The Short and Sweet of It

Earlier this week after listening to a series of TED Talks on the subject of writing, I had an epiphany.  I was doing some intensive and slightly mundane work on my manuscript because I wanted to order prints of it from Lulu for myself and beta readers but I hadn’t formatted it properly and some of the corrections had to be done by hand.  It seemed like a good time to catch up on the ideas worth sharing scene.   The first TED Talk I listened to was about the importance of there being Many Stories and the dangers of a single story.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been reading a lot of articles about self-publishing and traditional publishing to try determine which option would be best for the story I’ve been working on.  In trying to understand where my story fits in the grand scheme of things, I’ve encountered important information about editing, genres, word counts, writing blurbs, formatting and marketing.

I can say without hesitation that I’ve loved every second of this part of the experience because it’s taught me so much.  For instance, I’d never heard of the genre ‘cozy mystery’ but when I took a look at my bookshelf, I realized that it’s one of my favourites (I’m thinking here of the Aurora Teagarden or Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris).

All of this research also raised some questions about the limitations of genres – at least where my story is concerned.  I am a Haudenosaunee woman from Turtle Island (North America).  When I was growing up, there were not a lot of books about my people, our experiences, our knowledge, our ways of knowing or our legends and much of what did exist was problematic (reinforcing stereotypes, perpetuating colonialism, attempting to rationalize assimilation, etc).  Instead of reading stories about my people, I read a lot about other people and other worlds (which isn’t a bad thing in the least), but I definitely feel it would have been cool if more had been available.

Naturally, because these are the kinds of stories I wish I could have read they ended up being the stories that I’m writing.  For a little while, I was worried about what traditional publishing routes would be available for stories of this nature since there are few publishers that make a priority out of Indigenous literature.

Ultimately, this is where my epiphany comes in.  I listened to the TED Talk and realized that it was okay if my book wasn’t a publishing sensation.  What was most important to me is that there was more than a “single story” about Indigenous Peoples and that I use the tools available to me to write and share the best stories possible.   Even if my first one happens to have a 24 year-old protagonist and my word count is hovering around 55,500 (which from everything I’ve read is a bit short for an adult novel and a 24 year-old protagonist doesn’t quite fit within the traditional definitions of the Young Adult category).

Now it’s certainly possible that in my third draft, I might add another 25,000 words and set it squarely in an adult word count category.  But it’s very possible that I won’t, we’ll just have to see what the next few weeks bring.  Until then, I’m going to try to not beat myself up over what my story isn’t and try to focus on making what it is really shine.

Til next time, happy writing!

S

Land and Lab

My mind is still very much on math and science this week.  I started off the day worked up a bit about water issues, which always happens when I’m reading Maude Barlow’s books about the global water crisis that looms over all people, Indigenous and non-indigenous. I want us all to have a healthy future despite these challenges but I realize that we are not often empowered by our schools or education systems to tackle these issues in fun and dynamic ways.

A friend of mine who knows far more about environmental issues that I do made a post today on Facebook that I wholeheartedly agree with – they said,  “Six Nay provides a lot of opportunities for education and trades.  Nothing much for environmental or sciences which includes drinking water, sewage treatment, waste management, ground water, soil erosion, flood management, and natural resources management. We need educational chemistry/biology labs... And class rooms like Polytech has lol.”

This pretty much sums up my thinking about the issue.  When I left the Chiefs of Ontario, there were a few key issues on my mind: water security, climate change and food sovereignty.  I had seen that top down approaches didn’t work well for communities and that a lot of communities were lacking the kind of meaningful data that would help them make good long range environmental decisions that are consistent with our Treaty rights and responsibilities.   Think Global - Act Local is still the approach that makes the most sense to me - at least right now.

On that note, there are some questions that I have about our practices here at Six Nations and some of those came up in my class today:

1)      What happens with our recycling?  Where does it go?

2)      What is the incinerator and how or does this fit within a proactive local climate change strategy?

3)   What is happening underneath the dump?  How are we protecting the groundwater that exists underneath Six Nations?

4)   Have we conducted and gathered our own data on these subjects that would empower us to adjust our practices where we needed to?

