Writing In Your Second Language

It's been about four years now since I started writing in English.  I mean in a serious way.  I had of course written in English before: for school, for work, or to write love letters to my English wife.  But about four years ago, I decided to start writing fiction in the language of Shakespeare and Stephen King, as opposed to that of Molière and Daniel Pennac.

I have, occasionally, been asked why.  And also pourquoi.

The first answer is: to make tons of money.  This is working out splendidly *coughs in hand*.

The second answer is: I'm not sure.

The third answer is: I've had a fascination with the English language for a long time.  I think it began with a great English teacher, in high school, who would take us to the park to read poetry out loud, analyze Leonard Cohen's work, and tell us about how he'd moved from Ontario to Montreal because you could buy beer at the corner store in Quebec. That's when I realized English was beautiful.  And that I would never move to Ontario.

As I started to explore English, its strange spelling, unfathomable pronunciation and wonderful music, what I discovered was that writing in my second language freed me from constraints I hadn't even realized I'd felt.  Whereas in French I'd been obsessed with sounding literary and deep, in English I could concentrate without guilt on doing what really interested me in writing: telling stories.  And so what if it didn't sound quite so deep?  After all, it was only my second language, so this was just for fun, right?

That's what I've been doing ever since.  Having fun.

The Collaborative Project

I mentioned earlier on the blog that we had all taken on some projects during our break from publishing HBM. For me, this meant working a little on video game writing ideas and a little on nothing at all. Then, Duane, Vincent, and I decided to write a truly collaborative piece. For those who don't know, Issue 3 of Here Be Monsters (called "Where Cities Tread") was made up of three stories that were all set in the same world. We'd designed the concept together, but each story was still written by the author on his own. During the summer though, we started on a story that was actually written by all three of us.

To do this, we used Google Docs. It allowed us to write on the same page at once, comment on eachother's writing, all while chatting from our computers at our separate houses. I'd known about the tool before this, but to see it in action was pretty incredible. During our first session, we were brainstorming all kinds of ideas. Characters, themes, rules about the story, publication plans, everything was pouring out faster than we could have done around a kitchen table (our usual meeting room).

There was even some healthy debate going on about ethics, religion in fiction, all sorts of things. And, keep in mind, this is with 3 passionate writers, so the fact that we were able to keep it to "healthy debate" is a testament to how well we get along and work together.

The plot was slower to come together than some of the other parts, but we had enough to start with. So, each of us began writing from a separate point in the story. I was doing a scene between two characters, going back and forth, when I got stuck. I wrote "I'm stuck" on the screen just so that the guys knew why I'd stopped, and then the amazing thing happened. Vincent picked up right from where I'd left off and continued the scene. He stayed true to everything I'd written so far but brought the story forward in a way I wasn't expecting. And I was totally on-board with it.

For those of you who are writers, or even other artists, you can probably imagine how scary it could be to work together in this way. You see all of eachother's mistakes before they can be corrected, you're required to buy in to other people's ideas and hope they buy into yours -- But this worked. Really really well. We all ended up tagging in and out like this as we formed the first few scenes of the story. It was so exciting.

Sadly, the project did get put on hold, but that's okay. It led us back to Here Be Monsters and a new issue. Also, it proved that we could do it. I don't doubt that we'll pick it up again. Whether it will end up as an HBM publication of some kind, I don't know, but it was too fun to not follow through on.

Thanks,

Alex

Tomato-Based Non-Food and the Writing Stomach.

As we sail towards our next release, heading once again to one of those many improbable edges of the map, we need all the help we can get. In addition to some paper and ink, to Alex’s very tactful advice on style, to Duane’s unbelievable imagination that can put Queen Victoria in a space station looking for a treasure island while she treats a wound to her second pair of eyes, to my overlong sentences and recurring questions about English language (is there a difference between toward and towards? What’s the nuance between farther and further? Why the Hell is it written Wednesday?), in addition to all that, we need tomato-based non-food.
Non-food is defined as food that had no other purpose than its taste and possible induction of nausea if consumed in too great a quantity. Its taste is usually salty, or, towards (toward?) the end of the night, sweet. It cannot in any way be nutritious. In our case, it’s usually tomato-based in some way: pizza base, pizza-flavoured chips, tomato spread, and so much more. It provides comfort and helps grease the wheels of the group as we struggle with our pens, so that at least if the pages stay empty, our stomachs do not, and neither do our souls, filled as they become by the warmth of salt and red additives.
I know. Overlong sentence again. But I can do better. Next post, I’ll try for a single-sentence paragraph.
Now don't let this ridiculously-themed post mislead you. We are working hard, and the next issue promises to be even better than the first one. Look for it in early march.

Vincent