WRITING A BOOK FROM AN OUTLINE, PART 1

ByLee Ann

My outline is my anchor and my roadmap. Written back during the earliest discussions with the publisher, it provides a high-level, chapter by chapter blueprint of how I intend to tell this story. Here’s what the outline for Chapter 4 looks like. Chapter 4 outline I’m drafting Chapter 4 now and it’s big! Lots was going on in Muskoka between 1865 and 1870: logging moved into the district, the first steamship was launched on Lake Muskoka, townships were starting to have enough people in them that they were able to incorporate and govern themselves, settlers organized an association and published a guide for new pioneers – and new pioneers flooded in after the new Free Grant Lands and Homestead Act passed.

Every single one of these events had a direct impact on the Muskoka Road. True! If the road wasn’t being ripped up by the stagecoaches hauling loggers and equipment, it was being bypassed by ever-so-grateful travellers who could take a nice boat ride for at least part of their journey. As the townships formalized their existence, one of the first by-laws they passed was invariably one to deal with road maintenance. And the settler’s guide had a few choice words for how the road had been laid out in the district – like hello, we can’t go in a straight line, every straight line leads to a lake, or a ravine, or a cliff here!

It all makes for fun storytelling. But I get easily side-tracked – there are so many fabulous Muskoka stories. Little boys who left home to join a “shanty gang” in the bush. Individual settler families and how they hacked a farm out of a boreal forest. The wheeling and dealing of the community leaders. Without my outline I’d fall right off the rails of the main storyline.

It’s all about the road. It’s not enough that a particular fact is fascinating, funny or stranger than fiction. Any person, any event, any new law or innovation I write about has to have a direct bearing on the road. Of course, I have to give a certain amount of context so the reader gets the significance of the road and its role in the broader history of the district – but I have to walk a fine line. Too much context and we lose the point of the story. Too little and the story becomes dry and boring.

When I find myself deep in a side story, I come up for air and ask, where was I going with this? The outline brings me back to my story.

HOW LIFE AFFECTS WRITING

ByLee Ann

I had two blog posts drafted this week – one a “how-to” about writing from an outline, and this one, which is a more honest reflection of what’s been going on.

First, I went on vacation. You might not have noticed that, because I had stockpiled some posts and scheduled them for release while I was away. But then I came back and two major things happened, which is why I have not posted for a couple of weeks.

  • One, I did not feel refreshed and ready to get back to work. Book writing, magazine article writing and giving workshops did not energize me as they usually did; I felt exhausted at the prospect of working.
  • Two, my friend Sue died suddenly of a heart attack at age 45.

Of course, any death causes me to ask the big questions: Am I doing what I want to do? Am I where I want to be? Are the people in my life the ones who I want? If the answer is no to any of these, it’s time to change. Because time might soon be up.

My answers were all yes to the big questions. But there was still the exhaustion. And as I thought about it, no wonder. January and February were relentless. Productive, but relentless. I wrote two magazine articles, conducted six workshops, completed a long and complicated request for arts funding. I drafted two chapters of the book, and then re-drafted them many times, trying to find my voice. Instead of feeling energized, I was exhausted. The fun had leached out of my writing life.

So obviously, it’s time to change. Here’s what I’ve decided:

  • I’m going back to writing three days a week, instead of five.
  • I am not writing any more magazine articles until after the book is done.
  • The workshops are almost done for the season. Depending on where I am with the book, I’ll reassess whether I do any in the fall.
  • I will no longer hold myself to the imperative of writing a weekly blog post. I’ll probably post once a week, but there will be times when I won’t. And that will be OK.

Because until my time is up, I want to enjoy my time.

MUSKOKA: Then and Now

ByLee Ann

This week I slammed up against some contrasts and realizations about Muskoka. Funny how that happened.

I was revising Chapter 3, which means I was deep in the 1860s of Muskoka and its first white settlers. The gruelling business of hacking out a place to live in a boreal forest. Scratching in seed around massive tree stumps that would take seven years to rot before they could be dug out of the ground.  Creating through strength of will and muscle some fledgling communities.

