What Writing Has Taught Me About Learning To Speak Cayuga

Are you interested in learning a language? I am. Here’s the thing: the language I’m most interested in learning is not one you can go to another country and become immersed in. Since immersion is widely believed to be one of, if not the most, successful ways to learn a language this presents some interesting challenges to learning Cayuga. Though it may seem odd, writing—and everything I’ve learned about writing, is helping me to meet them.

Gayogo̲honoˀ (Cayuga) is one of the six languages of the Haudenosaunee People. It is a language that is Indigenous to Turtle Island. And because of the ongoing impacts of colonization and assimilation, it is also a critically endangered language. For example, there are less than a hundred first language Cayuga speakers in my community. Fortunately for us, there are also passionate and hard working people doing their best to vitalize the Cayuga language and they’ve inspired me to do everything I can to become a proficient speaker as well.

Still, despite this very great desire to learn, I didn’t start in earnest until after I had my daughter in May of 2014.  Over the last year I’ve taken classes, read books, listened to recordings and talked about my desire to learn. These things are all beneficial in their own way, but I’ve come to realize these activities alone will not make me a speaker. (At times, they’ve reminded me a little of when I used to talk about wanting to be a writer, without actually making a habit of writing). But what they’ve also done is help me to learn more words, gain more confidence and understand what I must do to become a better speaker-which for me, is just as valuable.

So what exactly do I mean when I say I want to be a better speaker? Well, the language programs in my community utilize the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines to help evaluate student speaking proficiency, the broad categories of which are: novice, intermediate, advanced, superior, and distinguished. There are also subcategories: low, mid and high. After much consideration, I decided that my long term speaking proficiency goal is Intermediate Low. Once I reach that goal, I will choose a new one. 

In September 2014, I took an informal OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) that placed me firmly in the novice low category. Clearly, I have a long way to go to reach my goal! But I have a plan. It includes classes, books, transcriptions, master-apprentice sessions, TPR, writing stories in Cayuga and much, much more. I’ll be blogging about these more in the future as a way to share resources with others who are learning Cayuga and also to keep me motivated.

So, I said that writing has helped me to become a better speaker. It’s true, and here's how. One of the simple rules of becoming a writer that everyone from Stephen King to Neil Gaiman to my wonderful Twitter friends has had to learn is this: to become a writer, you have to write. The same thing applies to learning a language. If you want to become a speaker, you have to speak. It’s literally that simple.

Don’t get me wrong. There are challenges. Huge challenges. Gigantic obstacles that can seem impossible to overcome. But guess what? You can overcome them.

When I first started writing my novel, it felt like an impossible task. I wanted it so badly but I couldn’t imagine how I would ever find the time to do it. But I did. I carved out a little bit of time every day and little by little, my story grew until my first draft was finished. Of course, there were good days and bad days. (Raise your hand if you’ve written five thousand words one day and only two hundred the next).

I’ve had good and bad days learning to speak, too. Thankfully, writing has already shown me that patience and perseverance can help you achieve things you didn’t think you could and that sometimes, you have to start small and go one word at a time. That’s perfectly okay. For writing and speaking. After all, every word you learn and then speak helps you to become a better speaker. And just as they do in writing: those words add up.

And you know what? It’s completely awesome when they do.

Nyo:ˀ dęjigyada:tgęˀ!

Odadrihonyanisoh

Have Fun with Edits

We all know that editing is necessary and while it’s highly unlikely that it will ever be completely pain free, over the last few weeks I couldn’t help but notice how much fun I'm having editing my novel. It made me want to look back over what I was doing that was turning an otherwise dreary task into the part of my day I looked forward to most. Here’s what I found:

I took the anxiety out of the process.

