In case you thought Hong Kong was a distant memory, here is a night street scene. Colourful and lively (I think it's actually the Ladies Market in Mong Kok).

Critiquing. Workshopping. Manuscript assessment. Feedback.
Whatever you call it, it's about someone else telling you what they think of your writing. Family members are notorious for comments such as, "That's nice" or "Don't give up your day job". Good critiquing points out strengths and weaknesses, and makes helpful suggestions. But examples of terrible critiquing/feedback abound, and can virtually kill a writer's passion in extreme cases.
Case 1: a young writer, 12 years old, has been writing for some time in secret. She finally gets up the courage to show her teacher, who says very dismissively, "Yes, nice, dear", and moves on. Young writer doesn't write again for more than 40 years.
Case 2: Writer A has been writing very well and getting some stories and poems published for about 10 years, while working on her novel. She is an excellent workshopper, generous with her time and very good with comments. She attends a high-powered residential workshop with influential writers and editors, and a number of participant writers she already knows. In an effort to score points and big-note themselves, a number of participant writers move into "vicious workshop mode" and also make cutting personal comments. Writer A is unable to write again for 2 years.
Case 3: Writer B is a very good, committed writer with several notable publishing and contest credits against her name. She attends a high-level workshop and presents a story for feedback. After the workshop, Writer C approaches her and accuses her of stealing her idea and work. Luckily, Writer B knows that Writer C is a bit of a problem already, and is able to dismiss her accusations, but has it shaken her confidence a little?
Case 4: Writer D attends a big conference where manuscript critiques are offered for an extra sum of money. At the last conference, she was lucky enough to be allocated to a publisher who liked her novel and asked her to send it in (although it was rejected). This time, Writer D is allocated to another writer who tears her new novel apart, rips it to shreds, spends the whole 20 minutes criticising every inch of it and offers no helpful suggestions or encouragement at all. Writer D takes her novel home, throws it in the bottom drawer and can't look at it again for more than two years.
Case 5: Writer E attends a workshop that he loves, due to the unflagging support of the others in the group. Each month he reads out his writing, as do the others, they all congratulate and praise each other and feel wonderful about their stories and novels. Hardly anyone in the group is published. Writer E decides to attend a writing class and learn more about getting published. He finds his writing receives a great deal of feedback, mostly critical, none of which he wants or enjoys, and he spends each week arguing with the teacher over minor issues. He leaves the class at the end of the year, disappointed and disheartened, until he attends his group again.

OK, what point am I trying to make here? That writing groups and workshops suck? No, definitely not. But you have to decide what you're there for, what you want from the workshop, and how to sort out the helpful, useful comments from the personal agenda stuff. Everyone in a workshop has a personal agenda. Often it's "please love my writing because I really need help with my confidence in what I'm doing". Workshops are not about building confidence. I think the higher the level of critiquing you are expecting, the less shoulder-patting encouragement you will get.
You should be presenting writing that you've done your absolute best with, but there is something not working in it and you need help to find out what it is and how to fix it. A good workshop will do that for you. It won't tell you the piece is wonderful when it's not.
And workshops work best when everyone contributes. A member who arrives and has not bothered to read anyone else's work or make comments, and makes the excuse that they've been too busy ... would you want to spend precious time and energy on their piece? Me neither.
Enough of that. Reading? "Princess Academy" by Shannon Hale, which was a Newbery Honor book this year. Very enjoyable, a fantasy kind of setting (small mountain village where the girls all have to go to a princess training academy for a year as the prince is supposed to choose one of them to marry) and the action towards the end didn't hold back. Interesting to see that the bandits were very real and nasty, and the threat felt real - I won't spoil the ending if you haven't read it, but I thought it might have toed the PC line and been "nicer" at that point. Thank goodness it didn't and the author wrote it as it needed to be.
I've also just started "Between the Lines" which is a writing book about the more subtle aspects of fiction writing. I like the quote at the beginning from Thomas E. Kennedy - "There's no doubt that teaching is the best way to learn because it forces you to test your assumptions and see if they're really true."
And this one from John Gardner: "Though the literary dabbler may write a fine story now and then, the true writer is one for whom technique has become, as it is for the concert pianist, second nature."

