.
I’m excited and just a bit nervous.
As I always am when I head out on a new adventure.
Wishing one and all a Wondrous 2016!
May you find beauty each day.
go easy ~p
Looking forward…a writer prepares…
Hullo Sweeties:
Long time no post, eh?
As many of you know, this year has been a … rough one … for me. I won’t go into the whys and wherefores here, but suffice it to say – my work has languished.
I set aside Sanctuary (my novel in progress) last December and didn’t find my way back to it until a few weeks ago.
I was close… so close… to just… Chucking it all in.
To declaring in the novel a failed experiment.
To maybe even stepping away from writing at all for a time and heading off to explore other things.
But I picked up the draft and read through it, making some notes.
Luckily…I found some good things mixed in with the skitter-scatter-stinky-doo that is normal in an early draft of a novel. I found enough “good” to make me want to give it one more shot. To continue working.
I started in on yet another reVision on November 18, 2015.
That day, I wrote the following in the Scrib:
So… here we are, back again. I am about to ride into town, wash our clothes and cut off all of my hair.
Then I am going to return and when I do, I will begin again. I fear that I shall never finish the thing called Sanctuary – it is far too huge and strange for this mind to wrap round. But I have a driving need to see this through to some kind of end. Be it a gathering of stories or whatever.
So my plan is to… yes… begin again. And to take a stroll back through the book as it now exists in the Sanctuary 2014 project and take only the bits I love and see what they are and how they might fit together – or not. Maybe they serve as leaping off points for stories in and of themselves. I don’t know.
Let us begin clean. And because it sang to me, this morning, let this sentence from Eudora Welty serve as …. An inspiration toward…going deeper instead of wider this time…
“The events in our lives happen in a sequence of time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily—perhaps not possibly—chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.” – Eudora Welty One Writer’s Beginnings
I love that… the continuous thread of revelation… Love it.
It echoes what I struggle towards with the Watchers (a group of beasts and humans in the novel), how time doesn’t necessarily flow chronologically for them… or, perhaps, for any of us.
I think that is a big trouble in the book right now. The structure is so… day to day… and outward. I need to find the continuous thread of revelation to spool out. Perhaps for each character and then, somehow for the reader.
I yearn to … simply create a world that they can sink into. Yes. That’s it.
But it isn’t simple…and… “Ay, there’s the rub!”
I began working on the reVision that day.
After I did this…
A few weeks later, we packed things up, closed down the shaky-shack and headed down to Toronto to spend the holidays with my Sister in Law and to see some pals.
I spent a weekend with Eden, a friend from Uni, and—brave soul that she is—she suggested that we get in touch with our mutual Creative Writing instructor, Susan Swan.
Susan and I have emailed each other and been in touch on facebook over the years, but when Eden mentioned asking her out for coffee… I was ENTIRELY nervous and shy. I felt like a 12 year old girl with a crush about to call up the beloved and try to appear cool.
Eden was the brave one. She made the invite and we “SQUEEEEEEEE!ed” together via email when Susan accepted.
Long story short… I had a WONDERFUL weekend with Eden and our meet up with Susan was… oh man… it was just so good. To sit and talk about our lives and our work… ahhhhhhh.
Susan is a wise and insightful woman with clear grey eyes and a voice you just have to pay attention to.
When I spoke to her about going back to school and asked her what she thought of the Ryerson Publishing Program (have I mentioned I was thinking of going back to school?), a strange look crossed her face. She said the program is very well-respected and then she paused and said, “Do you want to work in a publishing house in Toronto?”
I blurted, “No.” And continued, mumbling… “No. Well…not really…but…maybe… I was thinking maybe I could do freelance work or… or something.”
We continued to talk about my life and the novel and how lost I am feeling with it. She nodded in recognition and said, “Yes. You are in the trees.” She mentioned Humber and their Creative Writing by Correspondence program that pairs writers up with mentors for a 7 month period to work on a novel. She went as far as to offer to email the person who heads up the program and put us in touch.
She said, “Would you like that?”
I mumbled, “Yes.”
Eden said, “YES. Pam would like that very much. Please do that.”
We all chuckled.
The next morning, there were two emails from Susan in my inbox – one putting me in touch with Humber and another just to say…. Some lovely supportive stuff.
So…
After talking with Susan and Eden I was a bit… spun around. I spent some time walking and thinking, turning over what it really is I want to DO in 2016.
I got online and started chatting with my gang of fierce and lovely writer pals The Rough Writers. We formed a group back in Saskatchewan many moons ago. A group of women writers who gathered to talk about… the writer’s life. About how we survive as writers – financially, physically and spiritually. We are now a bit scattered across the country, but a call out via email is all it takes to gather this magnificent sisterhood. You can find out where the Rough Writers hang out online over on my Wisefolk page.