 

It’s inevitable. Some things are going to need to be cut. Saving the portions of writing that you cut in another document or renaming the document lets you preserve the previous draft and gives you a lot of freedom to experiment. Scared to cut something? You don’t have to be. It’s still safe. So chop away. It gets really fun to watch thing disappear and not have to agonize over letting it go. Plus you can always use it later in different ways if you really want to. Deleted scenes become bonus features on DVDs for a reason and deleted sentences might actually just work better in another part of the book or in a companion story. Branch out! Or replace lost text with something mind-blowing that ratchets up the tension and conflict.

I learned things that I can use to make my other stories better.

 

A few weeks ago, I hired an editor to look at the second draft of my story. (I wrote the first draft in August. At that time, I was doing a quick edit of the previous day’s work before continuing. I finished it in mid-September and put it away until mid-December when I edited it again. In between there were two beta readers). The editor had provided me with five pages of sample editing so I could get a sense of their process and decide whether or not I wanted to work with them. This experience was awesome for me because those sample pages helped me to see that there were a lot of little things, tiny rules of writing that I was not applying consistently. One of them was around the proper formatting of dialogue. It amazed me how even the correct application of dialogue tags can make the story stronger. Everything I learned can be applied to my new or existing writing, so that the editing process is a tiny bit easier when it begins.

The darlings died. It hurt. Just not as much as I thought it would.

 

My editor also highlighted areas where things weren’t working. For example, they pointed out parts where the story was lagging or where I was starting scenes in a similar way (I had three scenes that began with my character waking up). People who loved me would read these parts and probably not mind at all. An objective and astute reader would not be so patient. Now, I read the first draft (the all story, as Stephen King puts it) and these lulls didn’t jump out at me. But I’m not an objective reader. I do want to tell a great story though. So if a reader is tempted to put the book down or gloss over parts, it’s a sign to me that I have work to do. Thinking about the manuscript from this perspective helped me to cut things and characters that weren’t vital to the story (even if I loved the way they were written) and move straight into the action and emotional impacts of the main story, which made it far more compelling. So yes, the darlings must die-it just doesn’t hurt as much when the overall book is getting better and brighter. 

I was reminded to trust my instincts – at least about some things.

 

Some (in fact, most) of the issues my editor pointed out were things that had already occurred to me as I was editing the book myself. For reasons that I can’t recall, I chose not to address those changes at the time. Here’s an example: during my second edit I was asking myself whether a character was actually necessary. My editor asked the same question. Turns out, they weren’t. It’s a lot of work to edit out an entire character but since I’ve started doing it, the re-writing I’ve had to do has tightened the story considerably. This taught me that it’s important to pay attention to my instincts. I don’t know where our writing instincts come from but I’m going to guess that the way to keep them sharp is to write a lot and read extensively. Reading helps you get a sense of the possibilities, the tropes, the clichés and how to turn them on their heads.

In conclusion, I suppose editing has been fun because it was hugely empowering. I knew the story needed work (they always will after the first few drafts), and it’s been pure pleasure to weed out the unnecessary bits and let the story grow without interference. Before this, I wasn’t exactly sure how to do the pruning. Over the last few weeks I feel like I’m starting to get a sense of what to look for and how to edit in an effective, expedient manner.

Now, there are some drawbacks to editing being fun. The more I learned, the more I wanted to go and start editing basically everything I’d worked on in the last year. I found myself getting flustered because I wanted to edit several things all at once. That wasn’t good. I mean, it was great to have zeal but I had to force myself to focus on one project because otherwise-it’s difficult to make progress. At least it is for me.

Finally, another thing that can be a challenge is knowing when to stop editing. I haven’t experienced this personally yet but I know that other writers who are just starting out have voiced questions about when to stop editing. I’m not there yet, so I don’t think I can offer much insight. I’m on my third draft, after this there will certainly be a fourth and a fifth (I will complete approximately three revisions over the course of working with the editor I hired). I know a lot of writers who are in their sixth or seventh draft. At some point, you will have to make the call about when the story is done and ready for readers. And this may be different depending on which publishing path you choose. Some people say they know its ready when their beta readers or critique partners have nothing more to add. For others, it seems like the publishing house will give it the all clear. What’s common to both of these experiences is that at some point you will stop editing and you will move on to the next phase of the publishing process. I am so excited for that phase! In fact, it’s the final thing that makes editing fun. Knowing that once the editing is done, the book is almost ready to be shared.  Really and truly.

