ERIKA WESTMAN AWARD-WINNING EDITOR
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Videos
  • Services
    • Services
    • About
    • Work Flow
    • Rates
  • Testimonials
  • Contact

Read it out loud

5/29/2018

0 Comments

 
The life of a writer is quiet. If only thoughts made noise. The streams that go through a writer’s mind would work up into a torrent. Rivers, tides, waterfalls, a bursting aquifer. 

As a writer works out what to put down on paper—which word, which character, which fact, which heading—the thoughts often move along many simultaneous paths. Connected ideas and tangents flow as the writer labours—the chronology of unfolding events, the tension of the story’s main conflict, the relationships between characters, dialogue and scenes, descriptions of setting, the climax, the ending, and all the paths that must be travelled to take readers to a satisfying conclusion. Almost all of this work takes place in silence.

Naturally it’s difficult to get into the flow of writing when surrounded by noise and interruptions, so writers tend to work alone where it’s quiet. But I’ve been trying something different lately, as I edit, and it’s based on an idea I got from A.L. Kennedy’s book On Writing.

Read More
0 Comments

    Erika Westman

    Erika is an award-winning freelance editor who works with novelists, non-fiction writers, and academics.

    Archives

    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    January 2019
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

    Erika's Bookshelf (recently read)

    The Shipwreck
    As If a Raven
    The Grey Islands
    My Ántonia
    In Case I Go
    Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination
    The Back of the Turtle
    Under the Sea Wind
    On Writing
    Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise
    The Elders Are Watching
    On Writing
    A Writer's Guide to Persistence: How to Create a Lasting and Productive Writing Practice
    Flaubert's Parrot
    Animal Farm
    Songs of the Humpback Whale
    Benito Cereno
    Ravensong - A Novel
    Invisible North: The Search For Answers on a Troubled Reserve
    Life Among the Qallunaat


    Erika's favorite books »
Contact
erika@erikawestman.ca  
+1-647-879-3348
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
    • Videos
  • Services
    • Services
    • About
    • Work Flow
    • Rates
  • Testimonials
  • Contact