Feather by Feather and Other Stories

by Lynn E. O'Connacht

  This is what the structure of a triple sestina looks like when written out with letters:

  Stanza 01: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R

  Stanza 02: R A Q B P C O D N E M F L G K H J I

  Stanza 03: I R J A H Q K B G P L C F O M D E N

  Stanza 04: N I E R D J M A O H F Q C K L B P G

  Stanza 05: G N P I B E L R K D C J Q M F A H O

  Stanza 06: O G H N A P F I M B Q E J L C R D K

  Stanza 07: K O D G R H C N L A J P E F Q I B M

  Stanza 08: M K B O I D Q G F R E H P C J N A L

  Stanza 09: L M A K N B J O C I P D H Q E G R F

  Stanza 10: F L R M G A E K Q N H B D J P O I C

  Stanza 11: C F I L O R P M J G D A B E H K N Q

  Stanza 12: Q C N F K I H L E O B R A P D M G J

  Stanza 13: J Q G C M N D F P K A I R H B L O E

  Stanza 14: E J O Q L G B C H M R N I D A F K P

  Stanza 15: P E K J F O A Q D L I G N B R C M H

  Stanza 16: H P M E C K R J B F N O G A I Q L D

  Stanza 17: D H L P Q M I E A C G K O R N J F B

  Stanza 18: B D F H J L N P R Q O M K I G E A C

  Envoi Line 1: Q B

  Envoi Line 2: O D

  Envoi Line 3: M F

  Envoi Line 4: K H

  Envoi Line 5: I J

  Envoi Line 6: G L

  Envoi Line 7: E N

  Envoi Line 8: A P

  Envoi Line 9: C R

  There you are. That’s what the structure of a triple sestina looks like. As with the regular sestina, each letter represents both a word and a line within the stanzas.

  As with the regular sestina, you can order the envoi pretty much however makes sense for your poem. Here, I’ve opted for a new and formal structure of dividing the amount of lines into two rows of nine words and copying the first letter/word of each row.

  How I Write a Triple Sestina

  I have to admit that, personally, I don’t find the abstract structure in the previous section particularly helpful. I don’t find it helpful when the letters are all on their own line either. I need something a bit more concrete than a list of words and the letter they correspond to.

  Because it’s still an abstract structure, I have to be mindful of which word goes with which letter. Perhaps it’s my inability to visualise, I don’t know, but when I’m writing a triple sestina I absolutely need the structure written out word by word or I’ll mess it up.

  Normally, when I want to write a sestina of any length I start the poem off by picking out the words that I want to use and organising the structure.

  I’ll take a piece of paper or open a file that can create tables in any way — I usually use Word and set my tables to six columns per row — and create cells or a section for each stanza. Once I’ve done that, I start adding in the words, using a handy abstract structure like the one on the previous page to make sure that each word I use is added in the right spot.

  Once I have that structure in place, I’ll start writing the poem. I usually don’t concern myself with the envoi until I reach it, but it’s an equally valid option to start with the envoi! Or to write it somewhere in the middle of your poem. This is only a description of how I work. You’ll have to find the way that works best for you.

  If working out the structure beforehand is something that helps you, you might want to use a template file so that you don’t need to recreate the structure for each new poem.

  If you’d like even more of a challenge, or just some more structural variation, you could include an acrostic at the beginning, use end words that rhyme, stick to a specific metre, use a syllable count or add whatever other variations you like. As long as you don’t touch the end word repetition in the stanzas, you’re pretty much free to do whatever you like, so have fun writing sestinas!

  I’ve seen several authors include self-interviews in their books recently and it certainly looked like a lot of fun. Granted, this is quite likely at least partially because the authors in question had a clue what they were doing and I’ve never actually gotten the hang of asking interview questions. Really, I haven’t. I have this deer-in-headlights look that I get when you ask me to come up with questions, especially on the spot.