Happy Editing Everyone!

S. 

Write Your Story. Start Today.

It has been my dream for so long to write books and own a publishing company. Recently, I went to get a reading done to see how everything was going with me healthwise. I’m trying to think of an easy way to explain what a reading is. Basically it’s like going to see someone who can help you understand what your spiritual wellbeing is like and if there are any traditional medicines that might help you.

I can be very neglectful of my spiritual health. It’s too easy for me to take a 'mind over matter' attitude about life. A few years ago, it was a real struggle for me to acknowledge that I was more than just a brain and a body—I was actually an emotional and spiritual being as well. Now it just makes so much sense to me, but at first, it was really hard to see it that way. I was like one of those Autumn People in the roleplaying game, Changeling. Incredibly skeptical and super colonized. (Which is weird, because I used to love role-playing games and imagination). Happily, I've been slowly rediscovering how awesome it is to be apart of this universe. I've also learned a lot more about myself, my ancestors and our stories. I still have a lot to learn but getting readings done every once in awhile helps me. I am very grateful for people who have this gift. (One of the characters in my story actually has this gift as well which is kind of cool). 

One of the things that the reader told me was that they could see me surrounded by all of these books. They said that they could tell I gathered a lot of strength from writing and reading.  This is probably true in more ways than they realized. My Ogwehoweh name, Odadrihonyanisoh, actually means she likes to read. And of course, there is my dream—to have a company that brings stories to life and to write some myself.

Anyways, it was a nice reminder of how important it is that I keep going, even when I’m not exactly sure where all of this is headed or what the company will look like in five years. I know what I would love for it to look like but I may have to do another vision board or planning exercise to help chart the way forward. For now, the reading was an awesome reminder that I am on a path that is very important to my spirit, my creative self and my physical being.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I get super, super crabby when I don’t read, write or create. I start to feel lost and sad, like I have all of this pent up energy and emotion. And it can’t be writing things like blog posts or things for work. It has to be this other kind of writing—of books and short stories and poems.

Over the last few years I have been trying to commit more time to writing. I’ve learned a few things, like how to write everyday, but I still have a lot to learn (like how to get better at editing and revising). It took me such a long time to develop these habits. Why? I don’t know. Maybe it was because even though I knew I wanted to write, I let too much negativity in. I would believe people when they said to make sure I had a back up because you couldn’t make a living at being a writer. And so I would spend most of my time getting good at my back up instead of doing the thing I really wanted to do.  

Also, until Twitter and the Internet, it was very lonely trying to be a writer. It’s a relatively solitary activity, after all. Now, the experience is so different—every day I can find a positive story about writing. It’s awesome. I think a part of what is happening is that more people are able to connect over their love of stories and reading. And maybe so many people are putting it out there how much they want their dreams of being a writer to come true that the universe is answering back. I don’t know. All I know is that it is a great time to be a writer. It is a great time to write and share your story. So do it. Write your story. Start today. You’ll feel so much better getting something down—even if it’s only a sentence. 

That is all. Happy Writing!

S.

When Will Then Be Now?

Yesterday I hired an editor. I’m terribly excited because it’s my first time ever doing it.

I have wanted to be a writer for a very long time. I’ve previously shared a photograph of my first story; written at the age of five or six, clumsily typed and illustrated by crayon about a girl named Sara who was running away from a storm. Flash forward almost thirty years to now.

