✨On Developmental Editing: More of the Scoop at …But I Also Have a Day Job ✨

Photo Courtesy of Laura Chouette, unsplash.com

Wonder how a developmental edit works? The answer by super talented writer and fellow Daria aficionado Ian Rogers at …But I Also Have a Day Job. @IantheRoge 🙌

While you’re there, read his insightful interviews with inspiring writing advice from cool writers, such as Gina Troisi.

Also, check out TRAM, the awesome indie zine out of Toyama, Japan that Ian co-edits.

Also, get ready for his debut novel, MFA Thesis Novel, dropping in April 2022 at Vine Leaves Press @VineLeavesPress --it's fantastic and funny. I’m excited for readers and fellow writers to get their hands on this literary gem. 📘📚🖊

Photo Courtesy of Laura Chouette, unsplash.com

📸 My Photography Featured in Fatal Flaw 📸

Super excited that three of my photos have been published today as part of Fatal Flaw’s Ritual-themed Issue #4, among many talented writers and artists.

Please check out the issue as well as my film photograph (included here) as well as two digital compositions.

I used Kodak Gold 200 film on a ‘90s Canon to make this photo; I love that grainy film feeling and the way this film plays soft with light. 🤩📸

Great News: Beyond Words Literary Magazine Second Printing

So pleased that this issue of the stellar international literary journal, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, from last June has now gone into a second printing! 😍📸

I have photography in the June 2020 issue as well as in their current May 2021 issue.

Get your copy/subscription today @beyondwordsmagazine . Also, consider submitting your words or art.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

My Poem, "Aim," Published 🖋📓

So pleased to announce that my poem, “Aim,” was published in the current (December 2020) issue of Songs of Eretz. It has a refreshing “Spring” theme— more on that in the editor’s note.

The issue contains the poems of many very talented poets to savor, including meaningful poems by my dear friend, Charles A. Swanson, who is a featured poet in this and many other issues. Check out his poignant elegy to his beautiful granddaughter, Addi. It is an honor to share this issue as “contributor twins” with this steadfast friend from my grad-school days. Here’s to many more of his publications.

Read the complete issue at: Songs of Eretz.

“Aim”
Melanie Faith 

That was the night we sped barefoot
down the embankment
across the rolling lawn
past the fountain outside the dining hall, past
Diana the huntress

her bow and arrow pointed perpetually
skyward. Her aim: a silvery spattering of almost-
summer stars. Our aim: celebrating the end
of semester. Our aim: disruption. Each shimmer
of water from rotating sprinklers

a world within a world we had yet
to step into, landed light
and wet on our bare
shoulders. We were a spinning
folly before equilibrium, the best kind.

The brick-tower clock struck two. Someone
squealed from the impact of the cold,
another someone shushed, but it was half-
hearted, against the mirth. Diana
and her bow, at the top of the hill, steady

she kept watch, peering the other way,
head tipped upward to her map of constellations:
ever-aiming into the many night spoils.
Enough stars to gather and gather again
in our open arms.

Photo courtesy of Gaimard on Pixabay

Photography Published in Molecule :)

Check out the latest amazing issue of Molecule, which features one of my black-and-white film photographs as well as excellent short poems, prose, and even a play. Here’s to issue #3!

The bottle was a find in my dad’s workshop— it’s glass, with a wonderful heft, and the letters on the bottle are raised/embossed. I love the font and how the bottle’s inscription includes a place on it.

Interview :)

Great news! I was interviewed by writer Annalisa Crawford. We dish on writing, new projects, and more. Check it out: interview.

Enjoy Annalisa’s amazing book: Grace and Serenity.

Also, check out Photography for Writers and my other writing craft books to get that inspiration flowing: Books.

Image by Nacho Capelo on unsplash.com.

My Photos Published in Burgundy Balloon :)

Pleased to announce that I have some photos (including this one, called “Next Steps”) published today in Burgundy Balloon.

Check out all of the images and some stellar creative writing, too (and consider submitting your own work) at: https://burgundyballoon.org/ .

Poetry in a Time of Pandemic

It’s my honor to have a poem published in the St. Charles Arts Council’s project, Poetry in a Time of Pandemic. My poem, “Quarantine III,” was just published. May these poems bring comfort, insight, and hope to us all as we wait out this terrible virus.

“Quarantine III”

I cracked open a window, to be touched

by chilled arms: shrill April winds better

than nothing. Sister says she’s started

having nightmares about social distancing.

She wandered through a hall, body shaking,

shaking a fist at duos in sweaters carelessly

entwined in chaste hugs. Last night, I dreamt

of an anniversary party in a giant ballroom.

I asked at every festooned food table for

pretzel rods. I was that specific; they weren’t

just pretzels. The punch was Hawaiian red but

all I could scoop into my cup was pale pink,

square ice pellets that tasted of run-off and

blankness. Not even water could quench

as it vanished.  I took more anyway.

Photo Published in Aji Magazine

My black-and-white photo was recently published at Aji Magazine on page 102.

Check out the whole awesome issue, with work by over 50 artists and writers, here. They are also currently reading submissions for their fall issue, for anyone interested.

My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"

Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.

“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith

Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.

Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.

That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.

120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.

What can photography lend to our writing process?

• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.

Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.

If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.

Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.

Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.

Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.

These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.

• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.

In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.

I know: paradoxical.

When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.

I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way. 

• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.

Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.

I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.

Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.

What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.

• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.

The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.

Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.

If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.

It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.

We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.

These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.

Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.

Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.

Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.

Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.

Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php