Several weeks ago I wrote an article/opinion piece about children's publishing, which will never appear in its present form, as I was given to a bout of whinging at the time (but it made me feel better to write it!). Nevertheless, the bells I heard ringing at the CBC conference in May, about the advances of technology and the need for us to consider new ways of presenting content (i.e. our stories), are ringing louder. In the email newsletter I get from Publisher's News weekly in the UK, apparently publishers there have been running briefing sessions for agents on how they (publishers) see the digital future evolving, and how they plan to explore and exploit new technologies in the way they publish books.
As always, where does this leave authors? Regardless of where you stand on issues of copyright, when it comes to the new technologies they are talking about, publishing stuff on your website will become obsolete as a way to attract new "readers". You may need IT help to make your material attractive to the new breed of readers who want all the bells and whistles they will be able to get in the marketplace.
The speaker at the CBC conference advised authors to make sure their publishers were going to be capable of handling the new stuff - the briefings in the UK indicate that some publishers, at least, are not sitting on their hands about it.
No doubt some writers will be able to keep up. I'm keen to learn but the time to put it into practice is the issue. I have enough trouble making sure I contribute to this blog regularly. My website suffers sometimes.
On the other hand, I've been ruminating (makes me sound like a cow, that word does) about capturing ideas. I keep telling students to never let an idea get away, to grab it and write it down, even if it's only one sentence. I have reached that stage in my holiday break where the brain has finally stopped zigzagging its way through work chores and deadlines and settled down in creative mode (at last!). On the weekend I wrote two poems about Hong Kong and two 600 word children's stories. The question of "are they any good?" is irrelevant at this point. I am glowing in the "having written" mode, ready to write more. Feeling ideas bubbling, writing them all down, just in case. Who knows where things might lead?
And at this point, even rewriting seems enjoyable. New ideas for how to rework stories bubble up too, adding to the mix. And all the time, I push away the thought that if I didn't have to work for a living, I might be bubbling like this all the time.
Reality check - I actually think it would be similar. I'd have very productive, creative times, and then down times where I just had to keep slogging away and produce words, no matter what. Same as everyone else. Sigh.

Back from Hong Kong and still taking in all the sights and sounds (in retrospect). Between our sessions, I managed two little trips - one up to Victoria Peak in the tram, and the photo above is the view from the lookout. The tram line is so steep that you are jammed against your seat, and the floor has grooves in it so you can stand at an angle! I was lucky to go on a sunny, reasonably clear day. People kept telling us how great the weather was (after 7 weeks of rain) and how clear the haze was. Usually the smog is worse than LA.
The other trip was to Stanley markets on the other side of Hong Kong Island. These markets were much better than the city ones - less crowded and better quality goods. Also there was a lot of clothing, particularly linen jackets and tops, and tons of children's clothes. The bus ride back to Central was all along the beaches, very beautiful with little bays and blue water, and the ever-present high rises dotted along the shoreline.
While we were in HK, we met a number of the members of Women in Publishing, and attended their AGM. The guest speaker was the woman who is in charge of Penguin China, and afterwards I got to talk to lots of writers (not only editors belong to the group). Sue and I bought several of the member's books: 'Sweat and the City', an anthology of poems and stories (I can relate to the sweat bit); 'The Insider's Guide to Shopping in Hong Kong', a very handy title; and 'Thomas Beckham Wang and other stories' which is a collection of short stories for children. This last book I bought on the basis of reading the beginning of one of the stories - 'The boy who could not finish a' by Sam Jam.
There is very little actual publishing going on in Hong Kong. Most of the big publishers bring their books in from the UK or US. Two small presses I heard about were Chameleon Press (whose owner runs paddyfield.com, an online bookstore) and Six Finger Press, although I know there are several others as apparently they have all decided to form a kind of co-operative. Macmillan Asia has a very small line of fiction - Picador Asia - but that is about it, apart from school and text books. Not so encouraging for HK writers but they can always send their manuscripts overseas, lke we do here in Australia.
Now I am home, it's back to the renovations, which means lots of painting, and two library sessions with kids today at Werribee. I'll get to wear my fabulous pirate glasses I bought in Hollywood Road (where else) in Hong Kong.

I have three students sitting around me at the moment, learning about blogging and how to set up their own blogs. We are exploring various hosting sites and looking at how to use Help files etc.
It's interesting to see what people like to use blogs for - we have looked at a few examples that included A Dress A Day and someone who has a million different blogs on home security systems.
Stay posted for my students' blog addresses!

Hong Kong. An amazing place indeed. On Hong Kong Island all I do is look up, and up. So many skyscrapers and very tall apartment buildings, rising up the hill everywhere you look. You catch a glimpse of an alleyway and at the end, more tall buildings. Hardly anyone here lives in a house with a garden - they all live in apartments, some up 70 floors or more.
It has been 5 days so far of books, writing, speaking, getting people started on their novels and picture books and short stories. Meeting Hong Kong's Women in Publishing group and the Society of Children's Book Writers, talking to publishers and authors and checking out bookshops.
No time to read except last thing before sleep,and then only for a few minutes. Night after night of midnight bedtimes, crawling out of bed to go to the next class, fitting in sightseeing whenever we can, eating lots of Chinese food (but not beef gristle or beef stomach or ox intestines) and drinking beer. It is way too hot for me to contemplate wine. But gin and tonic is OK.
So many people here, thousands of red taxis whose drivers would do well in a Grand Prix. First time I have been in taxis where the driver controls the rear doors, letting you in and out. In the mini-buses there is a digital sign up the front that tells you how fast the bus is going. I'm not sure what you're supposed to do if he's exceeding the speed limit.
Have mastered the public transport system, using an Octopus card that you swipe over the card reader each time you travel on a train, tram, bus or ferry. The morning ferry ride across the harbour is a wonderfully calming way to start the day.
The down side is the heat and humidity. Both of my cameras have stopped working properly and I had to buy a new digital camera, but the lens keeps fogging up as I move from air conditioning to outside. My mobile phone is also having hissy fits, and my watch strap broke - but I have kind of fixed both of them for now.
The street markets are full of fascinating cheap stuff and a few bargains. And the number of designer clothes shops and branches of Tiffanys, Versace, Gucci etc is amazing. Am keeping a diary but almost too much to take in.