Then one evening, I turned to my latest issue of Muskoka Magazine to relax. This monthly periodical shares updates on what’s happening in the region, plus profiles on “Muskoka lifestyles.” Full-page colour ads for contractors who build exquisite lakeside getaways.  Villas available for fractional ownership. Festivals, cottage décor trends, and recreation options in communities mature enough to have a Heritage Foundation.

Slam.

Is this even the same place? Well, of course it is. But at the same time, a different world.

In the 1860s and 70s, people were trying to make Muskoka into something it is not. From a raw wilderness of forest, lakes and rock, white settlers came and tried to tame it into farmland, neatly organized into 100 acre lots. And for a while it seemed to work. In the early 1860s the farmers along the Muskoka Road produced an astonishing amount of crops, even in the worst soil Morrison Township had to offer. But once the forest’s thin layer of humus had been depleted, the farmers were left staring at the impenetrable granite of the Canadian Shield.

Thankfully, today, we aren’t doing that any more. We found out the hard way that only about 10% of the district is suitable for farming. The rest is Precambrian rock, lakes, rivers, and – once again – forest. These very elements are what we treasure about the region. Instead of trying to hack this wild district into farms, we go there to enjoy nature. And through the efforts of such organizations as the Muskoka Heritage Foundation, we try to preserve nature as much as possible.

My happiest realization is that Muskoka is a district known and loved for recreation rather than back-breaking struggle. The district’s residents have all its splendour in their back yards. People come here to play, to escape the city, to rest and enjoy seasonal family havens. For plenty of families, this has been a multi-generational joy. In fact, at exactly the same time the early settlers were trudging up the Muskoka Road, so were the first tourists. And of course, long before they arrived, the first nation people also enjoyed the area for its abundant natural gifts: game, fish and breathtaking beauty.

But experiencing the “Muskoka lifestyle” doesn’t come cheap. We are a long way from the free grant lands offered to settlers in the 1860s; Muskoka is now one of the most expensive addresses in Ontario. So imagine first these families of immigrants, many with nothing more than dreams in their pockets, trudging up the Muskoka Road in creaky wagons dragged by oxen. Then flash forward to glossy pages of designer cottages. This to me is the starkest contrast of all: an area once literally free for the taking is now far beyond the means of most people.

MUCKING ABOUT IN SENTENCES: Editing Chapters

ByLee Ann

On my whiteboard this week is a quote from writer Annie Dillard:

It’s a privilege to muck about in sentences all morning.

So true! I’ve been heads-down editing Chapters 2 and 3, after reading them out loud and finding out what needs to be changed. As part of the process, I’ve also incorporated the recent feedback I’ve received from my “friendly readers”: Jen, Lynn and Mr. Busy.

Most. Fun. Ever.

I mean, really. What a privilege: I’m wallowing around in 1864, a time when the pristine face of Muskoka was being permanently changed by axe blows. I’m reading the memoirs of a Muskoka steamship captain, trying to pull everything I think I will need before I have to return this book to the library. I’m hunting down 19th century population figures for Gravenhurst and Bracebridge, and discovering first-hand stories from several surveyors and settlers. 

Speaking of surveyors and settlers:

  • James Bridgland is still my favourite surveyor – he gets top marks for bluntness; says the Muskoka Road was “never  even tolerably good.”
  • Settler, newspaper publisher and Muskoka promoter Thomas McMurray wins for hyperbole. Everything he writes about Muskoka is suspect – he was just so darn keen about the place.

As part of the editing of these two chapters, I’ve had to do some more research. I’ve had to look hard at the Muskoka district, to understand where the rivers flow, where the rapids and waterfalls are and which direction the granite ridges run. All of these things, of course, affected the surveyors, road-builders and settlers. Luckily I’ve discovered that I like maps and geography almost as much as sentences!

