Happy International Women's Day & Why I'm Supporting Devery Jacobs's Kickstarter

I used to work for a First Nation organization. This organization was a coordinating and advocacy body for the 133 First Nation communities in Ontario. There were many parts of this job that were awesome—I got to travel to other First Nations, hear the experiences of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island and see the passion they have for their communities. But there were some parts of the job that were less awesome—this usually had to do with one of two things: the wretched relationship between First Nations and external governments, and the general lack of awareness that Ontarians and Canadians have about who First Nations are and what our relationship is supposed to be like.

A quick and overly simplistic answer to this question is that First Nations are the Original Peoples of Turtle Island and that the relationship my people have with non-indigenous peoples is supposed to be based on mutual respect, friendship and peace and confirmed through the Two Row Wampum Treaty. Obviously there is way more to it and maybe one day, I will try to explain some of the things I’ve learned (and am still learning) about Treaties and the treaty relationship but for now I’m just going to focus on one issue I care about and am trying to learn more about: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.

I’ve been worried about this issue for a while but even more so since I had my daughter. Right now, there is a call for an inquiry into the high instances of violence and murder of Indigenous women. “Indigenous woman and girls in the Canadian state have been murdered or gone missing at a rate of four times higher that the representation of Indigenous women in the Canadian population which is 4.3%”.  (Inter American Commission on Human Rights Missing and Murdered Women in British Columbia, Canada: 2015). The Sisters in Spirit initiative explains that while there are 582 known cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the number is much higher—recent estimates suggest that nearly 1200 Indigenous women and girls have been murdered or gone missing in the last three decades. These are devastating statistics and they can’t continue.

I definitely support the call for an inquiry. I think an inquiry could be a very valuable process of healing and a path towards justice. I also realize it is highly unlikely that it will happen or that once it has happened—sufficient action will be taken on the resulting recommendations. This sounds super jaded, but in my experience working for the First Nation organization I mentioned earlier, this is what I usually saw happen:

• First Nations work very hard for something to become a priority (for example: education or MMIWG)
• The government unilaterally creates a process by which they will engage (for example: The Panel on First Nations Education or the recent MMIWG roundtable)
• First Nations realize that the government’s intentions to investigate are not sincere or that they have predetermined the outcome they are willing to support—if any (for example: asking for feedback on a specific legislative or policy option regardless of what comes out of the discussion)
• The government will write a final report with recommendations favouring the predetermined outcome (First Nations who did participate will have been deemed to have been consulted)
• Those recommendations will become either a piece of legislation, or a new/updated policy or program
• The prescribed recommendations will be applied to all First Nation communities whether they consented or not, and without consideration to their respective Treaty rights (and right to Free, Prior & Informed Consent)
• Resources will continue to be inadequate to implement the recommendations
• This is typically when First Nations write press releases or letters to the government explaining how and why the process was flawed to begin with
•  I’ve never worked for government, so I cannot say if they love this or not, but it seems like it makes them very happy to be able to say it wasn’t their fault that no one liked the actions they took and it was simply further proof that First Nations can’t get along  

First Nation leadership have a lot of support (and critics too). Some of those supports (and critics) come in the form of Indigenous lawyers or policy analysts who remind the leadership that the government does not have the authority to create policy/legislation over Indigenous Peoples. Often, leadership will push for a meeting on more equal terms (nation-to-nation) that will implement the treaties and resource protection and sharing discussions that many believe (myself included) will help to bring balance and peace back into a relationship fraught with mistrust, abuse, theft and shaming.

The government does not want to do this because it means that they would have to acknowledge they’ve been in violation of Treaties for hundreds of years. But by not acknowledging the treaty relationship, the settler state allows colonialism to continue to set the tone of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and non-indigenous people. And this is disastrous because colonialism, by its very nature, perpetuates the mistreatment of Indigenous women and girls.

I don’t believe, and I think that the Prime Minister has made this very clear—that the government intends to do anything about this issue any time soon, beyond the roundtable—(which sounded like it didn’t go very well at all). But that doesn’t mean I don’t think that something should be done. I worry all the time that my daughter will grow up and that people will treat her badly because the system allows it. I want to do something about. So what can I do?

I feel very lucky because I think I can do many things:

• I can support efforts in my family and community to reaffirm women’s roles as leaders, teachers, givers of life, keepers of knowledge, stories and traditions and others I have not listed here
• I can support the women in my life who are mothers, aunties, sisters, cousins, grandmothers, leaders, and who care for children and families
•  I can make sure my daughter knows her clan, her nation, her creation stories, and her languages. These are her inherent rights 
• I can learn songs and sing them with her  
• I can help my daughter understand why we care so much about water and land and teach her how we show our appreciation and gratitude through offerings and ceremony
•  I can teach her about our existing roles and support her in realizing the new roles that women may take on in the future, as our experience here on Turtle Island changes and evolves
•  I can support our community agencies that are underfunded but provide safety and shelter for women and families
•  I can write blogs and stories
•  I can share things I’ve read about colonialism and be open to respectful, caring dialogue with others who want to learn
•  I can create writing and art for education and public awareness purposes
•  I can support others who are using their skills and abilities to raise awareness about these issues and their many layers through books, art and film

There are a lot of things I probably didn’t list here—I’m still learning too, really.  But they are things I know can make a difference and they are the type of recommendations that I always see come up at the conclusion of other studies, including inquires like Ipperwash and commissions like RCAP. Why not just start them now?

