A Fascinating Story from Wattpad

If you check out the Subject Index Links in the left side-bar and click on “Wattpad” you’ll find this post and 25 more (perhaps more yet if you’re reading this post well after Dec. 2016…).

And, if you can’t find those Links (phones often cut off the side-bar) just click on that last link :-)

If you do take that link you’ll find posts about why I began using Wattpad, plus a number of interesting interviews with Wattpad authors, plus some of the benefits of exploring the Wattpad World…

Today I want to show how folks on Wattpad help each other.

 First there’s Mary L. Tabor who has 22 different works on Wattpad, has been there since March, 2014, and has this to say in her profile:

“Reader, author, professor, radio show host, columnist. Best advice I ever got? ‘Only connect …’ — E.M. Forster.

“This writer believes the process of writing is an ongoing, changing effort—a deeply human experience. We all have language and the ‘word’, as Emerson said, ‘if traced to its root, is found to be borrowed from some material appearance. “Right” means “straight”‘ he explains in Nature, Chapter IV, ‘Language.’

“Thus, we all own metaphor in our words.”

 Then, there’s KL Candela, who has 4 works on Wattpad, has been there since March 2016, and says in her profile:

“Endless gratitude to Mary L. Tabor who I met here on Wattpad and who then took me under her angel/professor wing for over a year, never asking for a thing in return, except for me to show up and work hard. During this time she taught me much about the craft of creative writing, while always being fast to remind me not to mess with that mysterious place of invention. (See, this is a good teacher.) This fabulous and whip smart woman taught me not only how to write better, she taught me how to read better, and believe me, I know well, because of her, how these two acts must go together if you want to create great writing. Please check out her award winning writing here on Wattpad.

And for me: Published:
Poetry in Launch Magazine; Short Story in Lake Effects 7 Anthology 2015, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON;

Shortlisted in the Glimmer Train Top 25 Short Fiction Contest 2015

That kind of interaction and instruction and friendship is happening all over Wattpad…

Of course, you can use Wattpad to only read, for free (on your phone, if you like…)…

You might also let the authors you read know what you think about their works…

You might try your hand at some original writing…

And, you might post writing you’ve already done…

The thing is, if you hang around long enough, you’ll find friendly, helpful people (from all over the

World) :-)
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Revision In Writing

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, books or essays, research papers or notes for a speech, revision is critical.

Image Courtesy of Herman Brinkman ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/hbrinkman

Even if your effort feels good and right and adequate, a revision could make it better.

Just like scraping ice off a window—revision takes things away to aid clear decisions.

And, even though revision usually also adds things after some removal, a writer will often not notice what needs adding without a bit of scraping-away…

Here’s a partial word history for “revision”—“from French révision, from Late Latin revisionem (nominative revisio) ‘a seeing again’,”

So, apparently, it’s not just taking away and adding words…

It’s seeing your writing again, from a new angle, with fresh eyes—ReVision…

There’s an article about all this on Glimmer Train, by Amina Gautier—Joy of Revision.

Just a few excerpts:

“…it is clear that the act of revising is not an act of editing, but an act of rethinking, an act of questioning. Revising is observing anew, understanding again, going back to see.”

“Revising encourages and liberates the writer to ‘make mistakes’. It rewards mistakes; each ‘mistake’ teaches one something about the story one is writing and gets one that much closer to the story one is meant to write.”

“Revision is the kick in the pants that propels the writer out of complacence, jars him from the euphoria that tends to come when he thinks he’s completed something.”

Naturally, I hope you’ll take the link and read the full article; but, let me add her four Key Points:

“Understand that a first draft is just that.”

“Do not be afraid to make a mess. Plan on it.”

“Don’t force yourself to revise and write at the same time (unless you want to).”

“Don’t mistake revising for editing.”

Each of those is more fully explained in the article…

And, my final thought:

Once you get into the spirit of ReVisioning, it truly can be Joyful :-)
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4 Gems from This Writer’s Bookmark Bin

I gather lots of bookmarks, from scanning the news and other sources; and, every so often, I package a few up and share them…

Image courtesy of miguel ugalde ~ http://www.freeimages.com/profile/ugaldew

Today, I’ll share about hanging out at a famous writer’s home, tips on keeping a writer’s notebook, a writing summer camp for youth, and asylum for persecuted writers.

>>> From KQED Arts is Stay at the Homes of Your Favorite Writers, Thanks to Airbnb:

Do you want to stay at the home of John Steinbeck? Aldous Huxley? James Joyce? Francisco de Quevedo? Miguel des Cervantes? Alexander Dumas? Or, Charles Dickens?

>>> From Glimmer Train is Using The Writer’s Notebook: A Practical Guide:

The Topic Headings are: Handwrite — Be recursive — Keep lists — Don’t be precious — Eavesdrop — Observe — Record — Analyze — Copy — Clip — Draft.

>>> From New Hampshire Public Radio is N.H. Summer Camp Devoted To ‘Writing Up The Mountains’:

Excerpt: “The 7 kids sit on rocks and logs, notebooks on knees. Maybe it’s the lack of real tables but the longer they write the more they fall toward their words until they’re so close it’s like they’re fixing their notebooks with the screwdrivers of their pens.”

>>> From Aljazeera America is In Pittsburgh, a refuge for endangered writers:

Excerpt: “City of Asylum founder Henry Reese was inspired to create the artist refuge in his hometown following a lecture in the late 1990s by writer Salman Rushdie, who had faced deaths threats for his work The Satanic Verses a decade earlier. ‘I respect those that stand up against authority to keep them open and honest’, says Reese.”

So…

Somewhere down the road, I’ll gather a few more gems from my bookmark bin and share………
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