The Woes of Editing

I’m not a professional editor but I reckon that over the past two decades of writing, I’ve picked up an idea or two on how to structure a sentence, what passes for good grammar and how to spell. Not only that, I’ve got a very good sense of the music inherent in good writing.

I remember my very first first-author tantrum. It was during the edit of my book, Debbie’s Story. I feathered my returned manuscript with Post-It notes, all the places where the editor had changed something and with which I totally disagreed.  ‘This was exactly how it happened’. ‘How can you change that?’ ‘You’re killing off my voice!’ I cried. My voice? As a first-time author what did I know about voice? And how was any editing going to do that? In fact, I knew very little about the role of the editor and cared even less. My beloved, my baby, my perfect manuscript was sacrosanct. As with all newbie author’s my ego was up there with the 747s.

It was only much later, about the time I published my third book that I began to respect the role of the editor. A good editor refines a manuscript, takes the rough stone and cuts and polishes it until it shines. In doing so, the editor allows the author’s voice to be heard above the clamour of awkward paragraphs, mis-spelled words and poor grammar.

I was recently asked to edit the book of a friend. She had written a cheery little thing that I was anxious to see succeed. For a first-time author she had done well except for the usual glitches inherent with first-time writers. I spent days doing what I do best. She hated it. ‘You have ruined my voice’; ‘this wasn’t what I’d written’. She took back the manuscript and changed my editing. Okay, you might say, her privilege.

Yes, maybe. But it saddened me to see what could have been a professional book turned back into that of a first-time amateur. Not only that, it’s hard enough to keep the reputation of self-published books high…

I suppose if I were a professional and had charged her for my services, she would have had more respect for my skill.

Ah well, you live and learn.

Jenny Harrison

www.jennyharrison-author.com

 

 

Is it offensive to be called a partner?

I know it is neither ethical nor legal to biff an old lady round the chops and, fortunately, few even contemplate it. But yesterday I came close to having my face re-arranged – all on the altar of accurate vocabulary.

I bumped into an acquaintance in the supermarket; in the toiletry aisle actually. She said she was looking for something for her partner. Perhaps I could help her find it?

‘Of course,’ I said, gazing around. ‘Is he or she your business partner or your sex partner?’

She looked puzzled and I repeated my question. Then the penny, as they say, dropped. Her eyes narrowed and took on a menacing glitter and her lips thinned in an aggressive line. I thought I saw her hands ball into fists before she stalked away.

Now, I ask you? What did I do? I was only trying to clarify the situation. She called this unknown person her partner. I didn’t know what sort of relationship she had. Now, in my day (yes, I know things change but they shouldn’t, not when language loses its edge and meaning) in my day a partner was someone you did business with. Today it means someone you do the business with. We used to call that ‘living-in-sin’.

If my acquaintance had been clear that this person was engaged in the morally dubious activity of ‘living-in-sin’ with her then we both would have known where we stood.

Today a husband or a wife is a partner. Murder is homicide. Rape is sexual assault. I find all this modern PC faffing about with words tiring and confusing. It’s just a way of fudging whatever activity you’re describing so that it doesn’t sound unethical or immoral or just plain bad.

Anyway, good on my acquaintance for walking away but not so good on her for allowing herself to be hoodwinked into being a ‘partner’ and not a wife.

Jenny Harrison

New book: Out of Poland: when the best revenge is to have survived

Other books available on my website:

www.jennyharrison-author.com

 

Musings on Travel and Writing from Pam Laird

I’ve just been reading if your storyline is stuck, go and sweep the kitchen floor but I’ve gone one better, (at least more pleasurable) I’ve watered, fed and dead-headed all the indoor pot plants. And it’s given me an idea.

Has anyone noticed when travelling, say overseas or even when in one’s own country, that your reading choices change?

On a local break do you now flip through magazines or short stories because they’re easier to digest? In the stress of shortened time frames between moving on or going for a picnic, or moving from the all-purpose studio bach to some peace under a tree, is it easier to just flip through the local newspaper?