There is a lot of media competing for our time and attention, and not everyone has the time to read (and of course—not everyone likes to read). But there is no doubt in my mind that awareness, compassionate discussion and action is needed to help us bring an end to this violence. And that leads me to this very cool Kickstarter that Devery Jacobs has launched to tell the story “Stolen”, which will take a look into, “a typical Native girl’s life before becoming one of the 1200+ Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada”.

MMIWG is such an enormous issue. No one will be able to crack it alone. And it’s hard to know where to get involved in any issue—at least it is for me. Gaining more awareness is what has always helped me figure out how and where I can be apart of the change. Because I’m a writer—most of my efforts go into writing stories and books and blogs (I touch on this issue in my short story collection). But movies are awesome too, and that is why I’m happy to support this Kickstarter. Hopefully, I will be able to show it in one of my future Indigenous Studies classes.

For those of you who are interested, here is a small sample of the things I’ve watched or have read that helped me to understand this issue. There are so many more resources, so many more people working on this issue that I wish I could list them all. Maybe I will try in the future. Until then, here you go:

Sisters in Spirit website: http://www.nwac.ca/sisters-spirit

Andrea Smith and American Indian Genocide (video of a lecture): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neg-Rlbi764

Article by Pam Palmater: http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/international-women-s-day-indigenous-women-still-not-equal-in-canada-1.2985100

Inter American Commission on Human Rights - Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Canada: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/Indigenous-Women-BC-Canada-en.pdf

The video of Andrea Smith is informative. I saw it a few years ago. It really gets to the linkages between colonialism and violence against Indigenous women. That being said, there are other important issues around Andrea's work concerning voice and appropriation that I would feel remiss if I did not mention.  This article by Pam Palmater is just a really great read that came out today. I read the Sisters in Spirit report two years ago when I was working on my short story collection. This was a research initiative by the Native Women’s Association of Canada. There are a lot more resources on their website though. This last study was fairly recent, it focuses mainly on British Columbia but there are implications for the rest of Turtle Island, I think.

If there are other things you think I should read, please feel free to let me know. Anyways, happy international women's day to all the women in my life, indigenous and non-indigenous, in my community and around the world for being you and doing what you do! I hope this year is amazing for you and I wish you and your loved ones health, happiness and safety. 

Nya:weh!

S. 

Vampires and Second Drafts

A week ago, I started the second draft of a book I’ve tentatively titled, The Vampire Skeleton. This book sprang from an idea I had while I was researching my short story collection last year. Essentially, the idea was this: what would First Nation vampires be like?

The Vampire Skeleton is about a girl named Rowen who is apprenticing to become the healer in her community. The story takes place in a world where a group of Indigenous Peoples have decided to retreat to a tight-knit community in order to revitalize their languages and ceremonies, essentially eschewing all contact with mainstream culture. The community is separated from the rest of the world by a magical wall built hundreds of years ago. For the most part, Rowen is happy there, but when a vampire attacks her best friend, Rowen has to journey beyond the wall to try and save him. Along the way, her values and beliefs are challenged by the people and situations she encounters.

I had no idea the book was going to be about any of this when I started writing it back in April 2014. I was nine months pregnant with my daughter and had just started my maternity leave. I knew I was going to spend the majority of my time with my new baby once she arrived and I had no writing projects to work on so I thought it would be cool to try writing 300 words of something a day. I kept up with the story after she was born (May 11) and I finished a rough draft of The Vampire Skeleton in mid June.

The only idea I really had in my head was that in vampire genre movies and books, Indigenous Peoples were always shape shifters or werewolves. I had just read the Haudenosaunee legend of the vampire skeleton and thought it would be cool to try and write something where Indigenous Peoples were the vampires. Plus, I love vampires and I’ve always wanted to write a vampire story.

Here’s the thing. I know there are literally thousands of vampire stories in the world. This still didn’t stop me from writing my own, even if publishers and agents aren’t looking for any more stories of this nature. I didn’t write it for publishers or agents. I wrote it for me (that’s okay to do!), and somewhere along the line it became the book that I associate with those amazing first weeks we shared with our daughter, when we were filled with so much love and hope and fear. So I suppose I wrote it for her as well <3! 