My book, the Fortune Teller’s Daughter is a contemporary YA fantasy that is inspired by Haudenosaunee myths and legends. It is my third novel project apart from a couple of longer, meandering pieces I wrote in my early twenties, and it is actually a more succinct telling of a story that I’ve written in several different forms over the last five years. I am so ready to share this story. But even though I’m ready, the story isn’t quite ready. Soon. Just not yet.

The desire to share something you have created can be overwhelming—I admit I have been overcome by this feeling on more than one occasion. I don’t know where this need to share comes from but I know it’s powerful. Many of you may have already mastered the art of slowing yourself down and not rushing—which is awesome, but I’m just learning to do this now and it’s hard because I’m so excited about all of my projects. I wrote a lot last year: three novels, a novella, and ten shorter works. Part of this was possible because I was on maternity leave and I was able to devote more time to writing when my little sweetheart was sleeping. I return to work in April of this year and I’m already agonizing about being away from my daughter. And apart of me knows that there will be a shift in my writing productivity as well.

And yes, this impending deadline makes me want to move even faster to get my stories out there. But instead of rushing, I am going to slow down even more. I’m still going to try and write a minimum of 500 words a day with the monthly writing challenge but editing will be my major focus for the next four months (you can also edit for a minimum of 1 hour per day for the challenge). I want to be able to finish and share the work that I’ve already done. I think it would feel awesome to go back to work having edited then shared two novels and my set of short stories, and so, that’s my goal.

One thing I’ve learned is that it’s much harder for me to carve out time to edit than it was to write the words down in the first place. Especially with a newborn, a relationship, a graduate program to finish, and a new language to learn. Editing is demanding. It has this way of yanking you right into the pages of your story, to examine what you’ve written up close and figure out a way to make it better. It’s a skill that needs honing.

I haven’t done a lot to hone that skill yet. I think maybe I had other important habits I needed to develop first (writing every day was at the top of that list). But now I feel that learning to be a better editor will help me move forward with the next phase—sharing. So here is my plan to sharpen my editing skills:

• Hire an editor (As mentioned, this is my first time hiring an editor. Moving forward, I’d like to be able to hire an editor for all of my novels but I also want to get better at doing my own revisions. I think working with an editor will help me understand the process better overall).
• Read more (25 books is my Goodreads goal for the year, but the more the better).
• Start listening to audio books to hear what dialogue works (Audible has a free 30 day trial through the Writing Excuses podcast that I want to try).
• Read useful posts from editors about common writer mistakes (I’ve stumbled across a lot of these lately that included how to weed out ‘filter’ words).
• Establish a revision schedule that includes a plan for every story and work on edits every day

I’m not sure that doing these things will ease the excitement I have about sharing my stories. Maybe nothing will, I don’t know. I do think it will help me feel confidant that I'm doing as much as I can to polish my work and make it ready for readers. I see a lot of other beginning writers ask questions that I have as well: How many times should I edit my manuscript? When will I know that my manuscript is ready? How many beta readers do I need? Where on earth will I find beta readers? How much do editors cost?

There are no stock answers to any of these questions—not that I’ve found at least. And how can there be really? Every artist and writer is different; what’s right for one may not work for another. Your first draft might be near perfect. Mine may need five or six passes. And that’s perfectly okay! There are a lot of tools out there that can help make our stories the best they can be.

What about you? Have you ever had the impulse to rush and share your work? Did you share it or did you wait? It'd be great to hear your experiences!  

Til next time, happy writing and editing! Also, today is a special day. It's my baby's 8 month old birthday. (Hence the picture). Gonohkwa Gǫwaęnǫnyani:! 

S.

Voices

Lost writing is the saddest writing – the very first post I wrote for this new website disappeared in the template stage. At first I was upset that I lost the post, but maybe it’s better that I get a chance to write it anew, especially in light of the New Year. In the old blog post now lost to the ether, I explained that I was a writer who was discovering her voice. I also explained that nearly three years ago, I left my job working for a First Nation organization and that I had worked there for so long that I felt like my voice really wasn’t mine at all, but a watered down version of my voice trying to talk about the things that I cared about the most – people. Have you ever tried to talk through water? All that comes out is bubbles, air and muffled sound. It’s been an adventure trying to remember what my voice actually sounds like. I’ve been working at it for almost two years. I think I’ve gotten a lot closer.

