Introducing the other sister…muse…

I have to say at the outset that I’m really excited about this blog.  My sister has always been an inspiration to me as a writer and a human being (sorry, S.K….hope that doesn’t reflect badly on you!:), so the idea that we can blog together, sharing energy and enthusiasm and ideas with each other and the world, is definitely an awesome one.

Well…hopefully some of those ideas will come my way.

I’m one of those people who likes to write more than talk, and who likes to write about fictional characters more than about myself.  Give me a blank Word document or sheet of paper, and I’m happy as a clam.  Give me a blank blog post or tweet or Facebook status…and I’m happy as a clam at a clam bake.  Exposed and raw and rather…gelatinous.  Err…maybe not that last bit.

At any rate, I’m determined to change all that.  Maybe if I can write about writing about fictional characters, somehow I’ll survive!  I’ll leave the forum open for suggestions, of course.  In fact, that would make my life much easier.

But for now, since no one’s reading my mind and making suggestions before I publish this post, I will just say this:  Reading out loud is a godsend as far as editing goes.  Do you know how many times I’ve read a paragraph out loud and realized I used the same word three times?  Or accidentally left out a crucial verb?  Or misspelled some poor character’s name, when he hadn’t even done anything to deserve it?  Yes, dear reader, yes.  I’ve discovered these treacherous flaws many a time in my editing.  I’d probably skim right over them, if I were reading to myself.  You just don’t see them.  You see what you expect to see…and therein lies the danger.

Plus, for me, story-telling always feels like an aural and oral art, and I never feel like I know my work, or know if it’s right, if I haven’t heard it.  I love the texture of the sounds, the rhythm of the words and the mood their sounds convey.  I think it’s interesting that S.K. and I both love language, but that we seem to appreciate different aspects of it — like two sides of the same coin.

Now, if only I had a microphone and something better than this stone-age clunker of a computer, I might experiment with an audio sample from my book.   Might be fun!