My sense of this (which I’ll confirm as I learn more about it) is that we have not conducted vigorous research around these questions.  Not yet, anyways.  And I understand that there are a ton of pressing issues that make it difficult to focus on the broader, big picture environmental issues.  But they do still need to be looked at.

I think this creates some exciting opportunities for us to develop engaging maths and sciences programs at all levels that will help us tackle these issues, many of which will grow in complexity over the next 15-20 years.  How wonderful would it be to have a sustainability program that addresses some of these issues in practical ways but also teaches students how to conduct tests, do research, gather data and propose solutions to local environmental challenges that are also rooted in our teachings?

I just finished reading a research study that looked at why Indigenous students are under-represented in the maths and sciences at the post secondary level.  In this study the researcher explains how most research concerning Indigenous academic success in the Western education system as compared to non-Indigenous students is conducted by Western non-indigenous evaluators and is largely quantitative.

The researcher, a lady named Michelle Hogue (who also wrote this article) wanted to qualitatively understand the experiences of the members from the local Blackfoot community and to engage in the process of ‘action research’ by putting into action some of their recommendations for enabling Indigenous student success in post-secondary science programs.

The findings were very interesting but one which stood out to me and echoes the sentiments of the Facebook post above, is how Hogue explained that the students were the most engaged and the most successful in science and chemistry when they actually got to work in the laboratory, have hands on experiences and interact with the concepts that they were tackling.  The second really successful strategy was utilizing storytelling to introduce and reinforce concepts. (Hogue also wrote her Masters thesis on making a story out of the periodic table - very cool).

I know a few teachers and I'm sure there are more who have found unique ways to teach our cosmology and to explain how scientific concepts fit into our understanding of the world.  It’d be awesome to be able to do more to help support these teachers and students.  Certainly, being able to have laboratories would be a big boost to experiential learning, and even though there are key funding issues here (most First Nation schools can’t get their libraries funded, let alone a lab) – in the long run, I hope it somehow becomes a priority so that students can have these kinds of learning experiences, out on the land and in labs.

Til next time!

S

Why Do I Write?

I’ve never really thought about this question the way I’ve been thinking about it for the last few days.  Writing was just something I always did, from being five and trying to piece together words and pictures, to high school where I wrote what can only be called Sandman fan fiction, to university where I toiled away and produced two novels that were definitely among my more inexperienced attempts at storytelling.  I've come a long way from my first attempts like the picture I shared above and I've deeply enjoyed every second of the journey.

This said, the last few years have been definitely been my favourite times for writing.  I feel like I’ve learned and grown so much even in the past year by just writing a lot and reading a lot.  I’ve also moved away from the kind of career that consumes every last ounce of your soul and trounces creativity, in favour of work that is still really meaningful and important but allows a lot of time for creative writing in my personal time.  It’s a balance I’m grateful for because I want to help Indigenous Peoples and my community in whatever way I can.  And I also want to indulge my creativity and my writer self, because so much of my energy and passion comes from the fun I find in imagining things and writing them down.

As I’ve worked to decolonize my life and restore my relationship to the land and language, it occurred to me this week that I hadn’t done the same kind of transformative work in my relationship to writing and publishing.  I hadn’t really thought about the publishing side of it, but now that I’ve started to look into it more, I realized my knowledge of publishing is pretty old school.  I knew what most writers know – that there’s a traditional publishing industry, that you can try to break into it through the traditional avenues and that it’s very likely your story might end up in the slush piles where the only journey your manuscript ever takes is the return trip back to you inside a self addressed, stamped envelope.

This last week, there were a number of articles about traditional vs. self-publishing in the news, in part because of the AuthorEarnings report that Hugh Howey and his partner recently released.  A lot of discussion was generated and I’ve been gobbling up articles on the subject because I’m looking more closely at how to share my stories effectively.  I have to say, the self-publishing option is winning me over – but not because of money or earnings or royalties.  Not even because I’m anti-establishment or against traditional publishing houses.

