 Action/Adventure: January 18, 2006 Issue [#829] |
  Action/Adventure
This week: Edited by: Puditat  
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Life without action is static, and by necessity, it would therefore be dead. Action writing takes the normal and shares it for all to live vicriously.
Adventure is the spice: the exciting, adrenalin-pumping, thrill that makes one feel so alive. Everyone has an adventuresome spirit. Maybe dreams of excavating some long-lost treasure, visiting a new country, or trying a new flavour of potato chip.  Some of us prefer our adventures to come between the pages of a book, and many of us like to write that adventure. |
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** Quartz ... or ... Diamond? **
When I write, it is a flow of words that arrive naturally into my head, and those are the ones that make it to the page, initially. I suspect we are all like that mainly. Sometimes there comes the hesitation when we seek exactly the right word to express what we want the story to say, but often it is a flow, and the word amendments come on the read-back.
This is a natural and good part of the writing process. Editing is viewed by many, including myself, as somewhat of a necessary trial. But maybe I've got it all wrong, or at least, that's what I am going to tell myself!
Editing allows us to make our stories snap to attention, grab the reader by their eyeballs and send them down a chute of slippery slime to land on the hot coals at the bottom. The editing process is our refinement time. A diamond can look as nothing in the natural, raw state. A piece of common, though pretty, quartz can look more pleasing.
To remove diamonds from rock, rubble is passed over grease tables, and the diamonds stick to the grease while everything else falls off the end of the belt. Now, this doesn't sound a very glamourous part of the process does it? Editing can seem like that. Getting bogged down in a gooey mess, that seems to spread and get muckier the more you play with it. Or sometimes you manage to clear the goo away and shine a spot - that's when the editing begins to come into its own.
We need to fight through the goo, just as the diamonds pass through it.
But the diamond continues on its journey - being scraped from the grease, cleaned and collected. Then they are picked over and graded - some for industrial use - cutting blades, saws or the like. Others may find themselves on the 'sold as chips' table - not suitable for jewellery but a nice specimen for a rock collection or museum display perhaps - often flawed or with inclusions (pieces of other material trapped within the diamond). Then there are the most treasured...the ones destined to be honed. They are examined minutely then chipped, cut, sliced, faceted, and finally polished.
A diamond does not come out of a hole in the ground ready to be worn on your neck, finger or earlobe. And our stories usually do not come out ready to be sold on the best-seller list. It depends on the raw product how much 'tinkering' is needed, just like a diamond.
Some may need to be broken into fragments and each fragment used to make a new item or items. Others may need just a 'spit and polish'.
But each thing we write must pass through this process. Take your diamonds, and shine them for the world. It could make the difference between a common affordable quartz stone and a priceless piece of art!
Take your stories on an adventure - editing is an active process!
Warmly,
Puditat
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Great advice Pudi, thanks for sharing
WD
billwilcox
 You're welcome, and thank you!
Just have a simple question...how did you become a writer for the newsletter?
strider7901
The official site newsletter editorials within Writing.com are reserved for Moderators+, though from time to time a guest editorial spot will be given at an Editor's discretion.
Editors trawl through many items looking for pieces to feature. Submitting an item to the feedback section of a newsletter is one way to bring more notice to your work, but does not guarantee that it will be used in any issue. Just keep submitting and keep writing. Good luck! |
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