Other random things I’ve learned this week:

  • The “surveyors’ chain” used by all the 19th century Muskoka Road surveyors was invented in 1620 by an English mathematician who was also a clergyman. I think you’d need some divine inspiration to come up with a gadget that synthesized two measuring systems, one based on the number four and one based on the number ten. This story may earn its own sidebar in the book.
  • The famous prize turnip (no, I’m still not sick of talking about it!) was grown in some of the worst land Muskoka had to offer. This success story doesn’t do anything to support the fact that it was desperately hard to farm in the Muskoka district. I’ll have to figure out how to deal with that.

Even with all the changes and additional research, my word count is still creeping up overall. Privilege and progress!

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BABY-BOOMER IN THE BLOGOSPHERE PART 3: Why Writers Should Blog

ByLee Ann

I’ve always admired columnists. You know – the writers of newspaper and magazine columns whose job it is to write reflective and informative pieces on current events or current social issues. People like Joseph Mitchell, a features writer for The New Yorker for 58 years. Or Joe McClelland, reporter and columnist for The London Free Press for 27 years. Or Anna Quindlen, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times. Treat yourself: look them up and read their work. Here’s what you will find:

  • A theme. Each piece has a purpose and makes a point. It’s not a string of random thoughts.
  • Tight structure. Their articles have a beginning, a middle and an end. Paragraphs link to each other like pearls in a necklace.
  • Luminous, vivid prose. I can pick up any article by any of these columnists and find delicious phrasing that takes me right into the story. 

A good blog post is like a good column. It has all the above attributes. And I think writing a regular blog is fantastic practice for any writer. You can write to a deadline. You try for tight, purposeful prose that has a point to it. You work hard for words that sparkle.

And like a column, your blog has to have relevance to your readers, or they’ll skip over to something else that does. 

If your blog gives good prose and good value, you can build a following, work with your readers to develop an idea, even post excerpts of your book to get feedback before publication.

But above all, you can hone your skills as a writer. It’s not easy to write a good blog post – one that has the attributes of a Mitchell or McClelland or Quindlen piece.

But with this practice, I’ll get better.

ADVICE TO WRITERS: Read Your Work Out Loud!

ByLee Ann

I recently had the opportunity to read the draft versions of Chapters 2 and 3 aloud to some friends. As a writer, I’ve heard many times how valuable this is. Do I do it? I can’t remember the last time I read any of my work out loud, even to the plants in my office.

Of course I received valuable feedback from Linda and Maurice. They are very well-read and enthusiastic about my work, so they had lots of good questions, comments and reactions that I could make note of. They told me when they needed more detail. They were impressed overall with what they learned about Muskoka and its beginnings. And their best reactions were to paragraphs that I had re-written into modern language from 19th century quotes. That was great feedback. As much as I love 19th century lingo, I had removed those quotes from an earlier draft, thanks to advice from Lynn, Jen and Mr. Busy. (Thanks, guys, you were right as usual!)

But the real value of the read-aloud exercise was what I heard when I listened to myself read. I heard:

  • A story that was not as conversational as I want it to be. Parts were decidedly flat to my ear, lacking the energy and lilt of a story.
  • Too many textbook and/or formal and/or big words that were hard to say.
  • Too many sentences that I couldn’t finish in one breath.

Also, I found I had to interrupt myself sometimes to provide some context or background. Or to add some colour commentary. Of course, all these should be in the text. Some were, I hasten to tell you. But not all of them, and not all were exactly where they needed to be.

At first I was very upset and disappointed with myself, because of the gap between what I thought I wrote and what I heard when I read the words out loud. Then I realized what a great gift this experience was – especially since it happened so early in the process of writing. I can now edit these two chapters and punch up the style, translate words from formal to evocative and make the sentences short and meaty. And then carry that style of voice as I write the next chapters.

Maybe I shouldn’t be admitting all this in public… but I did promise to be honest about the process, so there you go. I’ll admit this in public too: I’m now going to read every page out loud. Please smile when you hear the sounds coming from my office and know that I’m writing a better book!