I like it for all of the creative reasons I’ve read about – you can keep writing at the same time that you’re sharing and connecting with readers and you can work with talented local artists and editors.  I’ve yet to experience this personally, the sharing and connecting.  It sounds wonderful and it’s great that it's possible now through self-publishing.    I’m not sure why anyone would hesitate – I like how Hugh Howey puts it in this article called Why You Should Self Publish?  After reading this, I felt really excited to try – with no expectations of anything except sharing and trying to create the best book that I can.  But I also really like how Mark Coker puts it in this Publisher’s Weekly article about the furor that was caused by the AuthorEarnings report: “I think the world is better served with more publishing options. I want to see more publishers, more self-published authors, more books, more retailers, and more book-loving people earning a living contributing their talent to books and book culture”.

I agree with this on many levels.  I love books so much and I realize there are tons of talented, passionate people who help books and book culture thrive on both sides of this debate, and I’m thrilled that other options exist.  I’ve always known I wrote because I loved stories – loved reading them, writing them, editing them and drawing them.  It will be awesome to take the plunge and start sharing them.  In the traditions of my people this is exactly what happens - stories are shared, passed on and made richer through the experience.  I want to be apart of that and I’m fortunate to live in an era where doing so is easier than ever.

My story is now in the hands of my Ideal Reader and I’m focusing on other important elements of getting a book into shape, areas it sounds like a publisher might typically help with.   But I’m happy to take on these tasks.  It’s exciting and I’m learning so much as I go from the community of authors online who are both courageous and willing to share their stories to help new authors like me take these steps.

Happy writing everyone! #Makegoodart and make the choices that work for you and your art! S

Let's do the math!

This past weekend I started a Math Club.  So far there are only two people in it and we’re doing high school Algebra and Trigonometry because we want to take this Open Course Ware Calculus course for free online at MIT.  This is because I’m really interested in the math, physics and computer sciences but also because I’m trying to find ways to improve my skills in these areas so I can take a more informed look at challenges our schools are facing around math assessment and in particular, standardized assessment.  I’m speaking here of course, of the EQAO assessments.

Most of you may be aware of what EQAO is so I won’t explain it in detail, but essentially, it’s a standardized test administered in grades 3, 6, 9 and 10 and the purpose of it is to gauge how well students have learned the Ontario curriculum in reading, writing and mathematics.  As an Ontario wide assessment mechanism, it impacts teaching and learning communities in various ways.

Many educators, myself included, have questions about EQAO and its validity.  I think it's important to challenge some of the assumptions made about EQAO in newspaper articles like this one which included the following quote from an educator: “A child who doesn’t know their [math] facts will never see a pattern, make a prediction or an estimate. They’re really held back as problem-solvers,”   Now I'm picking on the point this person's trying to make, I admit, and it's because I feel this is precisely the kind of thinking that underpins the drive towards even more standardized education or an emphasis on math for instance, as opposed to any other discipline in which a person might learn problem solving skills.  I think these kinds of approaches can be alienating to our spirits.   Do not mistake me – I’m not saying that assessment is not important or that math and reading aren’t important, and obviously - I love writing.  I completely understand and agree that it is important to assess because doing so can help improve the learning experience or inform the instructional strategies that are being used to connect with students.

What I am not convinced of is that EQAO is the right instrument to assess our kids or that it should be given the kind of attention in the school (and by proxy the classroom) that it sometimes is – especially for Indigenous students whether they are on reserve or not.  Which means I have questions about the extent that it should guide the existing and future efforts of our schools here at Six Nations, or quite frankly, anywhere else.

In looking at assessment however, the other factor that emerges is the issue of curriculum.  When I say curriculum, the image that pops into my head immediately is the image of the Ontario Ministry of Education curriculum which is what I believe that majority of teachers on Six Nations are required to teach.  I would love to have an in-depth discussion with teachers about the curriculum because I know that some of them have already found the way to do exactly what I’m trying to talk about below.  My own impressions are this.

When I took the Native Teacher Education Program in 2003, I fully admit that I loved the curriculum.  I loved it because it was a planned and organized guide designed to help the students and I explore different subjects through the year together.  I understood that this was what I was expected to teach and that there were all kinds of strategies that I was learning that would help me to do so.

When I fell out of love with the Ontario curriculum, was when I realized it did not tell the true history about who the Original Peoples of Turtle Island are.  It did not share or value Indigenous worldviews in several important ways, but here is one of them.   Hodinohso:ni people believed that everything is connected, a theme that comes across beautifully in the Creation story.  A woman falls from the sky and the animals of the world conspire to help her promote and grow life on this planet.  Without all of these efforts, life would not occur.  And in recognition of this great collaboration, as Indigenous Peoples, we recognize that all things have a spirit.

