EditingWorkshop

Editing is thrilling. It’s also misunderstood by many writers. You’ve heard the expression that writing is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration, but most people think that the perspiration goes into writing the first draft. The space between the first draft and the best version of your writing is where the work happens, and I want to explore that space with you during this workshop with Regina Public Library and Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild.

Learn to find your voice, your story, and your best work in this session where we’ll dive deep into the mysteries of editing. This workshop is geared to adult writers who write anything at any level. It’ll help you understand this crucial part of the writing process, both on a technical level, but also as part of the big picture of the creation of written work. With exercises, time for questions, and teaching time, take this class and dramatically improve that misty middle ground between your initial idea and your polished work.

Link here: https://lnkd.in/dbrysVBi

Since I was a very little girl, I’ve been telling and writing stories, but it was when I was about eleven that I wrote something that really mattered to me. I was sitting in class, my teacher at the front. He shook his long hair, turned to us, and said, “You’re all going to write a novel.” I dived so deeply into the telling of that story that nothing else existed. There I was, embedded in words and language, moving around characters, shaping their destinies, and falling in love with that feeling. My novel was thirty full pages, and I was so thrilled with it and the feelings the book had created in me, that I knew I wanted to write again.

I didn’t know then that what I was experiencing was called Flow. Years later, when I was studying Psychology at University, I heard of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He’s known as the father of Flow theory, but at the time I didn’t care about that. I just cared about going out, and having fun, reading books, writing my never-to-be-published first novel, and going to every play, art gallery, and club that Manchester had.

Flash forward twenty years, and I’m living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, reading a lot about Flow all over again. I’m discovering that what I love about writing is the fact that I’m utterly and completely in Flow when I’m doing it. All of us have something that makes us feel like that–maybe it’s writing for you, maybe it’s hockey, or coding, or cooking, or painting, or something else entirely.

The piece I missed when I was (barely showing up) in my classes during my degree, was that there are ways to get into a Flow state that you can create in your own life. I’ll be writing more about this in the next few weeks, but the first way to get more Flow happening in your life (I’m learning, now, finally), is to make sure you have a purpose.

It sounds like a grand word, but I think as writers we often forget this part. We forget that we need to have something to say. We’re not writing simply because we love that feeling of words appearing on the page, or because we love moving them around and creating, we’re also writing because we’re exploring the world and deepening the conversation and the connection we have with other people. We write to feel Flow, yes, but in order to keep feeling Flow, we need to be saying something that matters.

So, the questions I’m asking myself are big ones. What am I trying to say in everything I write? What am I saying in the books I’m working on? Why am I saying it? What conversations do I want to open up in my future and in the futures of those who read what I write?

If you’re a writer, too, I encourage you to ask yourself the same questions. As you ask, think about where your passion ignites. There will be a light inside you, a flickering spark that brightens when you’re being true to what most excites you in your work. Steven Kotler, who has some terrific books about Flow, suggests that you start to create more flow in your life by creating a recipe for yourself of all the things you’re passionate about. What interests you and why? And then, as I’ve been doing, think about how you’re exploring these passions in your writing. (Or whatever work you’re doing). That’s where you find your purpose, in the intersection of your passions and the impact you want to have on the world.

I’ve been looking at my list of interests and then looking at the things I’m doing in my life, the stories I’m telling, the books I’m working on, the work I’m being offered, the work I want to pursue. It’s helping me as I figure out what doesn’t belong, much as I loved writing that page, say.

Overall, what I’m learning is that Flow is essential to my writing process. I’m finding out, twenty years after I first heard of Flow, thirty-two years after I first experienced it, how Flow helps me write better, and how important it is to maintain that state by knowing what I’m saying and why.

I welcome you on the journey to help you figure out your stories and passions, as I figure out mine. Ask me questions, tell me what you’re working on, or what you’re reading… let’s start the conversation together.

xoxox

Alice

@alicekuipersbookclub

#TDBookweek is an amazing opportunity for writers for children to tour a province that they don’t live in. I started my first TDBookweek tour at the weekend. On Sunday, after a beautiful day of driving, I spent the night in Port Hardy, in Vancouver Island. It was a beautiful night and I watched a rainbow over the marina as I read through my presentations for the following morning. I arrived at Gwa’sala-‘Nakwaxda’xw School early for my morning presentation. The school is on the Tsulquate Reserve. This is one of the few times I have been on a Reserve in Canada and I was reminded of our tragic and complicated history as settlers. I was toured through the school by the lovely Jackie Hunt, who talked me through the tragic past of the Reserve, and showed me the amazing steps the community continues to take to overcome and reconcile with the past. It was a deep learning moment for me. The first class of Grade 2 and 3s were engaged and actively listening, asking questions and then storyboarding with me during our time together. One of the students, kindly shared his storyboard for me to share with you. I talked about the experience of how Polly Diamond and the Magic Book was created, from inception to illustration, bringing alive the book and the process for these young writers. This was followed by a session with the Grade 6/7s where I talked about my book of non-fiction, about the life of Toronto teenager, Carley Allison, due out next year, to illuminate how a book comes to life, in keeping with the TDBookweek theme of bringing books to life.

I drove to Port McNeill where I found Cheeselakes Elementary School, despite the GPS leading me down a mining road. There I had another wonderful session with their two kindergarten classrooms who were terrific listeners as we talked about how Violet and Victor came to life, how the book was written, illustrated and born. Then I read to them from the book, took questions and heard all about the books these writers had written. After another drive of a couple of hours to get to Campbell River, I settled in with the presentations for tomorrow and a beautiful supper and view over the water.

Today, my second day of school visits, started with 150 kindergarten to Grade 3s at Penfield Elementary School, in Campbell River, who were so attentive and full of amazing questions as we talked about how they could share their best stories. I shared with them how a book was written and I must have answered twenty questions during pauses in my presentation, before hanging out with the Grade 3s to answer even more of their questions. Then I drove to Courtenay, where a group of eighty Grade 1-3s were equally full of questions and inspiration. My favourite comments of the day were: I am going to go home and write a book now. And, I have an ingrown toenail. I spend the night tonight in Courtenay, before returning to the same school as today–Arden Elementary, to meet with the rest of their Grade 2s and 3s. And then I’ll drive to Royston Elementary, before a longer drive to Parksville where I go to two more schools. As I drive, I’ve been listening to The Moth–it is such an pleasure for me not only to talk about my books with such excited kids, but also to listen to such extraordinary storytelling as I drive without the screaming interruptions of my four children. It gives me time to dream and think about stories and to, perhaps, come up with something new to work on once I get home.