What if you’re a writer? Do you make copious notes to use in a future novel? Maybe you make special observations when you pass through a more down and out area on an island or in the ‘we don’t do tourist area’ of a port you’ve never been to before.

In other words, does travel for whatever reason change your thinking in a way that alters your writing vocabulary or enthusiasm or even your interest in the process?

Maybe you’ve been ill, or even disturbingly ill, obviously if you’re in hospital the constant comings and going are disturbing, so we’ll take that as a given and you can neither read nor write. But assuming you’re at home and not in pain, does the time you now have in your lap, change your thinking and consequently your writing?

What about choosing books when you’re laid up? Do you make different choices from say, crime or travel to light romance or humour? Or maybe the other way around? Maybe you prefer something more practical when one day you’ll be back on your feet and into such interests as ‘how to build a tree-house’ or a new gardening plan.

Or is it possible, in these circumstances of travel or health, the genre makes no difference at all. That nothing changes. As one travel greeting card once pronounced, ‘Wherever in the world you end up, there you are.’

Pam Laird

The challenges of writing non-fiction - Jenny Harrison

I’ve just finished writing what has proved to be the most fraught book I’ve ever tackled. It was the story of a Jewish family living in Poland at the time of the Holocaust. Not only was the subject painful to research but the surviving family members were quite naturally sensitive to anything that impinged on their long-held beliefs.

I didn’t know when I started that my research would throw up such challenges. As I progressed, sometimes naively enthusiastic, I think the family began to feel threatened. They were often reluctant to accept my findings and, at one stage, they pulled out of the project completely. I could use the story, they said, but I had to change the names so they would not be identified with what I had discovered. It wasn't what they had been told.

Changing names of those who died in a German death camp felt like a betrayal; a betrayal too far. With a deep sense of sorrow I changed the names as requested. Then the family read my research and the first draft of the book and there was a change in the climate. ‘Your research is impressive and has integrity,’ they said. ‘You have found out stuff we never knew. We acknowledge your honesty and ask you to use our real names.’ So the names were changed. One son was not able to accept my work and asked for his name to be disguised, so another name change. A few weeks later he came back to me saying his siblings had reverted to their real names so he ought to as well. So, there was a further name change. I think there were five different name changes before the end.

I doubt they will ever totally accept my findings and that’s okay. I remember when I wrote another bio, The Lives of Alice Pothron, there was a constant rumbling ‘but that’s not what my mother told me’. Writing a book about family will constantly throw up arguments and contradictions. Memory is fallible, reputations easily damaged; time-cemented beliefs can crumble. You have to be adamant and rely on history, not family memories.

The book Out of Poland, when the best revenge is to have survived will be available in September 2016 from your local book store (you may have to ask them to order it) or from my website www.jennyharrison-author.com

Jenny Harrison

 

A Traveller's Thoughts from Evan Andrew

I am just getting back to a more normal lifestyle after my return from the UK, Europe, and Russia!

Wow, what surprise that turned out to be.

I was completely blown away, not only by the beauty of Saint Petersburg, (which I had seen hundreds of photos of,over the years ) but had failed to appreciate the magnificence until I saw it with my own eyes.

I was incredibly lucky to have had superb weather,in which to travel around and view everything, as well as a most informative Russian guide, an art & history lecturer at the university there.

I could relate many stories of his historical expertise, though his history seemed to end with the reign of Alexander II, and began again with Lenin, in 1920.

I should like to have explored  more of the country, and hopefully in the future I may. I certainly was surprised when I went out to Tsarskoe Selo, which was once the main district where the Emperor of Russia and all the Grand Dukes had their summer palaces, and the nobility their dachas by the sea.

Today, it is called Pushkin's village, and a statue in honour of the pet poet of Saint Petersburg graces the public gardens, and the guides are full of his exploits before his untimely death.