The Ontario curriculum does not address this particular Indigenous worldview or how that worldview influenced our people to grow and innovate over the generations, which is so unfortunate, really.  Our teachers need to be empowered to teach our students about this and how cool it is.  And for those that are, it’d be great to see how they’re doing it or what further resources they wish they had to connect it to other disciplines like science and math that I hear a lot of parents say they want for their kids so they can get jobs.  I even hear kids themselves say they wish there was more science (and gym and art  - usually never math actually!).   And despite what the likes of Tom Flanagan suggest, Indigenous Peoples are sophisticated thinkers.  Believing that things are interconnected and being able to live in sustainable ways with the environment around us for thousands of years is sophisticated. Our ancestors had a way of viewing the world - a view they passed on to us, that’s become central to advanced sciences and theoretical physics.

Some people are worried about what the EQAO scores say and what it means we need to do as schools and a community, and so am I – but only to a degree.  Even as an adult learner, I realize it is difficult to prioritize all of the different areas that I feel are important to honouring my responsibilities as an Ogwehoweh person and also meet other responsibilities (financial, for example) or to learn math.  I want what I learn, including math, to be connected to my life and complimentary to the knowledge that elders share.  I sometimes sense a similar frustration coming out of the classrooms – particularly the language classrooms where the amount of resources available for science and math teaching is even more limited and English can feel very dominant.   There are just so many priorities and it’s difficult to fit them all in a day.   So what does this mean for our schools - can there only be one priority?  Is there one that we could agree upon that will guide us to meeting the other learning goals that are important to us? Is it having high scores on the EQAO or something else?  Or maybe the question isn’t that simple.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Nya:weh for reading!

S

Finish Lines and Feedback Time

One thing of the many things I love about writing is how the sun sets on one project and rises on a new one.   Even if it's just a new stage of the project you're working on. Yesterday I finished the second draft of the book that I started to rewrite at the beginning of 2014!  It feels incredibly good to finally let those characters that have been such a huge part of my waking, dreaming, and writing life for the last three years rest for a while.  I’m so much happier with the story than I was at the end of last year – what a transformation.  I’m also happy because now I can turn my attention more fully to the other projects that I’ve been thinking about while writing The Whirlwind’s Prophecy.  I’ve also started to look more in depth at the next part of the process, procuring a cleaner edit and critical read by outside eyes that aren’t as attached to the book as I am.

Ah feedback.  This is the scariest and most necessary part isn’t it? There are literally dozens of articles on the web about the merits/drawbacks of working with professional editors, writing groups, or beta readers.  And similar to the traditional/self-publishing debates, there doesn’t seem to be a right of wrong way to accomplish getting feedback to improve your story.  Writers have to do what’s best for them.

I’ve decided to go the route of asking help from what Stephen King’s refers to as the Ideal Reader – that person that you picture reading your book as you’re writing it, the person you most want to like it.   And after this, it would be awesome to have the experience of working with an editor.  I’ll be reading more about how to choose an editor in the next little while.

But even though I’m choosing this approach for The Whirlwind’s Prophecy, I’m also interested in trying to share my stories more spontaneously and minus the crazy fear that accompanies sending your writing out into the world.  I’m awestruck when I hear stories about people working with writing groups or beta reading drafts of other people’s manuscripts – hell, I still get nervous pressing ‘Publish’ on this blog.  But being a part of a more interactive storytelling community is appealing on so many levels and something I am going to try with my new projects.  I know it will help me grow as a writer and really, that’s all the reason I need to move past the fear.  That being said, I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing this.  Some authors have been wildly successful at engaging readers in early drafts of their work. Others talk about different writing sites that they’ve used to post stories, meet other authors and review one another’s work.  I haven’t looked into any of these yet, but over the next few weeks I will be.

Until then, for the last six months or more, I’ve wanted to write a story that my younger nieces and nephews could read.  I have an idea that I think might work, as both a project for them and a piece of work that I could start to share.  I hope to begin that today, which means next week, I’ll have an update on some completely new and unchartered (at least for me) writing territory.

Happy Writing!

S