personal babble

Nanowrimo: This feels different

Published on by Sara Norja

It’s really weird not to be writing a feverish 50K this November. But I still think it’s a good decision to forgo a new zero draft this year – there’s so much work to do with Dim Vanities. Also, I’ve had a bit of a cold and am insanely tired, so yeah. Being merciful to myself and setting lower goals is a good thing. From previous years, I know I can do Nanowrimo ‘properly’ even when stressed out; so I don’t have anything to prove to myself in that sense.

So, what have I been doing, then? Well, during the weekend I worked on my story goals, organised my notes, and made a couple of spreadsheets to track my editing progress and my chapter outlines. I also started out simply going through the first draft, making comments and highlighting terrible words/sentences. I’ve done 8 chapters out of 31. The going is slow – editing is way slower than actual writing. But I’m trudging along, at least, despite my lingering cold and aching neck.

I’ve read a lot of advice on how to edit a novel, but I think it’s one of those things you learn best by just doing it. I have no idea if Dim Vanities will ever be good enough to even consider sending out somewhere, but in the meantime, this is an excellent exercise. I’m experimenting, finding out techniques that work for me.

Who knows, this might even become a coherent, not-totally-plot-holey novel when I’m done.

Interfictions #2 is out! Including my most personal piece so far…

Published on by Sara Norja

This wasn’t intended to be a two-post day, but I just checked the Interfictions webpage and noticed that Issue #2 is up!

Thus, I am extremely proud and happy to say that you can now read my piece ‘Orthography: A Personal History’ here.

You can also listen to me read it – God, it was terrifying to do a reading of this poem, but I managed it, and hopefully did not entirely mangle the piece.

Why was it terrifying? Well, even submitting the whole piece in the first place was terrifying. As I mentioned in this post, it’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted and had accepted so far. To have it online now is both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

What the hell, I’ll just quote myself:

‘Orthography: A Personal History’ is a mixture of things. It consists of poetic prose and verse “lectures”. It deals with palaeography, orthography, multilingualism, language history, and (surprise!) my personal history.

It’s the most personal piece I’ve submitted so far, delving into my childhood history through writing and my relationship with my two languages, Finnish and English. Fictionalised, of course, but still: me, my deepest self. It’s scary and exhilarating to think that other people will read such a thing.

The fictional cover is so much thinner in this piece than in most of my others. Did I mention this is terrifying? But that’s part of what writing is about: having the guts to put your soul out there for others to see.

So, dear readers. Go forth and read a piece of my soul.

(And read the rest of the issue too! It looks amazing. I am in love with this magazine.)

Stimuli

Published on by Sara Norja

Today I wrote a poem for the first time since mid-September. It was inspired by the manuscripts & codicology course that I’m on right now: two days of getting back into the groove of manuscript studies. I’m so glad I was allowed leave from work. History is a precious thing and being around medieval stuff makes me feel awed and curious. I really need to get into academia – studying manuscripts just makes me so happy.

Also, when my brain gets new stimuli instead of being bogged down in too little sleep and the same old routines, words start stirring again. I hate it when I’m too busy/stressed out to write poetry, so this tiny eight-line poem feels like a promise that I won’t be too high-strung and sleep-deprived forever.

Speaking of sleep-deprived, I think I need to get to bed. It’s always so damn late. Have I mentioned I hate being a night owl in an early-bird world?

Knights and snails

Published on by Sara Norja

I had a glass of white wine with my dinner (mushroom burger, very tasty), and I feel ridiculously fuzzy now. I’m going to post nonetheless, dammit, because I’ve been meaning to ever since I came across this link in my RSS reader:

Knight v Snail, from the British Library medieval manuscripts blog. I think this quote from the post sums it all up:

one of our post-medieval colleagues noticed a painting of a knight engaging in combat with a snail. […] This struck him as odd, which struck the medievalists in the group as odd; surely everyone has seen this sort of thing before, right?

That, my friends, is medieval marginal art for ya. Knights versus snails is only a part of the awesomely weird shit going on in the borders of Serious Medieval Works. (See Got Medieval’s post on knights and snails, and check out his marginalia category for some amazing entertainment.)

Anyway, what does all this manuscript geekery have to do with writing? Currently, this: one of the stories I’m currently working on is inspired by medieval knight-v-snail marginalia. So, of course I had to link the BL blog post, since I think everyone should be educated on this intriguing phenomenon.

Sadly, I’ve been too busy and stressed out to work on the snail story for the past week or so – but this weekend will bring with it some free time for editing. Huzzah! I’d also like to get some poems submitted.

(I need to get back into the writing loop properly, but a chronic lack of sleep is gnawing at my energy resources rather too persistently to let writing happen. Thus, I will now finish off this blog post and go to bed early.)

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PS: If you haven’t donated to the Strange Horizons fund drive, there’s still five days to go! Help SH get another year of awesome stuff.

SH really is one of the most diverse I’ve come across – for instance, the current issue is an Indian/diaspora SF special! I haven’t had the chance to read the issue yet, but it looks really interesting.

Humbling experiences

Published on by Sara Norja

A wonderful thing: when you finish reading a poem intended to be funny, and the whole room bursts out into loud, genuine laughter.