I decided that what I truly want to do this coming year is… finish Sanctuary (or at least get to a draft that I am willing to show to some select readers for feedback – heh heh).
I took a look at the Humber program and some other great programs like the Banff Centre’s Writing Studio, The Sage Hill Writing Experience and various residencies and retreats.
After a flurry of emails with the Rough Writers and a few other writer pals across the country, a plan began to take shape.
I won’t bore you with the hemming and hawing and weighing of pros and cons of all these wonderful opportunities. I’ll just cut to the OUTCOME…
I am off to spend 2 weeks at St Peter’s Abbey in SK during the Saskatchewan Writer’s Guild Winter Retreat in February. A bit crazy, perhaps, when it seems that I have a rather… retreating lifestyle already…. but what this would give me is… solitude (in a different way), good food (prepared lovingly by someone else), and a place filled with writers in which to work.
The energy at St Pete’s is legendary. See Five Reasons to Go on a Writing Retreat by Arthur Slade. Once there, I can just lock myself down and hammer away at the reVision of the novel and/or chat with others about the work. I will also get to spend some time in the presence of at least TWO of my fellow Rough Writers.
It is gonna be EPIC.
I’ve also been accepted for Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s 5 month online mentorship. This session runs from Feb and running until June and oh-my-gawd-oh-my-GAWD am I ever excited!
I’ve been a fan of Gail’s since I first read The Cure for Death by Lightning and A Recipe for Bees. Now I will get to work with her and other writers on her forum and… oh man… the idea of having some company along the trail as I work through a new draft is…. FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC. What a boon.
And… the bountifulness and support goes on….
As I was laying all of this in place over the weekend, Tracy Hamon (one of the Rough Writers) sauntered down the street and spoke with Sandra Birdsell—who was the Humber mentor I was most interested in. Sandra generously let Tracy pass on her email to me in case I had any questions about Humber or any other options like working with her privately. Though I’ve chosen to go with Gail’s program this year, I’ve emailed Sandra to thank her for talking with Tracy about me and I am keeping her email at hand for the next time I find myself…flailing about (writing wise).
Sandra sent back a lovely email, congratulating me on taking “the bull by the horns” and digging in to this rewrite. She also added her voice to those who speak of Gail’s stellar reputation and reminded me that… sometimes we have to allow our novels to go backwards in order to go forward. Once again, I am so glad to know that I am not alone in this. I know know KNOW that it is part of my process to write-write-write and end up with WAY TOO MUCH STUFF, but when I’m in the muck, it’s hard to hold on to the confidence that I will find my way out.
So…
Once again, I am reminded that I am not alone on this crazy Writer’s Trail. I am part of a wonderfully supportive community.
Oh… speaking of…. here’s one more example of the amazingness of my fellow scribblers.
As I wandered the interwebs and stumbled across Gail’s program, I scratched the surface a bit and found out that the fabulous Kimmy Beach has worked with Gail. I don’t think I’ve ever actually met Kimmy in the flesh, but we run in the same circles and I totally dig her and her work. Anyhow…. I facebook messaged her to ask about Gail’s program—not realizing at the time that Kimmy actually offers similar services. Holy Jebus did I feel like a SCHMO! Kimmy not only eased my fears and told me not to feel like a schmo – she gave Gail an entirely glowing review and urged me to GO FOR IT!
And cuz the Universe just opens up when you allow yourself to SEE…. I also stumbled across these beauties in the last few days.
Another Art Slade post on The Pressure of Being Creative.
And this amazing amazing short film that Leona Theis shared on Facebook. I don’t think I can embed the video here so go and watch it and then come back….
http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/419391/george-saunders-on-story/
Isn’t it great?
This film is so gorgeous and wise.
As I struggle with Sanctuary, what I keep thinking/saying is that I can’t seem to find my way to the ENDING…. Meaning what? Meaning the ending I WANT? Or just an ending that leaves me … satisfied.
I hope it is the latter, but I also know that I might be trying to IMPOSE MY WILL upon the story and make it land where I want it to land. I fear no good can come of that.
I am going to watch this film over and over as I work on this new draft.
I am also going to begin each work session by reading over the following blessing from John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work you do
with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light
and renewal to those who work with you
and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of
refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert,
approaching your new day
with dreams, possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed,
sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.
Isn’t that the loveliest work blessing ever?
I am so grateful, right now, for my tribe.
May I learn not to turn away from you and suffer in silence. There is a time, I know, when I need to work in solitude, but I must remember that I am not ALONE.
Thanks for stopping by.
Sorry to blather on so long with this post. I hope to begin posting regularly again in the new year and hopefully that will keep the posts a bit shorter.
Wishing you all a wonderful Yule, happy holidays, and may 2016 be your BEST year, yet.
Go easy ~p
Best revision ever? Thoughts on Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Hey gang:
Popping on today with some thoughts about… revisions. About how much a book can change from draft to draft and about how … sometimes, the leaps made are GINORMOUS.