I started a version of this website about two years ago because I wanted to share stories about my people and my community. Mostly because there are so many great stories but also because I wanted to respond in a positive way to the terrible things I read in the comment sections of newspapers whenever there’s an article written about Indigenous Peoples. Back then, I wasn’t sure how to deal with people who were not interested in learning about the relationship that Indigenous and non-Indigenous people are in (the Treaty relationship) or who were actually hostile and dismissive of it. And so I spent a lot of time watching and listening to how other people approached this. I watched how people talked about and shared their opinions, passions and interests online. I saw that the Internet could be a very loving place and also – a not so loving place. I saw that it was easy to get pulled into fighting with people about your ideas or actions. I saw that it was easy to get hurt and easy to hurt if one was so inclined. But I also saw tons of amazing people sharing their art, their knowledge and their stories and I was very inspired by it. I wanted to cheer these people on and I wanted to voice my appreciation of their work and their art, particularly if that work involved trying to make the world a more peaceful, kind and compassionate place; and especially if that meant working in the area of water (because I love water and we all need it to live). And in the meantime, I started blogging about different places and events in my community, to share the amazing things that are here at Six Nations. It felt good to focus on the positive.

Then I became I parent. Suddenly, all of those negative attitudes and comments became something I would ignore at my daughter’s peril. Especially as more and more Indigenous women became victims of violence. And though I can’t expect to change anyone’s mind about Indigenous Peoples, I don’t want my little girl to grow up believing the worst of us. I don’t want the education system or the media to colonize her and strip her of her identity. I don’t want her to become some institute or think tank’s statistic.

What do I want then?

I want her to be happy and I want her to proud of who she is. I want her to know as much of the truth about our history as I can give her. In other words, I want to be even more positive, more passionate, more creative, and more encouraging. And so that’s what I’m going to try and do here. Learn, ask questions, honour our ancestors, and be mindful of the coming generations. I want to use my voice and perhaps more importantly, I want to use a good mind to tell the truth and share it with her as best as I can.

Even though he’s coming from a slightly (markedly) different place then I am, Stephen King talks about this in his book On Writing: A Memoir on the Craft. He basically says you have to tell the truth when you write. I like this a lot because I like to explore the truth as it manifests in stories. I read things or dream things or think about things and then I write them down. In the lost blog I talked about the fact that there are great writers out there taking on trolls and challenging ideas, telling their truth as it relates to Indigenous Peoples. Some of them do so in these ways that make me crazy with envy. I can feel their truth leaping off the page or screen and it's really kind of amazing that anyone can think of retorts that quickly. And for a while I think I thought my truth should look a little bit more like theirs. Serious. Scholarly. Empowering. And that if it didn’t, I wasn’t doing it right. 

But of course, that’s ridiculous. We’re not all the same. Their style can’t be my style. I mean, on occasion I write scholarly things for my grad program but for the most part, I’m a fantasy nut and I like to write what I like to read. I love stories about magic and adventure. And guess what? Our legends are filled with magic and adventure. And so this year, I want to share some of what I’ve written with you here. And really, that is my New Years wish to you all as well, to find, treasure and love your voice. And then share it. Publish it. Put it out there. People like me are out there waiting to hear it and read it.  

On my blog you’ll still find me writing about topics that I’m passionate about: books, education, language, physics, spirituality, water and climate change. I’ll probably be writing a lot more about which publishing routes I will take and my experiences starting a small publishing company of my own for books in the Ogwehoweh languages. Whichever one of these reasons happens to bring you to this blog, I hope you find a small something that you enjoy! Nya:weh for taking the time to visit!

Nu:yah & happy writing!

S.