It caused me to think about all the Russian writers I knew of and read in my youth. Nikolai Gogol, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Anton Chekov, Alexander Herzen, and of course Alexander Pushkin.

Tolstoy was always my favourite. War and Peace, Anna Karenina; books I continue to re-read to this day.

I don't remember seeing any of the female Russian writers having their work translated into English. Elena Aprelva, Anna Barina, Anna Dostoyevskaya, Karolina Pavlova, Sophia Tolstoya, Zinaida Volkonskoya, are just some of that band of sisters.

I am sure their work is available, and it would be interesting to read, and see it they have that same slightly mystical, and often depressing theme, between laughter and tears, that is so typical of a lot of their male counterparts.

I am contemplating a book set in Imperial Russia, and hopefully one that will catch the unusual ambience of a country and its people that's not really European, any more than it is Asian.

Ah well, now all I have to do is try and find the time to write!

Spring, my favourite time of the year is just around the corner, and like all the new growth and birth at this time of the year, I feel a story coming on.

 

Watch this space!!!

 

Evan G Andrew

 

Jean Allen is 'Lifted by Words'

Sound/speech/silence – what we hear; what we say; what we think … the sounds of the earth, the sea and sky. Language lifts man or destroys him. In periods or stages of my writing years my soul goes through playing with words, with ideas.

Last week we took ourselves to Parakai where the mineral waters are harnessed for spas. I have been taking ‘time out’ at Parakai since my mother introduced me to those healing water in my teenage years. As a young man my father had laboured on the laying of the Council mineral pool foundations. I returned once, in my early twenties to stay at the old hotel, where we ran the water for our own baths. Over the years Parakai and the hugeness of the Kaipara harbour, where Dad plied his launch and barge carting business, the high clear skies and the huge harbour waters have called me. These river/harbour places between Dargaville and Helensville are my waterway roots, my birth, my whakapapa.

Nowadays I live across country, on the east coast. It takes me forty minutes of easy driving through farmlands and small settlements to reach Helensville … another four or five to Parakai … and about another twenty-five minutes to Shelly Beach, my other favourite place.

 

from

glass city

to

country grass

is

thirty

minutes

spring grows

in

punga groves

in

peace paddocks

under

August

Skies

 

This is Jean  ‘Angel’ Allen tired of the rain but loving the lambs in this New Zealand spring weather.

Pam Laird Finds How Things Can Happen When You Write

Recently an editorial in a well-known English publication dedicated a whole page to the magnificent war effort put forward by the Commonwealth countries towards Britain. 


Mention was made of the gratitude and appreciation of the British people. All about Canada, Australia and South Africa, but not one mention of New Zealand.


Having loaded myself with all the relevant war-time Google facts on New Zealand’s highly commendable contribution, I fired off an indignant, (and I hope, respectful) letter in response.

In due course this was acknowledged by the editor’s secretary per email, and a suggestion made that my letter could be published in the next issue. It was, but only half of it. The half mentioning the percentage of NZ serving men sent overseas, Sir Keith Park’s contribution in the Battle of Britain and various other facts and figures, were not.


However, here is the really interesting and ‘fun’ part. As a result of the publication of my ‘fact limited’ letter being published, I received an indignant email from an English resident. He said he felt ashamed of the omission of any mention of NZ in the original editorial. In his email he recognised not only our contribution to the war in terms of personnel, food parcels etc, but also mentioned his admiration of the NZ serving men and women at that time.


As it happens, he and his wife were already booked to spend a holiday in New Zealand this coming summer and I have arranged to meet at this time. New friends coming up?
We continue with regular emails that, in view of Brexit, are both interesting and entertaining, containing as they do, some fascinating comments of one man’s attitude towards the huge hurdles the UK now faces. Our son in the UK has taken the opposing view so their comments are enlightening, amusing and horribly confusing.


The moral of my story is…never be afraid to voice your opinion on published matter that veers widely from your own view of known reality and the facts. You never know what might come from such a discussion. After all, writing is a tool.

 

Pam Laird