Seana Moorhead – Page 8 – Ascribe Writers

Polishing your story to a shine: hiring an editor

July 4, 2016July 3, 2016 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

I decided to hire an editor for my story, The White Witch. This is my book I’ve been obsessed with writing and rewriting for many years. I’ve had friends read earlier drafts giving me wonderful feedback and comments. I’ve done many, many edits. I felt I had arrived at a destination where the story was done but not complete; kind of like finishing a dinner but wanting to stick around for dessert and coffee. And I wanted a professional.

After all, I have devoted thousands of hours to this book. It deserved the best.

I did my research. How to hire an editor? I first had to decide what kind of editing I wanted. Did I want a broad view such as a manuscript evaluation to provide comments on story structure, character development, pacing, consistent POV, dialogue and description? Or a line by line substantive edit to help fix my grammar and sentence structure? Sometimes there’s a combination of the two or a third option of a final copy edit.

I decided upon a manuscript evaluation rationalizing that if there were major story structure flaws or characters to fix, I might end up re-writing several scenes so no point in nitpicking my verb tenses (yet).

A Writer’s Dream

May 1, 2016May 1, 2016 Seana Moorhead 1 Comment

And What Happens When You Find Yourself Without Time to Write.

Beware! Your Dream Self may have Plans of Her Own.

This is based on a true story (more or less).

While sleeping Friday night…

I’m enjoying a fantastic ride along a vivid dreamscape. My dream self, with my dream sisters, impulsively decide to charter an enormous cargo boat to cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. Excitement runs high and they dance along the decks, giggling and high fiving each other as the boat cruises through the water.

The Captain, a wire thin man with a hunched shoulder, occasionally removes his eyeball to nibble on the backside, like a nervous habit whenever he’s stressed. After, he slips eyeball back into the socket with a sucking sound, chewed end towards his skull so no one can notice. There’s a First Mate, but he’s sly and mute fellow, never quite seen clearly, like a shadow. The only other person on board is The Engineer, who drives the boat like he’s drunk, often getting it stuck in shallows and taking the curves at high speed so he could bank the boat on its keel (I know, we’re technically in the ocean, but dreams tend bend reality). With all the twists and turns, he ends up getting them lost.

They come upon an unknown land. On the cliff banks, there’s a semi-deserted town, half in ruins. Children hide in doorways and cats lick their paws on cinderblocks. They discover a back laneway leading to two-story building that sells scraps of junk. The owner has a short beard, a kind voice and invites them to wander through his yard of wonders. As they trudge deeper into fray, it extends on and on like an unwinding skein of yarn.

This is when my dream self slips away from the others, on the excuse of looking for a bathroom. She enters a steel constructed building and in its depth, she discovers a windowless room. Inside, there’s a tub holding a sleeping baby. Like in the historical pictures of Inuit children, the child is bundled in layers of fur and circle the face giving the baby an owl like appearance. There’s a tiny toilet – which my dream self uses – slightly disturbing to me, but no, I didn’t pee in the bed. And where a counter and sink might be, instead is a desk with a flat screen computer.

Walking on the Edge of Chaos

March 7, 2016March 8, 2016 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

Charles Dickens walked at night, roaming the streets of London to work on plot lines.

Mark Twain paced.

J.K. Rowling stated: “Nothing like a nighttime stroll to give you ideas.”

Hemmingway also walked to think through his stories.

Is there a connection between walking and sparking creativity?

When you walk, you allow your conscious mind to access new ideas in the subconscious. For most of us, walking doesn’t take a lot of thought but does get our body moving and allows our mind to meander at the same time as our feet are wandering.

I recently listened to a radio program interviewing Eric Weiner about his new book, “The Geography of Genius”. Disclaimer: I haven’t read the book, but I was curious enough about his idea to read online reviews, on which I based the following. I gather that his thesis is something about geography – in his theory, urban centres – being important to producing works of genius. He claims that genius thrives in chaos: in terms of geography, that means, cities. Urban centres abound with chaos as anyone from Grey and Bruce Counties knows when we try to navigate Toronto traffic. He points to historical genius figures who lived in cities, such as Mozart’s Vienna, and the Greek philosophers in Athens.

