Jul 10
21
The Oldest Person in the Room Review
When Did I Become the Oldest Person in the Room? A practical guide for writers who write about life … by Ed Swartley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The core of Ed Swartley’s message in When Did I Become the Oldest Person in the Room? is that writing is hard and not for the faint of heart. But if you really want to be a writer, then you need to practice your craft, read voraciously, and “love the chase for the perfect word.” Perhaps you’ll achieve immortality while you’re at it. Swartley says, “If you don’t love to write, give it up. It’s much too hard, much too taxing, the rewards much too elusive and fleeting.”
The book came about when Swartley discovered he wasn’t the youngest person in the room anymore and that he had valuable writing and life advice to share. The Oldest Person in the Room is geared mainly towards the aspiring writer, although more experienced writers may still benefit from his encouragment and wisdom.
This guide is hybrid of a practical English grammar guide with vignettes of Swartley’s life and philosophy. He references speeches, especially the speeches of Ronald Reagon, penned by Peggy Noonan, Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, and the Bible. You can tell that Swartley has fun writing about sentence length, slang, common word choice errors, adverbs (Living with Lee), puns, and idioms. He also includes a chapter on formatting, type-faces, white space that every writer should know. Keep this guide in a safe place when you feel overwhelmed by writers’ block. Open it up to let Swartley’s tough teacher talk entice you to “Just Do It!”
He mentions several times throughout the guide that writing is a solitary art and that one needs to take “I Breaks” to stay focused and fresh. He also mentions “Eye Breaks,” to help your posture and remind you of your daily water consumption.
I would have preferred to have encountered more of his practical writing advice (The Lessons) closer to the beginning of the book, with some of his examples of good writing in the middle or towards the end. I found myself nodding my head at many of his tips, especially his 10-point diagnostic check used at the revision stage, but I had seen all of these tips before. But even if his tips aren’t new, the way he approached them was. He delivered his message about clarity and eloquence thorugh historical anecdotes and personal charm. This guide is good refresher for veteran writers, but beginning writers will be the ones who will most benefit from his tips.
***
Ed Swartley is a veteran of 12 years in daily newspaper journalism and 20 years as a marketing executive in education, banking and printing. The former Business Editor of the Colorado Springs Sun, he currently is Editor of the monthly Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association DirectLine. He provides professional services as an editor and writing consultant at www.fixadocument.com
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Jul 10
10
Reimagine Poetry Book Review
Reimagine by Richard Lee Harris
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reimagine, Richard Lee “Dick” Harris’s debut culmination of poems is not just another full-length poetry book, it is a memoir of a well-lived life. Harris, a former teacher, psychologist and college administrator grew up in the Upper Skagit River Valley in northwest Washington State. Nature, family history, and travel inform his poems, as does the work of Gary Snyder, Robinson Jeffers, and Wendell Berry. Expect to find farmlife, rivers, prairies and snow in many of his selections.
Harris has written his entire life, but only came to poetry in the early 1990s (in his late 50s) through the Iowa Summer Writing Festival (Harris attended ten seasons of workshops between 1997-2008), Elderhostels, open mic events, and a weekly writing group he facilitated at Barnes & Noble. As a way to acknowledge his prose and teaching past, Harris offers his reader thorough end notes about each poem, as well as a biography that pinpoints his work in a time and place. I also appreciated at the end of every poem how he added the location and year the poem originated.
Reimagine is divided into four sections: “Places,” “Moments,” “Souls Now Departed” and “Voices.” One of the strongest poems that emerged from his “Places” section is “The Prairie Rolls On” about his grandmother revisting her former homestead site.
Grandma’s eyes livened, her countenance relaxed.
I saw the bride she was in September 1906.
I saw unfold in the afternoon haze,
the stories in her journal of
she and Grandpa claiming
this prairie as their home.
Harris uses simple, straight language to make meaning and to capture images, which is his strong suit.
