Editing...

For many of you still involved in academic life, you may find this unbelievable. I like to edit. I actually enjoy it. When I was teaching, I would observe the horror on my students' faces as they received an essay back with RED MARKS everywhere. The blood on their pages blurred and smeared before their eyes into one HUGE "Oh-my-god-you-hated-it-didn't-you?" look as they gazed back up into my face. In fact, I loved it enough to want to make it better. Later, long after graduation, I had students return to their old teacher, me, and thank me for the time I had spent in reading and marking their work. (Thank YOU, Michael Glaser and Betty O and Michael Ouelllette, my English professors at St. Mary's College!)

Now that I find myself on the receiving end of red ink once more, I understand the need for it, and in fact, I respect the "love" that goes into someone's efforts to get through my prose and make constructive criticism for improvement. Writing is a solitary life validated when another writer or editor or publisher or agent cares enough to give you feedback about your work. For that matter, I am invigorated when a reader, someone who loves books and reading, gives me feedback. After all, it is the reader I will be seeking for approval when my novel is finally finished, so I'd best pay attention to what she likes!

I have been blessed this week to receive criticism from BOTH camps, a writer/publisher and a reader have read the beginning of my story and given me suggestions for making my manuscript better. The different perspectives of these people have led me to look at the manuscript with fresh eyes and do some word-smithing and editing. The result is better writing.

Thank you, Rhoda Trooboff and Tenley Circle Press! Thank you Emily Chewning!!

And now to my weekly poem...

The Third Week of January... And I am BEHIND!

Well, here it is only three weeks into the New Year, and I am BEHIND in my writing! My usual Monday entry has become a Wednesday entry this week! Such is the stuff of New Year's Resolutions, I guess. I will not berate myself too much though. My lateness is partly due to an absent "web master." Ray is traveling this week after having installed our new computer in the office. Even after an entire day of retrieving documents and re-installing programs, he has more work to do to get our operation fully functional again. When he returns tonight, we will look to "fixing" the glitches that have kept me from my work... I'm sure that they are mostly MY lack of understanding and NOT the machine's "fault."

With the technical challenges have come opportunities for exploring other writing pursuits... writing real letters, for instance. I had forgotten what pleasure that can bring. It is too bad that penning a personal note to someone you care about has become "old fashioned" and rarely done today. I can't quite think that pouring through emails to re-construct a person's life will be nearly so rich and full as reading the letters of people in the past.

One of my favorite kinds of books is the presentation of letters, sometimes of famous people; such as N.C. Wyeth in the Gambit publication of the painter's letters which were written from 1901-1945, compiled by his daughter-in-law Betsy James Wyeth in 1971, and presented as "a personal document of unusual richness - one that traced the author's evolution from an exuberant, naive student of drawing to an artist able to give eloquent expression to a maturing perception of his own nature, and that of the world around him." Indeed, the letters are remarkable reading and so very penetrating in their honesty. I learned the depth of his character and talent through those letters. I doubt seriously if that will ever be said of this BLOG!

I am happily looking forward to reading a more recent publication of letters, this time intimately entwined with a story of fiction. My friend and fellow writer Rhoda Trooboff sent me a book that she found wonderful. It is Natalie Wexler's A More Obedient Wife, A Novel of the Early Supreme Court. In it, Ms. Wexler, once associate editor of a multi-volume documentary history of the US Supreme Court in its first decade, the 1790's, presents a tale based on actual letters about two early Justices and their wives . Through those letters, the author supposes what their lives were, and with imagination she blends fact and fiction to tell the story of the two Hannahs, one married to Court Justice James Iredell and the other married to Justice James Wilson. My favorite genre! Historical Fiction.


Along with letter reading and writing, I have turned to some editing tasks this week on my stories about B&O, Monument Avenue Girls. After having read some lovely children's chapter books this week, I felt inspired to work on mine. It is still a bit staid and not nearly as delightful as the real dogs. I need to do better by their sweet and wonderful characters. I still struggle with giving voice to my animal characters, but I seem determined to use animals as central "persons" in my plots. I guess I come by it naturally as my brother Clinton, too, seemed far more enamored of dogs, cats, frogs, and even rats (!) than people!

Speaking of rats, I must get to my manuscript. I haven't given up on my self-designed deadline of the end of the month for finishing the first draft... to work!

Ellen Gaines

Returning to Work

The echo of New Year's Eve is fading as we returned this past week to our schedule of work. Ray bundled up and headed to the office after more than a week off, and I added another layer against the chill of our old house and padded up the stairs to my writing nook. The first week of 2008 turned bitter cold in our usually temperate spot here in Richmond. It felt invigorating and appropriate for this writer, whose fictional setting in her current project is New England in the year 1846, when it was purported to be one of the coldest and snowiest winters in memory. Thoreau's friend, the poet Ellery Channing became lost in his Estabrook Woods as he was heading home one night by foot in a blizzard. Fortunately, he eventually found his way and lived to tell the tale!

Characteristic of our topsy-turvy climate, today it is suppose to reach 70 degrees! It is Monday, the 7th of January! I guess I will peel off that extra layer.

A great accomplishment this past week was the completion of my website. My "Web Master" Ray did a splendid job and will continue helping me maintain a current site. It is exciting to see the work I have been doing chronicled and made official. Hopefully, the website and this blog will prove stimulating on the creative front and, perhaps, even prove beneficial on the marketing end of things. I hope to get more commissions for personalized stories that I write and keep moving forward with the other projects in children's books and young adult fiction.

This new phase in my life is exciting. I am inspired by the many friends, women mostly, who have preceded me into "retirement" only to re-define themselves and do great things. From the teacher/scholars I once worked with, I now know political activists, writers and publishers, gourmet chefs, and entrepreneurs in business, as well as valued members on Boards that rely on their expertise and wisdom.

Often, too, with all this creative energy and fulfilling work come added responsibilities with caring for elderly parents, on the one hand, and welcoming grandchildren into their lives, on the other! I am amazed at the accumulated productivity of all these women I know.

With that thought, I close... and get to work!