Sue Harrison | Always Looking Up

September 2008.

I don’t even remember specifically where I heard about the workshop. It might have been through the Sudbury Writers’ Guild, or through the Sudbury Arts Council. In any event, I learned of a relatively small event called the W.O.W. workshop. I believe that it stood for writers on the water. It took place in Bruce Mines, Ontario. It was a one day workshop and the featured speaker was Sue Harrison.

The first part of the workshop focused on character development and was excellent. Sue had several exercises worked out and all of the participants, regardless of their respective levels of professionalism, gained valuable insight into what makes a character come to life on the page. Sue read not only from Mother Earth, Father Sky, but from a new novel that she was working on.

The next part of the workshop was presented by Sue’s husband and focused on the publishing business and the important lessons they learned from their experiences.

Sue’s story is a fascinating one. She had been working on a novel based on the lives of the prehistoric Aleut tribes who populated the islands of the Alaska Panhandle. When she had it to the point where she felt she was ready to shop around, Sue started looking for an agent. She took the directory and started at “A,” sending out queries five at a time. Eventually she found an agent: her name began with a “W,” Rhoda Weyr I believe (yup, just checked the acknowledgements).

Sue was told that what she was presenting as her novel was in fact three novels crammed together. Sue was assigned the daunting task of dissecting her work and reconstructing it into three separate but coherent novels.

A confluence of events began to swirl around Sue’s work. The first was the runaway success of Jean Auel‘s prehistoric novels which created a ready audience. Another was a publishing industry in boom, able to invest in its authors. The third was an agent willing to find and fight for the best possible deal for her author. After finding several publishers interested in the novel that would become Mother Earth, Father Sky, Sue’s agent initiated an auction for the novel. The result was a phenomenal advance and promotional budget. Knowing that there were two other novels in the series made Sue’s first work an attractive commodity in the publishing world.

The road was not all paved with gold, however. Agents and editors changed. At one point, her work was “orphaned” by an editorial shift, jeopardizing publication. Sue and her husband were forced to become experts in publishing and contract law to protect their interests.

I can’t begin to tell you how informative the workshop was or how much I gained from the experience.

Sue was fantastic.

Have you met an expert in your creative field whose story you admired and were inspired by? Who was it, where did you meet, and what was the impact on your creative life?

Last time on Work in progress: I finally found a way to wedge my butt in the chair!

I wrote through, just like Nino said.

In the years previous, I’d tried a number of different tactics: outlining, character sketches, plotlines for the major characters, world building, timeline, research. None of it got me writing … like writing.

I’d always heard that if you want to write, then write. I’d even said it to students. It’s true, but you have to be ready to see the truth, to accept it fully, and live it. After years of struggling with my inner critic, informed as it was with all of my weaknesses and doubts, all my past experiences … I finally got it. I finally wrote.

I’d never gotten past the first hundred pages before. They were written and rewritten many times, but I’d never gotten past them. This time, I tried a new strategy: ctrl-g 🙂 I’d note the page I stopped on, and went right to it the next day. Starting from the beginning every day merely trapped me in an endless loop of editing. Another authorial truism: the work is never finished, only abandoned. The first draft isn’t the time to tweak and fine-tune, it’s the time to get the words out.

By September of 2008, I’d written my way to 1000 pages. It was scary, and exhilarating. Then it was called Initiate of Wind. As a reward, I treated myself to a writing workshop with Sue Harrison at the W.O.W Retreat in Bruce Mines. Loved it, loved it, loved it! Watch Authorial name dropping for my post on the lovely Sue 🙂

I’d started out writing the novel as I’d intended, changing point of view in sections, cycling between the major characters. Then, some of the plot points started to change as I wrote. New sections wanted to be included. New characters. Toward the end, I was working on fumes and dropped all the fancy stuff. The last three chapters were written in the same p.o.v. I just got the words out. All of them, good or bad, were out.

That year, I went as "The Sander" for Hallowe'en

My refractory period was the renovation of my office. Five weeks of nothing but physical work: demolition, insulation, vapor barrier, mudding, sanding, painting, floor refinishing, and furnishing.

At the end of it, I had a room of my own. An office. A place to write. I think that helped me to keep at the writing too, but by then, I’d been writing every day for two years, so I guess the office was a kind of reward too.

A room with a view, no less

Then it was back to real life, back to work, and back to writing.

What I learned: Write. The first draft is no place for revision. Write. Commit to your relationship with your creativity, and you will go back to it, every day. Write. Just write.

Have you completed the first draft of a novel? What did it teach you and how did you feel? What did you do to reward yourself/celebrate?

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