At my writers’ group meeting today I read that poem I edited yesterday (it’s about a demon bus driver… in a way). It was intended to be a funny piece – but oh, the reaction was just so awesome! I always feel humbled if I see my writing actually affecting people. It’s magic – those people are laughing/crying/moved by something I wrote! Laughter is especially amazing to provoke, because I find it a challenge to write something laugh-out-loud funny. I think I’m a pretty funny person (EGO-STROKING ALERT), and I enjoy inserting subtle humour into things, but getting the full LOL reaction is much harder to achieve.

Making people feel with my writing is humbling and wonderful.

Of course, I like it when they cry, too. *evil grin*

‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ available online!

Published on by Sara Norja

Tonight, after my work day followed by two hours of volunteer work for a folk music organisation whose board I’m in, I’ve been doing poetry stuff. Submitted a few poems; edited a poem from February that I came across in my notebook; decided to read that and another short poem at tomorrow’s writers’ group meeting. This is one of the reasons I like writing my poems’ first drafts mainly by hand – by riffling through my notebook, I sometimes come across stuff I’ve totally forgotten but which is worth editing and sending off into the wide world.

In my poetry-related meanderings on the interwebs, I discovered that Issue 25 of Niteblade has got enough funding, so now the whole issue is free to read online. Read my poem ‘Bitter Mnemosyne’ in full here!

Also, I tinkered around with my publications page (with valuable input from a friend), trying to figure out ways to present the information logically and consistently. Yes, I really need to get back into academia…

Flash fiction is rewarding

Published on by Sara Norja

I went to check out a wonderful art installation by the Helsinki coast today, involving a huge collection of intriguing instruments made so that the wind played them. It was ethereal, gorgeous – wind-spirits singing!

As a result, I got inspired for a stuck-in-space sci-fi story. I wrote the first part on my mobile phone as I walked back through the chimes, bells, percussion and gentle booming played by the sea wind. The rest was written just now.

I may have mentioned that I usually have problems with writing short stuff, except when it comes to poetry. So, it’s pretty exceptional for me to find it so easy to write a story that’s less than 500 words. I feel rather pleased right now. Of course, it’s late again and my early-to-bed scenario looks like it’s failing – but hey! I wrote a complete flash fiction piece! Sleep is lovely, but writing is even better.

‘The Understanding’ out in Plunge Magazine

Published on by Sara Norja

My poem ‘The Understanding’ is online in the second issue of Plunge Magazine, a zine publishing “quality genre literature, poetry, and essays about queer women” (as declared on their About page).

Read ‘The Understanding’ here! It’s what I call a “secondary-world manuscript edition”. This one’s a translation/edition of a Middle Argental chassiolet, written by a woman for a woman, evidence of the Silopphic love experience in Middle Argental times.

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In case it hasn’t become obvious already, I like history. And manuscripts.

I wrote my MA thesis about three Middle English poems with the subject of servanthood, and have been excited about manuscript studies and palaeography since I did a course on the topic in 2009. I want to pursue a PhD on something medieval and manuscript-related. Suffice it to say, I think manuscripts and editing them are awesome things! And sometimes quite often actually, this love comes out in my creative writing too.

I’m interested in the mysterious spaces left in a text by erasures, water damage, spilt ink, nibbling mice, cat paws, and all the other damage that can leave its marks in a manuscript. The possibilities for conjecture and guesswork intrigue me – and whereas for scholarly purposes it’s frustrating to handle a manuscript with lots of missing bits, when it comes to creative writing, those empty spaces are inspiring.

Poetry sale: Through the Gate

Published on by Sara Norja

Today’s been a lovely Friday despite the tiredness (it has been incredibly difficult to get my night owl sleep rhythm adjusted to my 9-to-5 job after my holiday). Some of the loveliness:

My poem ‘Boat-husk’ will be published in the fourth issue of Through the Gate. I’m very happy about this! Through the Gate is such a beautiful magazine.

I had my writers’ group meeting today and read part of a story that I’ve been working on for the past couple of months, more intensely during the past couple of weeks. It’s part of the forest world that I think I’ve mentioned here – with this world, I’m attempting the initial worldbuilding process through shorter stories and poems. Incidentally, ‘Boat-husk’ is also an echo of the same world.

I’m really enjoying this kind of secondary world exploration. I hope all the stories I write for it don’t expand on me like this one, though – once more, I’m looking at a 10,000-word story rather than a 2,000-word one as per my original concept. Oooops.

What can I say? I’m a babbly person, and I like drawn-out character development and lush language. Mmm. Tasty, tasty words.

Strange Horizons poetry podcast

Published on by Sara Norja

My voice is now on the internet in the Strange Horizons poetry podcast for July: listen to the podcast here!

It is so weird to listen to myself doing a poetry reading. I like reading out loud,* but I haven’t ventured too much into actually performing my poetry. I’m fine with reading my own stuff out at my writers’ group, but anything more public, and the nerves start twanging. I’m glad I dared do this reading for the podcast, though!

* As a teenager, I read the Harry Potter books out loud to my youngest sister up till the fifth book or so. Lots of fun – I really liked doing all the different voices. My Dobby-voice was my wee sister’s favourite, because I aimed for hilariously high and squeaky. 😀