From One Ravens Eye

Page 7

How to Write a column

Congratulations to the good ship, or should I say the sturdy canoe, that is the AMMSA newspaper. To its readers, staff and board who have paddled that Aboriginal appliance this far - way to go, to all of you.

Before you get to accusing me of patting my own back, let me say that I am not a card-carrying, office or secretary-occupying staff member. They only use my stuff if they like it and if they don't, they don't.

This paper has been in operation for three years now. Even for that one thing they deserve some applause. Many other just as well-intentioned communications enterprises have come and gone in much less time than this. Whether or not it is meeting its objective is up to you readers, and I suppose in some ways the non-readers, out there in the communities. The only thing is those invisible people don't get to vote. This isn't the Philippine elections, you know.

If you don't like what they are doing with your paper, then go ahead and say so.

If what is going on pleases you, then say that too. Last time I counted there were 20 pairs of ears wandering around down here, and every time I've talked to anybody they listened real good.

This commenting on also applies to my contributions as well, of course.

This week I figured to tell you a few things on how my work gets done.

Someone wrote me a while back asking how to get into this column writing business. Well there wasn't much to it. I called the editor one day and asked whether he was interested in looking at a column about Indian Summer. "Okay," he said. After reading it he asked, "got anymore? I said "Yeah." Five months have passed since then.

This column was begun on Monday. The deadline to have it in to the office is Wednesday. I first of all set up my lawn chair in the living room and prop my feet up on the couch. A person has to be relaxed to write well, you know. In front of me stands an album cover pasted over with photographs of Indian facts cut out from the paper. This is to remind me who this column is intended for.

Next, I pull out a file of idea for column topics. This plan hardly ever works.

Most of the time on Monday is spent staring off into space, worrying, hassling myself and desperately writing down any idea that comes along. This is where writing is just plain hard work and no fun at all. Also, there is nobody around to supervise me. I could just as easily sneak off to the pool hall. Just as I bend over to put on my eight ball-shooting shoes, that awful feeling of running out of time grabs hold of me and sits me down again.

Once an idea shows up, the biggest problem is solved. Then I spend an hour or two thinking up all sorts of stuff related to the topic.

This is where having read a few books comes in handy. More importantly, though, is what I remember about people and happenings along my sometimes bumpy, sometimes merry way.

My idea of the perfect article is like those Edith Josie, a Loucheux Indian woman used to write for the Whitehorse Star back in the sixties. In her English-as-a-second-language style she would relate the day-to-day happenings of the village in which she lived. Life is, after all, life everywhere. Anyone who would write knowingly and entertainingly about the rez version of it would have many eager readers, myself included.

After the ideas and remembering is done, I do a writing warm up exercise. This consists of writing down the time, then writing whatever comes into my head for the next 10 minutes. The brain and imagination are like muscles in the sense that they both get stronger the more a person exercises them, and so you are less likely to strain or sprain your brain unnecessarily if you warm up a little first.

Next I write on lined paper, with pen, all my ideas just as they come out. I never try to put them in any order or even care that they make sense at this point. What follows is changing it around, adding, taking out, messing around with the order. You also have to leve it alone for several hours at a time because when you come back to it it's always surprising how you come up with better ways to say something.

This revising process goes on often when I am typing it up.

The only real complaint I have about writing these is that I end up with little time to do my other writing. Also, I sometimes find myself sounding like a spokesperson, implying maybe I know more than anybody else. The reason I do these columns are to entertain, to maybe make a point and to help support my family.

The problem is that while my observations are personal, they must also appeal to an audience as well. What I try to do is understand my own travels and hope you recognize a few of the same places along the way.

You are probably asking yourself why this column now has a title and why "From One Raven's Eye." Well they are in the process of snazzing up the paper and asked me to come up with one.

Please note that raven is spelled with an 'e', not an 'i" with an apostrophe after the 'n'. Sometimes like a raven I tend to squawk and get into things maybe I shouldn't, but mostly I try to be straight and fair-minded.

The real story behind the choice of name is that as a kid I was baptized under my dad's name, which was Raven. So you could say one eye of mine is wagamese and the other is Raven. Besides that, my wagamese eye, my best writing eye, is used for other purposes.

Don't you find it boring when other people talk about their jobs all the time? Well, I promise never to do it again. Come back next week and we'll get into something else then.