I guess what I’m trying to say or what I learned from this experience is that it’s important to write the stories that you want to and that you love—whether they are going to be popular or not. I think I would have a super hard time finding representation for this piece but thats okay—I wrote something that I thought was fun and that I had passion for. That counts as a win to me.

The other reason I’m blogging about this book has to do with second drafts. I’m about nine chapters into The Vampire Skeleton and it’s a bit of a mess in that lovely way first drafts can be. But it’s interesting because even though I had no outline for this story (I pantsed it!), I can really see how the basic outline was created simply through the process of writing. It still needs a lot of work, though. Pantsing was a great experience but as I create the second draft I find myself struggling at the points where I must have been floundering in the initial writing. That’s okay too! That’s what editing is for. Writing. Cutting. Revising. Rewriting. After all, there is no one perfect way to write a novel. Even more important: no one will write a novel, of any genre, the same way you will. So write that story you are so passionate about! Get that first draft down and write ‘THE END’. Then go back and edit and fall in love with your story all over again.  

Happy writing!

S.

The Hardest Part of the Writing Process (For Me)

My favourite piece of writing advice, which I’ve also found the hardest to follow, comes from Neil Gaiman. I looked around and was unable to find the link where he originally gave said advice, but I have it pinned up on my Pinterest page in a fun info-graph someone made. You can view it here.

The advice is simple and it was recently echoed in a Writing Excuses podcast that I listened to over the weekend. The advice is simple: FINISH WHAT YOU START. Up until now, finishing has been the part of the process that I’ve struggled with the most.

In fact, I’ve never finished a story. I’ve typed ‘THE END’ maybe six or seven times (which feels awesome in its own right). But I’ve never truly finished a novel, packaged it and had it readied for publication—whether Traditional or Indie—although I recently shared a few of my stories on my website and on Wattpad. As a result, I have a lot of novels lying around on hard drives that have never been edited a second time, much less a fifth or a sixth.

On a recent Writing Excuses podcast, Mary Robinette Kowal explained that it’s important to finish things because when you finish them; you realize what parts of the writing process you struggle with. (This was in response to a question about when and why to abandon a project, the larger discussion of which was also fantastic and worth listening to).

I liked what Mary said here because in my case, it’s very true; although the parts of the process I struggle with have not always been the same. For example, as a younger writer (in my teens and early twenties), I had a fundamental lack of knowledge about what it took to produce a book of the same quality I was reading in the store. I didn’t realize the books I was reading had gone through multiple stages of editing and copy-editing and that if I wanted mine to look the same, I would have to employ similar things. In other words, I didn’t realize what it really meant to finish something.

Now, in this age of the Internet, it is much easier to find information about what the process of writing a novel looks like and how to put your best story forward. It’s also a great deal easier to connect with people and find critique partners, beta readers, editors, and book designers using online tools and forums.

Right now, the parts of the process that I find most challenging are: the ‘THIS SUCKS AND I’M A HORRIBLE WRITER’ syndrome (an ongoing struggle throughout the writing, editing and revision stages), and making enough time in my day to make meaningful progress on my work.

Knowing all of this is helpful because it helped me to develop a plan. And I need a plan because I have a lot of stories in draft stages and I return to work in two months. I really, really want to make sure that I finish those stories and that I keep writing new work. Here’s how I am going to make sure that I do. I am going to:

1.     Write a minimum of 500 new words on a new project per day OR edit for a minimum of 1 hour every day. This is essential. Of all of the things that help me the most with the “THIS SUCKS AND I’M A HORRIBLE WRITER” – this is the best. Making writing an every day thing. Morning, noon, night, in sprints, café’s or out of doors, this is the way to keep momentum going. And you need momentum. Momentum gets you over the Mountains of Self-Doubt.

2.     Create a publishing schedule for the next 3 years (which I had to do for my publishing company as well) and pen in the dates when revisions, copy edits, formatting needs to be done.

3.     Hire editors. I’ve been working with an editor for the last three weeks. I made changes based on their feedback that made my manuscript so much stronger. I’m way happier with it and their support has helped to bring my novel closer to completion. It’s also improved my writing on other projects.

4.     Read. This kind of goes without saying, but reading helps writing in all kinds of ways. I won’t list them all. I doubt I could list them all. Suffice it to say, reading helps when you get stuck or you don’t know what to write or you don’t know how to make something better. It’s pure inspiration. Revel in it.

5.     Slow down. The slower I go, the easier this will go. It’s hard to slow down when you’re excited, but I know that’s what I need to do.

6.     Learn when to let the project go out into the world. This is something I actually have no experience with. I’ve not yet edited to the point where I just have to stop tinkering with it and publish it already. This is also on the Neil Gaiman writing tips info-graph thing—letting things go and moving onto the next project. As I get through my next drafts, I’ll be looking to other writer’s experiences to help me gauge how I’ll know when to let go. I’ll be sure to blog about it when I do.  