  Bungling can still be amusing to read, though, so I thought I’d give it a go anyway. I enjoyed writing it up, and maybe others will too. You’re forewarned that interviews aren’t really my strong point, but I did have a lot more fun than I was expecting after I got past the shock of having to come up with questions by myself. Meep.

  So why are you doing this again?

  I just explained that! Weren’t you listening?

  Nope. I was busy writing it all down. Sooooo… Just to get this question out of the way… Where do you get your ideas?

  Uhm. Er. Er. Uhm. I don’t know? From everywhere? This may be a time-honoured question to ask a writer, but it’s still incredibly mean. The general consensus among writers seems to be that it’s an annoying and horrible question that should be banned from interviews. Sometimes I dream up a story; sometimes I read a newspaper article and go ‘that would make an awesome story’; sometimes I say ‘Gosh, I’d like a story with X’ and everything else follows; sometimes I get frustrated about something I read and want to write a similar idea my way; sometimes I want to do something nice for a friend who likes X, Y and/or Z; sometimes I play a game; sometimes I watch a documentary or read a non-fiction book.

  Inspiration is everywhere and I honestly have neither the time nor the inclination to play that ‘where did this come from’ game with all my stories, sorry. I’d much rather just go on and tell the stories themselves. It’s far more interesting. Literary scholars can do the studying how I came up with what if they want to, but I won’t.

  That’d be flattering! And kind of creepy. But you know the origins some of the time…

  Yes, I do. And as you can tell from some of the commentaries I wrote, I’m happy to at least allude to their origins too. I know people find it interesting to read about. Sometimes I just don’t know and other times it just may not be very interesting, is all. :p (Oh, hey, do I actually get to use smileys in this interview? I’ve tried so hard to be good and professional in the commentaries already…)

  Sure! Why not?

  Yay! And emotion descriptions?

  Uh. No. No, you’ll probably try hitting me, er, yourself. Oh, you know what I mean.

  sulks

  I said ‘no’!

  blows a raspberry

  Fine then. Be that way. I suppose I deserve it. What do you do all day?

  At present, I work part-time and I spend a lot of the rest of my day doing anything from ‘nothing’ to ‘writing’ to ‘gaming’ to ‘reading’ to ‘watching tv’ to ‘chatting with friends’. It just depends on the day. I spent last Sunday curled up with books almost all day and gaming when I wasn’t reading, for example, and the day after that I spent rewriting and rekeying ALL THE THINGS!

  You don’t have to shout, you know…

  Yes, sorry. I say ‘sorry’ a lot, don’t I? Sorry.

  facepalms Do you have any writing rituals?

  No, not really. I try to finish things in scene-sized chunks because it makes the daily metrics easier on my brain, but that’s about it. I don’t often write to music because I find noise in general distracting. I don’t need absolute quiet, but I do need mostly-quiet. White noise will annoy me every bit as much as anything else. I’m afraid I’m a very boring writer when it comes to any form of set ritual. I don’t have a set writing space, I don’t have any elaborate preparation… I sit down and I open up the manuscript I want to work on and I write. That’s pretty much it. I also get distracted a lot. I find twitter or IM to be pretty helpful. It gives me just enough distraction to stay focused.

  Do your stories go through many drafts before they’re ready for publication?

  Oh, yes! Most go through at least half a dozen drafts before I’m happy. Not all of them do, though. Length seems to be a big factor in the amo
unt of drafts a story needs. For example, Phee only took about three drafts and that’s more because there were typos I’d missed than because there were major structural issues. And yes I do count that as a new draft. I normally type new drafts up again keystroke by keystroke, so I say it counts. It takes time to type it all up again, after all. Something longer, like The Witch and the Changeling, takes me much longer to rework. That one took a draft or two to figure out where I wanted it to go, and it went through… eight or nine drafts in total? Something like that, I think. As a result, when it comes to longer work, I’m a fairly slow writer. I backtrack several times before I have a workable first draft, but once I do have that first draft it tends to stay relatively the same.

  What’s your favourite story from this collection?