From Ruby Slippers to Rings: Objects in Your Story

December 14, 2015December 15, 2015 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

Robert Ray, in his book “The Weekend Novelist Re-Writes the Novel”, provides the following tip: “Plant a sacred object on page one that recurs in Acts Two and Three. By the midpoint, that sacred object could be growing into a symbol. Symbols can make you famous. That sacred object, grown into a symbol, should make you proud. A happy writer.”

I know the importance of characters and setting in a story. But objects? What’s he talking about? With the lure of “famous, proud and happy” on the hook, I decided to find out.

New Beginnings

October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

It’s autumn, a season that feels like a new beginning to me. For some, it’s a new school, teachers and new friends to meet. For others, it’s the end of summer and the start of another fall and into winter, ending the hot days and beginning the cold evenings.

Earlier in the spring of this year, my parents filled my car with boxes of my old school notes. In total, 11 cardboard boxes. The boxes had been stored perfectly for years in their basement; it’s a testimony to their cellar that the paper was dry and crisp – not a spot of mould on them. They contained every note, project, essay and story that I wrote from grade 6 to grade 13.

I do not have a basement (yet, again – see my previous blog) so the boxes resided in my hallway. They sat for months there because frankly, I was too scared to open them. But the other week with summer gone and in the midst of a new season, I decided to deal with my past and not have it clutter the hallway, like piles of dirty dishes on the counter. Plus it’s difficult to negotiate to the laundry room with my boxes.

Climbing the Novel Mountain

July 13, 2015October 9, 2015 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

I once asked a mountaineer if climbing a mountain was difficult. He said both yes and no. To climb a mountain, you only need to put one foot in front of the other and do that over and over again. Maybe a million times or more and that’s easy. What’s hard is to do that all day and sometimes, all night. To do that when you’re exhausted and you just want to sleep; to do that when your leg muscles are aching and your feet hurt; to do that when the wind and snow pound at your face and you dream of being home in your warm bed; to do that when the air gets thin and your lungs long for more oxygen. That’s when it gets hard but it’s still just about one foot in front of the next.

The Power of Words

May 4, 2015October 8, 2015 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Success consists of going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.

– Churchill.

I attended a workshop on Friday this past week on how to give great presentations. While I listened to the speaker, I realized how much of his advice would apply to writing. I want to share 5 insights. Here they are:

Belief

To have belief, you need to have confidence. You need to have passion.

At the workshop, we had to walk around and introduce ourselves to at least 5 people as an extraordinary speaker. Sounds corny. But try it now.

You are an extraordinary writer. Say it out loud.

Okay, I know you cheated and you said it silently in your head. Say it out loud. Say it again. And again and this time louder, that is, above a whisper and like you really might believe it.

I am Seana Moorhead and I have written an extraordinary and world class fantasy book for young adults.

You want to read it now, don’t you?

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” – Churchill

2 Buckets A Day

February 16, 2015October 8, 2015 Seana Moorhead Leave a comment

buckets Elmer Meeker was obsessed with basements. When Elmer visited my previous house in Owen Sound, he insisted on checking out the basement. He had to enter through a trapdoor in the hall closet which descended to a four foot high dirt canal that ran around the perimeter under the house. The rest of the “basement” wasn’t dug out more than about 1 foot deep.

“You know,” he said with his head sticking out the trap door, “if you do 2 buckets a day, you could have a full basement in about one year’s time.” He would even supply the buckets. He had some spares in his basement, which he had hand dug out over a two year period, 2 buckets a day.

After one year and no buckets done, I stared at that trap door. If only I had done it, I would have a basement. Instead, I had a spider-infested hole. After two years, I thought: if only I had done just 1 bucket a day, I would now have a basement. But I did nothing because I was busy with every day life. After eight years, I sold the house and upon walking around it one final time, I thought: I probably could have dug that basement doing only 2 cups a day.

Writing a novel can be like hand digging out a basement. At the start, it’s a daunting task. Maybe all you have is a few characters and a rough idea for a plot but there’s so much missing. We all make excuses about why we can’t get it done. I’ve told myself for years that I just can’t find enough time during the work week to write.

Author: Seana Moorhead