In the “Moments” section, Harris corrals the image of a dead deer combining horror and empathy in “The Commute”:
During an early dawn commute
in the after-fog of a summer storm
north of Calgary
through a windshield blurred with road oil
I see tire skids in the gravel
plowing ruts in the brink of a ditch
and
a deer half-buried in turgid muck
belly up
neck twisted
one bulbous eye staring into cattails
I drive on
Death is a common theme in poetry as poets strive to be witnesses to those who have left us. Harris carries this torch as he devotes a section (“Souls Now Departed”) to those who have passed on. He is careful not to veer to the expected or the trite in most of this section, although the last lines of “February 3, 1959″ did not surprise me.
On a farm-to-market road beyond grain bins north of town,
memorial flowers are scattered.
Across a farmer’s field,
three records and a stainless guitar shimmers in the sun;
inscribed “Peggy Sue, Donna, Chantilly Lace,”
and “Buddy Richie, The Big Bopper, 2/3/59”
–a tribute to youthful fame
–an immortale claim.
Harris trusts his line and image in “The Pink Balloon,” about the funeral of an old friend where one of the released balloons lingers after the others float away.
All rose, except one,
drifting toward broken cumulus
gliding across an azure sky.
Hestitant, it hovered near the ground
unwilling to leave, to let go
Dick Harris is a lover of words and the consummate lifelong learner. He is an optimist and a beliver in the enduring power of the human spirit. Each of his poems in this collection is a glimpse into another life, country or time. To make his work even more immediate, I would have liked to have seen Harris turn some of his work into persona poems, since so much of his work involves the voices of others. I would have also liked to have more read poems about his own past of growing up in the midst of the Great Depression in a logging community.
This is a strong first collection and I can’t wait to experience more of Dick Harris’ quiet, yet powerful verse.
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If you’re serious about publication, you’ll need to hire an editor before you send your manuscript off to agents. I’m directing this post mainly to fiction writers who want to be traditionally published, but this information also applies to nonfiction or who are considering the self-published route.
You’ll get the best bang for your editing buck if you give your editor a manuscript that’s already revised, proofed and read by a few key readers. If you have plot questions, place them in a separate section so she can address them head-on. Don’t give your editor a dirty, unproofed manuscript unless you have agreed you need ghostwriting and/or developmental editing and that’s another post altogether. Always know that the more work your editor does on your manuscript, the more it will cost you.
Now on to why you should hire an editor:
A good editor will help you with…
- timelines so you don’t confuse your reader
- keeping your plot in focus so you don’t veer off
- ideas you didn’t think of before
- making your book reader-centered
Your editor will
- help you understand the writing process and its conventions
- show objectivity and won’t be afraid to offer gentle honesty if you get lazy with your writing
- give you accountability
- help you get published by giving you an agent-ready manuscript
- force you to examine your work and think about more possibilities. Are you using metaphors, does your work have a theme, what value does it provide the reader?
- ask the tough questions of your characters, especially if you have a habit of protecting them and not placing them in enough conflict or challenge
When you’re hunting for the right editor, look beyond their fancy website, Facebook Page and testimonials. Try to find someone through referrals and not through an ad. Find someone who has experience with editing fiction either freelance or with a publication house. Also see if you can find someone who teaches or who has previous teaching experience. Check out their publication credits. How many are fiction? Are these credits recent? Ask for references and check out their former clients. You may not receive all of your answers, but you will get a feel for this person before you invest your time and money.
Now you are ready to set up a phone conference and/or meet this person for the first time. Come prepared with questions and while you get to know your future editor, try to get a feel for their personality and work ethic. Is this someone you can trust? Do they seem to be reliable (you can check this if they respond well to phone calls or emails). When you are satisfied, ask for a contract and a deadline. Try to negotiate a flat fee if possible so you know exactly what you are paying. Ask to have your work edited in Word Track Changes so you can see exactly what you need to fix. After your editor completes your work ask for a follow-up meeting to answer any questions you have about their editing marks or their thought process.
When you find the right person to edit your work, you will see your writing grow. Try to keep this relationship for as long as possible. A good editor, like a good mechanic or hair stylist is hard to find and necessary to hold on to!
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