  Tough question. It depends. Ask me tomorrow or an hour from now and I’ll probably give you a completely different answer. I’m very partial to The Little Engine that Couldn’t. That one always, invariably, makes me cry. Poor little engine. Jan tries so hard and no one listens… I also have a soft spot for The Bobble Hat. That was just way too much of fun to write. And since we’ve discussed story origins before, I blame Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men for that one. I read it not too long before writing this. You probably won’t be able to tell from the humour, but Ellie was trying very hard to be someone more like Tiffany.

  As for my favourite poem… I think I’ll have to go with Breadcrumbs. That was just so much fun to work on and I really enjoyed playing with the acrostic and working with jjhunter. I had a blast with that one. <3

  How about least favourite?

  Probably all the stories I’ve only included because I promised people I’d put out a collection that had allmy freebie stories in it. I promised. And will never promise such a thing ever again because I’ve learned my lesson now. ^-~ Hopefully, though, someone will read those stories and enjoy them a lot anyway. It’s not the story’s fault. (Presumably. Opinions may differ.)

  I was actually really surprised when I went over these stories for their final typocatching and edits. Did I really write those stories? I read them on my ereader so it was a bit easier to forget that I’m the person who wrote them. It was… a very interesting experience, but some of the stories in this collection are still included solely because I promised I’d include them and I want anyone who’d like to have all the stories gathered together to have access to one volume that collects them all.

  Er. Sorry, that went off on a bit of a tangent. I’ll say my least favourite story is Confidentiality. I’d like it better if it agreed to have a decent, sensible title instead of the word from the Cotton Candy Bingo prompt I wrote it for.

  Are you planning any sequels or prequels for any of the stories in this collection?

  Some, yes, but most of these stories aren’t ones I’m considering returning to. I have at least three other stories set in the world of Whiskey and Water, a novella companion to The Passage of Pearl that may still decide it’s a novel, and several more short stories about peeweww on the projects list. There are a couple of others stories in here that have potential, even though I don’t plan to write anything new related to them right now. I might change my mind later or if people might ask for them very often. If people want to see more of a particular setting, I’ll see what I can do for them!

  What’s your favourite kind of chocolate?

  Where did that question come from? What kind of question is it anyway? My favourite varies depending on my mood. I’m partial to white chocolate with hazelnuts and dark chocolate (with or without hazelnuts), but as long as it doesn’t have things I dislike or can’t eat in it I’m happy to give new flavours a try. I’m also very fond of chocolate milk and chocolate ice cream. Or, basically, all the chocolate all the time is good with me! (Except white chocolate ice cream. That just does not work for me. Sadness.)

  Mmmmmm. Speaking of food, what’s your favourite beverage when you’re working?

  Nothing. I, obviously, work at a computer and prefer not to drink anything when I do. I might spill it and ruin my laptop! That said, when I do drink at a computer I lean towards hot beverages like tea or coffee. I like fruity teas before you ask! And I don’t have any particular favourites. As long as it doesn’t contain something I dislike or can’t have, I’m happy to taste it. (Which is weird, really, since I’m not an adventurous eater at alldespite what my willingness to taste most things chocolate or tea may suggest.)

  Right. Since your diet probably isn’t the most interest—

  Hey! You started it!

  So I did. Let’s just get back to the writing questions! What was the hardest story for you to write?

  Tough question. So many of these stories were difficult for different reasons… Highway Green drove me bonkers with the dialect and accent. deflates And I want to do even more pieces that have an extremely distinct voice. >< You’ll just have to trust me when I say that the longer story The First Deed of Coen of the Stars is about is an absolute nightmare in that regard. (Which is fun when it cooperates and not so much fun when it doesn’t. Save me from myself someone!) As under a Green Sea, Changeling’s Time and To Sleep for a Season all had description issues. (Actually all my stories do, but those are particularly noteworthy.)

  I’m not a visually-oriented person, so descriptions are my weakest point in writing. Any story that relies on it is going to give me trouble. The Little Engine that Couldn’t was emotionally very harrowing to work on. I adore little Jan’s spirit so much and it all goes so horribly wrong. Poor little Jan.

