IWSG and I'm Still Working

Posting the first Wednesday of every month, The Insecure Writer's Support Group, is  the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. YOU can sign up HERE to participate. 

Let's give our co-hosts  a warm welcome!  Eva @ Lillicasplace, Crystal Collier, Sheena-kay Graham, Chemist Ken, LG Keltner, and Heather Gardner!

This month's question is: 

What writing rule do you wish you'd never heard?

As I'm struggling with revisions, this is rather apropos. Somewhere along the way I've read/heard/been told to limit the word WAS to just two a page. I'd like to know how in the heck a person can do that if the story is in first person past tense!? I can understand eliminating them where you can, limiting them to one or two a paragraph, but two a page? Help me out here. Is that really a *standard* rule in revising?

I thought I'd be a lot farther along with my revisions on my novel, A Piece of the Sky, but since I wrote the first draft over three years ago, it's taking me forever to become reacquainted with Lhasa, Tibet and the various places my characters visit.

Like:
The Potala, which means Abode of the Buddha of Mercy, the winter palace of the Dalai Lama


The Jokhang Temple, in the middle of Lhasa, Tibet's most sacred site. Jokhang, by the way simply means cathedral.


The Norbulinka, or Jewel Park, summer palace of the Dalai Lama.


The Western Gate - Photo by Heinrick Harrar. (He wrote Seven Years in Tibet.) The gate has since been demolished by the Chinese to make way for a road.

When I first started researching Tibet, almost 15 years ago, I learned of a film taken by Lowell Thomas, Sr. and Jr. in 1949 - my story takes place in 1950. They were the first Westerners allowed to visit Lhasa and film. The Tibetan government was seeking help from the West as they knew China intended to invade. Alas, the West didn't think Tibet was worth the trouble. I so wanted to see that documentary, but it wasn't available. Now, these many years later, it's on YouTube! If you'd care to know what it took for the Thomas's to reach Lhasa and to see what life was like right before the Chinese destroyed everything, here's the LINK.

As for revisions... It's a painfully slow process. There are copious amounts of overused words I have to deal with not to mention (which I will anyway) those dreaded adverbs. While rereading the manuscript I took way too many notes of things I need to explain and describe better, which means research.

The first half is okay, but a little slow. The second half, however, is more powerful than I realized when I wrote it and that pleases me immensely.

Overall, I'm excited to be working on this project again, but I don't think I'll be done any time soon.

***

Being Thankful

It's all good, mostly. :)

What are you thankful for? Is there a writing *rule* that trips you up? What are you working on this year? Are you going historical, inventing somewhere imaginary, or writing about something/someplace in the present?

A Random Thought - Tibet

This month marks the 50th anniversary of a failed rebellion against the Chinese occupation/invasion. It marks the 50th anniversary of the escape into exile of His Holiness the 14th Dalia Lama.

I don't know when I first became interested and curious about Tibet. Maybe it was a National Geographic article. Maybe it was books with Tibetan-like settings like Lost Horizon by James Hilton. (Did you know it was the first mass produced paper back book by Pocket Book?) Maybe it was learning about the Himalayas, Sir Edmund Hillery, and Mt. Everest. Maybe it was just the sound of the name...Tibet, Roof of the World. Maybe it was because it seemed so mysterious, isolated as it was by both physical and political barriers.

Whatever the reason, over the years I have read a little (not nearly as must I would like to) and have had a secret longing to go there.

But the Tibet I long to see, the one that Alexandra David-Neel managed to see, the one His Holiness had to leave behind, no longer exists.

China has smothered the Tibetan people, committed mass cultural genocide. The mystery that was Tibet is now the mystery of what China has done. Tibet, and its indigenous people, is as isolated and alone today has it has always been. But rather than being locked away behind mountains and its own policies, it has been locked away and isolated by China. Who knows if we will ever know the truth of what is going on/has gone on there.

On March 28th China has ordered/told Tibetans to celebrate China's invasion and the destruction of their culture and heritage in what will be known as "Serf's Emancipation Day."

I say it is a day to mourn.