Finally got my hand’s on Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee.
Am so glad I had the chance to read it.
For those of you who don’t know, Watchman is… A novel that Lee wrote before To Kill a Mockingbird. One could, as many do, see it as a sort of first draft of Mockingbird. I’m in that camp.
I am saddend by the way the book was marketed, mostly because I know it must have disappointed so may readers who snatched it up thinking it was a new book written by a beloved author after years and years of silence and that it was going to feature our beloved Scout and Dill and Jem and the rest of the gang.
Reading the book got me thinking about a lot of things.
I gotta start off with a bit of a confession.
Let it be said clearly that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite books of all time. Love the book and ADORE the movie.
But here’s the thing… The power of the book, for me, has always been in … The relationships. Scout and Dill, Scout and Atticus, Scout and Boo Radley.
I remember being surprised when others talked about the book as though it was all about, or JUST about, racism. The trial of Tom Robinson — though it gives me one of the spine tingling, goosepimply moments that I pray for every time I open a book…that moment when all the people in the balcony rise to their feet and Reverend Sykes says, “Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passin’. ” — the trial never really felt like the heart of the book for me. It was… just… one of the things Atticus did. When I first read the book and saw the movie what I saw was… a man who stood up for someone against a HEAP of odds. Like he also stood up for Boo.
For me, the heart of TKAM is the simplest and most complicated thing in the world…it is about how to be a decent human being. The race stuff, for me, is – to snatch a phrase from Watchman – “incidental to the issue” in Scout’s “private war.” That war being… learning to live an honourable life on this planet.
Watchman is, in many ways, a more complicated novel that TKAM. We can see Lee struggling with how to write about race and class and the South, about honour and goodness and pain, struggling with how to bring us a burning and important story clear and clean and true.
She brings Jean Louise home to visit and… without giving away too much, let’s just say that Jean Louise is incredibly disappointed in her father. Yes. Atticus Finch is revealed to be… a man of his times. Atticus Finch, a mere mortal. With flaws. BIG flaws. That in itself is enough to send Mockingbird fans running for the hills, especially those of us who have clung for years to Atticus as the very picture of the father we wish we had.
While struggling with this huge and awful realization, Jean Louise often slips back into her childhood. Back to times with Jem and Henry (her love interest in this novel). Dill gets a few mentions, but isn’t central. It’s Scout that grabs us. And I can see how an editor found his or her way to asking the questions that split open the novel for Lee and allowed her to find the voice that brought us TKAM.
I can see it happening. Like it has happened for me, working through a play with DD Kugler or Ben Henderson or my pal Robert Benz and having them ask me that question that … breaks it all open, scares the pants off me and opens a trail through to the TRUE. That is a great moment. And it means….. back to the drawing board, Missy… but with such such SUCH a clarity that I am able to go on.
To go on to a better, clearer tale. One hopes. And much is gained, and sometimes – things are lost. And that is hard, too.
TKAM is a masterpiece. It is complicated and rich, but it loses something of what Lee was struggling so hard to express in this earlier novel. In TKAM, Atticus Finch is the father we all want. He is an incredibly loving father and an honourable man. In Watchman, Atticus is still all that, but he is also…human. A human in a certain time in a certain place, doing the best he knows how to do and that best is not good enough. And THAT… Well, m’dears, THAT is a fuck of a lot harder to write about.
When I was sweating theough the rewrites to Mostly Happy, with my fabulous editor Harriet Richards, there where things that I had to let go of. Things that…complicated the main thrust of the story. I am happy with the tightening, but I sometimes wonder…what if I had been a good enough writer to get it ALL in.
After reading this early version of Lee’s masterful novel, I can’t help but wonder if she felt the same. Mockingbird is a classic, and bless the human who opened the window in Lee that let Scout out in all her glory, but… I wonder if Ms Lee is just a wee bit TICKLED for us to read this story alongside it. I hope so.
While I was pondering all this, I found this great story about Brilliant Books – an independant bookstore in Michigan that gave refunds to customers who bought the book thinking it was… “Harper Lee’s New Novel” “with many of your favorite characters from To Kill A Mockingbird.” — as advertised by Harper Collins.
They released this statement:
To Fans of “To Kill A Mockingbird”
We at Brilliant Books want to be sure that our customers are aware that “Go Set A Watchman” is not a sequel or prequel to ‘To Kill A Mockingbird‘. Neither is it a new book. It is a first draft that was originally, and rightfully, rejected. The book, and some of the characters therein, are very much a product of this era in the South.
We suggest you view this work as an academic insight rather than as a nice summer novel. This situation is comparable to James Joyce’s stunning work ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man‘, and his original draft ‘Stephen Hero‘. ‘Hero’ was initially rejected, and Joyce reworked it into the classic ‘Portrait’. ‘Hero’ was eventually released as an academic piece for scholars and fans—not as a new ‘Joyce novel’. We would have been delighted to see “Go Set A Watchman” receive a similar fate.
