Essay Judging

Every year at this time I serve as a judge of essays written by students who hope to earn a scholarship for their trouble.  Last Saturday afternoon was my judging time this year.

Reading the essays gives me more joy than horror, usually.  They follow specific guidelines.  The student must state his or her academic or career goal, what she’s done so far to work toward it, and the plan for the future to achieve it.  We judge them on whether or not they have followed the guidelines and stated their goal, but we also judge on use of language, grammar, logic, spelling, and finally, how realistic their plans are for achieving their goals.

Considering the students are writing to win a scholarship, it amazes me each year the number of grammatical, spelling and usage problems in these essays.  Bad word choices give the judges headaches or a good laugh.  Ninety-nine percent of these problems could be corrected if the students had proofread their essays, or had asked someone else proofread them.

Proofreading is an essential part of being a writer.  It’s as important as the original idea and its development.  Spell check on the computer fails to find the wrong words that are spelled correctly but don’t make sense in the context of the writing.  Read the piece out loud.  This is probably the best advice I’ve gotten about proofreading.  When I read a piece aloud, I not only hear the rhythm of the sentences, I also hear what’s wrong, catch missing words and bad word choices, correct misspellings and catch syntax and grammar issues.

A polished piece of writing that has been carefully proofread signals a professional writer at work.   It shows the writer cares and wants a reader to enjoy his writing.  A piece of writing riddled with mistakes, missing words and misspellings presents to a reader a sloppy writer who does not care.  Harsh?  Try reading a pile of essays written by sloppy writers without coming away with a headache and eye strain along with a disappointed heart.

Every year, one essay stands out.  It’s polished, follows the guidelines beautifully and has a confident voice.  I read the pile to find this one essay, like agents read a pile of queries or editors read a pile of manuscripts.  I want to believe each year that I will find more than one essay that stands out, but so far, the magic number has remained one.

Each year, while reading these essays, they remind me of the importance of being professional in my own writing.  We learn from the mistakes of others, no matter how old they are….

Fiction vs. Nonfiction — Or is it really a competition?

As I’ve been working this week on the assessment read-through for Perceval’s Shadow, I’ve been astounded by how much I accomplished with the first draft, including additional research, character work, new medical and psychology research, notes and questions, and orchestra concert programs.  All that written material has helped me get back into the story of this novel.

The novel itself exists as a skeleton of a story.  The structure forms the bones, the plot points the joints on which the story turns.  I left some scenes incomplete because I hadn’t a clue how to complete them.  Now I have a better idea.  I’ve also noticed several places in the story so far that I chose to summarize and they need their own chapters with action scenes.  They need to be shown, not told.  A big hole is at the beginning before Evan leaves Buenos Aires — I need to spend some time with him, his “cousin” Alicia, and his manager, Nigel.  I shirked, in the first draft, developing his psychological reactions although the bare bones are there.  I’m now halfway through the assessment.  I expect to finish it by the end of the month, if not sooner.

Also this week, I’ve worked on nonfiction.  I’ve begun another blog under a pen name over at Google, entitled Eyes on Life.  It’s commentary about life on this planet.  Related to the blog, I’m working on op-ed essays to submit to U.S. newspapers.  Slipped in here and there, I’m working on my Mensa regular monthly essays and developing stand-alone essays.

How did I get so caught up in essays?  Good grief.  And I’m already encountering schedule problems.  I could use about 36 hours in a day instead of 24.

Anyway, the job search led nowhere.  Over thirty months and nothing.  I decided to bite the writing bullet and return to freelance writing, but in a different way.  For some time now I’ve dreamed of having my own newspaper commentary column.  You know, like the ones in the op-ed pages.  With the retirement of Andy Rooney from 60 Minutes, and then his death, I’ve felt a cosmic push to follow that dream.  My approached is two-pronged: the Eyes on Life blog and writing op-ed pieces in the hope of snagging a column offer.

Following this column dream is a HUGE risk, of course.  The way I look at it, though, the job hunt was a risk with absolutely no guarantee, and I think I have a better chance of success with my column dream.  The Dooms have descended: is my writing good enough?  Will anyone want to read my ideas?  Why am I putting myself through this?  What do I do if I fail?  What do I do if I succeed?

As a professional writer, I’m used to dealing with The Dooms.  In the past, I’ve worked at reasoning with the doubts and fears, or boxing them up and packing them away.  I know what they’re about and their source.  Recently, with the help of Harry Potter, I’ve realized that I need to use the fear, channel it into positive, constructive action.  After all, there is a lot of energy associated with anxiety and fear.

One thing I have noticed since I started on this path: I’m happy.  I’m no longer worried and obsessing about money or finding a suitable job.  I should be worried about money, and it mystifies me that I’m not.  But that’s OK.  Now, I’ll have the energy to obsess about when I’ll finish which essay for which paper, blog posts and work on the Novel 2 revision….

 

 

REVISION PROCESS: Assessment Read-Through

William Kowalski wrote in “Self-Help for Budding Novelists” in the February 2012 The Writer:

We don’t possess all the skills needed to write the novel we have inside us until just after we’ve finished it.  Why?  Because each book is a world unto itself, with its own rules and quirks, and until you’ve written the last word of the last draft, you won’t have complete mastery of it.  By then, of course, your skills are redundant.

Reading Kowalski’s article this week inspired me in my own revision work.  I’ve learned a lot over the years about revision and the way I do it best, and indeed, it’s true that each piece or book is its own world.  My work on Perceval’s Secret focused on clarity and heightening suspense, and it wasn’t the first revision by a long shot.  My work on the second novel in the series, Perceval’s Shadow, demands its own approach.  Why?