  Every story is going to have parts that are harder than others and they won’t all be difficult for the same reason. shrug I don’t know which one of them was hardest in any/more objective terms because they were all equally hard in their own way. I could tell you which ones were easiest, but they’d end up being the shortest pieces, such as Phee and Trinity, or the haiku I included here.

  How was that a tough question? You just rambled about several stories with arguments without much pause for thought!

  I thought it was tough! You asked me for one story and I mentioned lots. I even said I can’t get it narrowed down to one piece! That’s too tough for me to do! T_T

  Fine. Fine. Moving on. If you could change one thing about this whole experience so far what would it be?

  I’d like to change the amount of knowledge I had going into it. I still have scads of stuff to learn, but it would have been nice to have a better idea of what pen names and pseudonyms and all would throw at me in terms of issues. I try to be open about mine, so it’s more of a cross between a pseudonym and a pen name. I don’t want to lie to people. I am who I am, whatever name I use, and I don’t want to pretend to have a personality I don’t. Still, there are questions about what I could conceivably do and how that fits into what I ultimately want that I still haven’t managed to answer satisfactorily yet. This is all stuff I’m still figuring out as I go along.

  But if I’d known it all beforehand, I might have had some of them sorted out beforehand too. I might not have done a lot of things (very) differently, but I’d have done them with a better grasp of what I was doing. That’s a pretty important part of learning.

  Are you working on any projects right now?

  Several. Actually, I’m mainly focusing on polishing up and finishing some of my started-but-unfinished material before I really start dedicating my time to creating wholly new content, but I do have several ideas. Sometimes I work on them too! I aim to continue working on the novellas and novels I’ve started and got side-tracked on, but finishing the shorter pieces clears up my slate and empties out my brain so there’s more room for the rest. What I’ll do after that… who knows. We’ll see when I get there! ^-^

  What’s up with all the name-dropping?

  What? You mean the way I mention other people’s books every now and again?

  Yes! What’s up with that?

  Well… I liked the book. I’m a reader as well as a writer and sometimes, if I think it’s rel
evant to what I’m discussing, I might mention someone else’s book or story to bring it to people’s attention. Why it’s relevant depends on the situation, but I do admit to sometimes just wanting to mention a book by name to make people aware of its existence. Maybe that’s silly. I just like talking about books and perhaps this is the first time someone else has heard of a book they end up enjoying an awful lot. If I don’t mention the book, that person might never hear about it. (Like I said, maybe that’s silly, but that’s why I mention them: because I think they’re relevant and worth reading.)

  Right. So why don’t you mention your friends by name? Some of them are writers.

  I don’t always know if they want to be named. Not everyone does, after all! With the published authors I’ve mentioned… They’ve already got their name out there attached to the work, so not mentioning them by name strikes me as a little… well, coy. (Plus, I like their works and want to see more people reading them. I just said that, didn’t I? Oh, well. If not I said it now.)

  That sounds fair enough. Are you enjoying this as much as you thought?

  To be honest, I thought I’d be funnier and more amusing to read. I had this idea when it was late and I was clowning about asking myself questions and answering them before bed. I should have gotten up and written them down… The questions and answers might not have been as amusing as I’d thought at the time, but now we’ll never know because I forgot the lot.

  Alack. Woe. Etc etc.

  Yes… Let’s not go there and wrap this up, shall we?

  But, but. I still have so many questions left to ask you…

  No, you don’t. You just spent half an hour watching Let’s Play videos because you were looking for question inspiration and got distracted. Also, Cat wants petting.

  Ooooooh, a kitty! Bye!

  And that’s all, everyone. I hope you’ve enjoyed my slightly haphazard approach to self-interviewing!

  Made to Be Broken is the original draft of All Our Good Intentions. The version below was the latest publicly available version at the time the collection was originally published. Now that I’ve finished tinkering with the revision project and this story, I’ve opted to include the finished piece and offer this one as a bonus addition.