It is disappointing and frankly shameful to see our noble industry parade and celebrate this as “Harper Lee’s New Novel”. This is pure exploitation of both literary fans and a beloved American classic (which we hope has not been irrevocably tainted.) We therefore encourage you to view “Go Set A Watchman” with intellectual curiosity and careful consideration; a rough beginning for a classic, but only that.
Read in this light… Watchman is fascinating. And also… inspiring.
As I struggle along with my current novel, I take heart. I am currently reading through a draft of the novel and… oh… oh… oh… somedays I despair that I will never find my way.
It is so good to read Watchman and to see how Lee… leaped off from this into To Kill a Mockingbird.
I encourage all writers to spend some time with both of these books, with a special eye/ear to what a REAL revision can look like.
And with that said…
I’m off to make some notes on my own revisions.
Have a great weekend.
go easy ~p
A beLATEd 2015 3Day Novel Weekend Wrap-up
Hullo World
Finally typing up my post 3day notes…
I made this note on Sept 9, 2015.
Wow and wow and wowzi-wow. This may have been the best 3Day Weekend ever!
I need to write up a blogpost for Future Me to look back on.
Took me a while to get around to it. But here we go…
Where I worked:
In the Writing Burrow. I ran power out to the trailer, with the solar back-up.
Warmth: I have propane heat in the trailer, but I don’t like to use it when I sleep in there, so I took an electric heater out there this year. I only used it one morning to take the edge off. It was warm enough the rest of the weekend.
Tunes: I set up 3 different playlists on my ipod…
- an inspiring instrumental set (heavy on Kimba Aren and Jennifer Berezan)
- a long playlist of women chanting (a lot of Hildegard von Bingen and Sarband)
- a DANCE set including a mix of stuff from the Road Hammers, Elvis and Eivor and anything that made me wanna wiggle.
I played music through a speaker or straight into my brain with headphones and on Monday afternoon I danced out in the yard to get my energy up for the final push.
What I ate and drank:
The food stayed in the house and I brought out meals on trays. I ate far less that I thought I would. Heh heh.
Snacks that lived with me in the Trailer:
- two bite brownies
- bar of dark chocolate
- almonds
I had good breakfasts each day high on the protein:
- boiled egg
- Greek yogurt with nuts and seeds sprinkled on
- green grapes
- apple slices
- thin rye bread
- cheese
- hummus
- jam
Main meals eaten in the evening or into the night:
Moose chili – made by the Raggedy Man.
Curried Chicken with rice or noodles – from The Masala Maven
Beverages:
I had a kettle for making tea/coffee and a water jug.
I also had the Tennessee Honey Jack for a “wind down” drink after shutting down for the night — taken with an episode of Longmire.
Movement:
Body: I managed not to end up a tangled mess of PAIN this year. Because of the hip pain I’ve been experiencing, I made a conscious effort to pay more attention to my body and to stretch and move more each day.
- I took time out for a short walk each day
- I did a set of yoga stretches once or twice each day
- I made sure to sneak inside for a hug and a smooch at least once a day as well
Eyes: I also set up an app (Insight Timer) on my ipad to BONG every 10 minutes so that I would look away from the screen of the laptop and focus on something across the room to keep my eyes fresh. I didn’t play the BONGS the entire time I worked, but I did it for the first night and then on and off throughout the weekend. The BONG also reminded me to sit up straight – as I tend to hunch over the keyboard.
Silly Stats Fun:
Total Time Worked: 39 H 26 Min
“Sleep” Times:
- Sat: Log-off 3:37AM Log-on: 8:50AM
- Sun: Log-off 3:51AM Log-on: 12:53AM
- Mon: Log-off 3:27AM Log-on: 11:28AM
Longest Day (Work wise): Monday 14.13 Hours
Longest Stretch Without a Break: Monday from 3:39pm to 7:47pm
Day with the highest word count: Sunday 11, 319
Quickest Edit Pass EVER – 3Hr 12Min
Monday 7:55-11:45 PM (with a re-fueling break from 8:49-9:27)
Final Word Count: 30, 050
Final Page Count: 222 (including Front Matter and “Sources Used” page)
Title: Run Fast Hold Still (which is also the title of an essay Ray Bradbury wrote that is in his lovely book Zen in the Art of Writing)
What it is? Well…. that’d be telling.
Let it be enough to say that the stack of pages exist. A moony tale told in a epistolary form.
And now…. time to get on with other things.
Sending a wave from this far rainy shore and a wee slideshow for your daily giggle…
Have a great week.
go easy ~p
PS: The song I dance to when all energy is fading….
Places I read
some places i hang out
Pam Bustin 