I am working with only the first draft, the only version in existence at the moment, instead of multiple revisions.  I expect it could take me longer to produce a second draft.  Here are my steps for the Perceval’s Shadow revision process:

1. Rewrite prep:  I plunged into the novel’s working file where I’ve accumulated notes, ideas, and interesting articles relevant to this book.  I read through everything.  To my surprised delight, I’d left this file in excellent shape in 2007 when I’d finished the first draft and put it away to ferment.  I had written summaries of characters, a master list of characters for the series, a calendar of action, characters by chapter, a detailed outline and lots and lots of handwritten notes.  This step is done.
2. Assessment Read-Through:  I’ve just begun this step.  I simply read through the first draft from beginning to end, marking my thoughts and questions on the manuscript.  I also note grammar issues, word choice issues, issues with logic, clarity, use of adverbs and the verb to be.  I check my facts and research.  I underline verbs that need re-thinking.  In a broader sense, I note character development and continuity, dramatic momentum, narrative structure, and oddball dialogue.  Finally, I set specific goals for the second draft.
3. The Revision: Paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter, I’ll work my way through the novel, improving the prose, heightening suspense, clarifying action and motivations, and adding any details that will enrich the story and characters.  I’ll use all my notes plus the assessment read-through comments to guide me.  I’d originally thought this would take 6 months, but now I’m thinking it could take longer.  This novel has 22 chapters and a solid, straight-forward structure.
4. Have I achieved my goals?  This step occurs, actually, at the same time as Step 3.  When I finish a chapter, I read it aloud several times over 3-4 days.  With each reading, I hear the rhythm of the words and the flow which affects the pace for reading.  I double-check if vocabulary is character-appropriate, if dialogue sounds natural and moves the story forward.  I also want to use more metaphor or simile in this novel wherever suitable.

So, this is the plan going forward.  I’ve already made notes about the changes I made in the first novel that will impact the action in the second, as well as noting a couple changes in action in the second.  I’ll be making notes as I revise for plot points or details that affect the third novel’s story.

It sounds so simple.  As much as I love revision work, however, it’s still the hardest work in writing a novel.  The first draft is fun, the second is probably the hardest for revision, and subsequent drafts are really more like polishing rather than major revision work.  At least, this is how the first novel went!

I have my expectations, too, that I will need to keep in check.  It doesn’t really serve the novel to set one’s expectations too high and unrealistic.  So, my only expectation: Trust in the process and the imagination….

New Year, New Music

Future Classics 2010

After completing the revision of Perceval’s Secret last year, I’ve decided to revise the first draft of Novel 2, Perceval’s Shadow, during the next 6 months.  Evan’s composer friend, Owen te Kumara, occupies an important place in Evan’s life in this and subsequent books in the series.  What better way to kick off my revision work but to spend an evening at Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota Orchestra, Osmo Vanska, and the six young and emerging composers attending the Composer Institute this year?  The annual concert is called “Future Classics.”  It showcases each composer’s work, and the Minnesota Orchestra’s awe-inspiring expertise in performing new music.

As the American Composer’s Forum, one of the Composer Intitute’s sponsors, says, “All music was once new.”   It’s hard to imagine now, but such a famous classical music as Beethoven’s Third Symphony dismayed and/or scandalized its premiere audience.  Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring sparked a post-concert riot at the Paris concert hall the night of its premiere.  I’m pleased to report that I witnessed no scandals last night, despite one composer’s use of raw cabbage and macaroni and cheese in his composition (the percussionist must have had some fun with that!), or riots.  I witnessed lots of rude people, though, which surprised me.  Usually the audience at this concert tends to be savvy and considerate.  But last night, a crowd of latecomers surged in after the first piece — the most I’ve ever seen at a concert anywhere — and continued to come in during the first half.  The weather was fine, there were no major sports events downtown last night, and no reason for anyone to be late due to weather or traffic.  The rudeness extended to people in the audience talking among themselves loudly during the Q&A, and others who treated the Hall as their living room, coming and going at will.

The music blew me away.  An exploration of dissonance seemed to be the main theme last night as one piece after another established a musical motif and then played with it, developed it, layered it among the sections, layered varying rhythms and keys, creating dissonance then resolving it.  Another possible theme was taking the principles of minimalism and playing with them.  I especially liked two: Rhythm: Theta Beta Theta and Manchester.  The first used repetitive rhythm effectively to explore dissonance.  The second created the effect of slow motion by taking the notes that would have been repeated and holding them out instead.

Each composer talked about his or her inspiration for their composition which is always interesting.  They ranged from watching brain waves during an EEG to a museum of medical oddities.  My favorite piece was also the most melodic and echoed at least two of Samuel Barber’s works. I would love to hear that one again!

Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra

It’s difficult for any professional orchestra to prepare, rehearse and perform one piece of new music.  It’s astonishing that the Minnesota Orchestra annually does this difficult work for at least six new pieces of music, and that Music Director Osmo Vanska dedicates an entire week of the season to working with these young composers.  Over the five years that I’ve attended this concert (and in earlier years, the rehearsals), I’ve noticed an improvement in the quality of the compositions, as well as a movement away from one particular focus like minimalism.  What the composers achieved with their pieces last night was highly original and carried music forward.

As I listened last night, I thought about Owen te Kumara and his music.  What does it sound like?  What are his influences?  His inspiration?  In the last century in classical music, there has been a movement away from long lines or melody as we know it from previous centuries.  I’m thinking that Owen will compose more melodic, tonal music but not ignore what’s been accomplished in musical composition in the last century.  In 36 years, when my novels are set, a lot can happen, but also a lot can remain the same or return to what has worked in the past.

I love the Minnesota Orchestra’s “Future Classics” concert!  I look forward to next year’s and the renewed energy and inspiration it gives me….