In the end, I decided to work towards writing (and finishing) 1-2 novels per year because now that I understand the process a bit better, and have better habits, this is how many projects I think I can reasonably finish in that time. I know authors who are finishing way more books than this a year, but right now, I’m not sure that’s feasible for me. Even two might be too many! One I can definitely hold myself to.

What about you? What is your favourite writing advice and who gave it? What has been your experience with finishing work

Happy writing!

S.

How Will You Share Your Writing With The World?

I recently shared a story for free on Wattpad. It was a 6,000 word story. Previously, I’d seen other people sell stories of this length on Amazon for $0.99 and a part of me wondered whether or not I should be doing the same. In the end, I decided that what I wanted most was a place to share and so I decided to create a Wattpad page. But as more of my stories get closer and closer to being ready for the world, I find myself asking questions about where, how and why I want to make them available.

I write books inspired by themes and events in Haudenosaunee history. My Wattpad story was written for a science fiction contest called Imagining Indigenous Futurisms that I never wound up entering and was inspired in part by my people’s Creation Story, in which a pregnant woman falls to Earth from Skyworld.

As I write and read about other authors and Indigenous publishers, I realize that there may not be a lot of market yet for books like mine. I recently started reading Mindy Kaling’s book “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?” and in the introduction she makes a joke about the target audience her publisher’s research determined her book would appeal to (Aunts of America).  She then thanks readers for choosing her book over the hundreds of teenage vampire stories that are out there. It’s both funny and true. There's a huge market for teenage vampire stories (I know I’ve read my fair share) and every once in awhile, it makes me wonder if maybe I needed to be writing something different, something in a genre people want to read right now and that an agent or publisher might be looking for. 

This usually only lasts a few seconds because then I remember I’m not writing because I have dreams of becoming rich. I just want be healthy, happy and safe and I want to spend my time doing things I love and am passionately interested in. And if, on top of all that great, good happiness,  I am fortunate enough to make money, I want to put it towards making more language resources (stories, plays, books, puppet shows, etc) because I love Haudenosaunee languages and culture. 

Where does that leave me with wanting to give books away for free? I'm not exactly sure yet. I like my Wattpad experience so far. I'm just so amazed and grateful that people actually read the story and I definitely want to put more writing there in the future. But I’m still trying to decide how to share the rest of my work. Looking at how other artists and writers are approaching this has been a great help. There are many artists giving their art away through a pay-what-you-want model. This lets people support them within their means. Here are some of the reasons why the idea of making stories free appeals to me: 

• I love reading. Reading has always been a huge escape for me and as a child, I pretty much read for free. I mean, my parents paid for my books but they couldn’t buy me every single book I wanted (which is why I learned to speed read at the age of seven).  I think I read most of the Babysitter’s Club series from the carpeted corner of the local bookstore and only bought the thickest books of the series as a rule.
• Another reason I want to give away books for free is because I really hear what Amanda Palmer has to say about art being as free and shareable as possible. And I know that money isn’t the only value you can place on a piece of art. Even though I haven’t shared them publically, my little sister has illustrated almost every single piece of writing I’ve ever written. I may never share those stories and will likely never receive a cent for them, but it doesn’t matter because I still have these amazing pieces of art.  
• I also understand what Ksenia Anske says in this post about giving books away for free so that people can sample your work before investing their hard earned money, especially if you are a new writer who no one has really read before.

Bottom line: there are some compelling arguments for giving away and sharing art. 

But there are also compelling reasons for selling art. I know that I couldn’t have survived growing up if people didn’t feel it was important to pay for art (my dad is a sculptor). So giving away art for free is a wonderful but not always feasible concept. People have basic needs to meet and in many cases—families to care for. To do so, they need to be able to earn a living somehow in a stable and predictable way. It’s probably why I actually love buying books and art now that I can. I want people to be able to make a living creating beautiful things that help and inspire others while being able to support themselves. Plus, I’ve been poor and in debt before—I know how stressful it can be to try and be creative when a little voice in your head is telling you that your art won’t pay the bills. 

I know the decision will be different for every writer and artist, and this isn't meant to sway anyone one way or the other - it's really just me thinking out loud. However I choose to tackle this from here on in, I know the first step is still to write the best story I possibly can. I’m learning a lot through the editing process. I’m almost finished the fourth draft of my book The Fortune Teller’s Daughter and I’ll be looking at ways to make it stronger through the next few drafts. Creating greater emotional impact. Killing darlings. Evaluating character voice. I may even change the title! My goal is simply to have a really exciting, page turning, engaging story by the end.

What about you? Do you have a plan for how you are going to distribute or market your books? Are you going to give away any of your books for free? Do you already?

Happy writing and editing everyone!

S.

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!

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