It has been a busy week, finishing training manuals for my Hong Kong sessions and marking final assignments from students (23 picture book texts and 19 short stories, as well as the 75 poems the week before). But I have had a lot of fun taking my exchange writer/teacher, Meg Files, to places around Melbourne. On Saturday I drove her over the Westgate Bridge - a pity that it was so foggy that we couldn't see the bay or the city at all, and then when we were nearly into the city the buildings loomed out of the greyness like ghosts.
Yesterday I took her to Healesville Sanctuary which is out of Melbourne (north-east). A freezing day, since it had started snowing on the mountains, and a little rain but not enough to ruin our fun. The photo above is, of course, a koala, and close inspection reveals its baby underneath its front (somewhere - the baby crawled all over the place while Mum was trying to eat gum leaves).
We saw kangaroos, wallabies, lots of birds, a very speedy Tasmanian Devil that raced around and around its enclosure, dingos, , platypuses, an echidna, and a birds of prey show with falcons and an osprey. And my favourite, a wombat, who was asleep in a hollow. Lots of snakes too but none I was allowed to touch.
I am still reading the memoir - so tired at the moment that two chapters and the eyelids droop.
Wrote a long essay/opinion piece on Saturday about the mid-list author in children's publishing in Australia, but I doubt I will publish it as I think it would make me very unpopular at the moment! Sometimes I think authors are being pushed further and further into the SANH hole as time goes on (that's the Seen And Not Heard hole). Complaints, no matter how justified you feel they might be, are definitely not welcomed.
The reactions to Frank Moorhouse's articles (entitled "What the Hell is Wrong with Australian Writing?", published in the Weekend Australian newspaper recently) have been quite tame. Maybe because after the third part was printed, it became apparent that he wasn't prepared to draw any productive or helpful conclusions, or even make any substantial comments of his own. It was as if he threw in a whole pile of statistics and ideas and observations and said, Here - you work it out.
In the meantime, a children's book publisher at Black Dog Books has started a blog of his own, and has stirred up a few people already. I will follow that one with interest.

I'm trying another image post. This is the cover of my new children's fantasy novel in the Quentaris series (www.quentaris.com) - "Pirates of Quentaris".
New update/post below as separate entry.

My exchange teacher, Meg Files, has landed, safe and sound. I arrived at the airport to discover that four international flights had all come in within 20 minutes of each other. The trouble with Melbourne Airport arrivals is that there are four doors that people can emerge from, and they are spaced about 12 feet apart. And of course, I didn't have my glasses with me so the strategy of standing down one end and scanning all four doors at once wasn't going to work (I save my glasses for night time and TV when I'm tired, refusing to give in!). After 40 minutes I was starting to get worried that I'd missed her but she did emerge five minutes later. Phew!
I took her to the staff house and after much fiddling with heating units and her new laptop, and taking her to the supermarket for food (the house has a kitchen and all the requirements to be self-contained), I left her to sleep, if she could.
Dinner Saturday night was Indian (local restaurant that has maintained its quality - yummy food and not too expensive) and great conversations about writing, teaching, books, US politics and Australian politics (known around these suburbs as sucking up to Bush) and a whole lot of other stuff - three other teachers came along to welcome Meg, which was great.
Today it seemed like my whole day was going to be swallowed yet again by chores, such as cleaning the new oven, testing the new oven (which proceeded to burn my cookies), preparing for class, and thinking about how I should finish scrubbing the kitchen ceiling and clean the fridge.
Instead, I spat the housework dummy around 2pm and sat down to write the first draft of the children's book (emergent reader chapter book) that has been growing in my head for the past three weeks. It's times like these that I bless the internet. Twice I got stuck in plot details and both times the internet gave me enough information to get past the blockage and keep writing. Sometimes not knowing some factual details can really hold you up. Will the story go this way or that? Well ... it depends on this piece of information that I don't know yet.
So I quickly researched both magician's tricks and clown's tricks (just enough to keep me going on the draft) and by 5.30pm the draft was finished. I'll do further research later to make sure I've got my facts correct, but it was great to be able to just keep the words coming.
If it sounds like that was a draft that came way too easy, these days it's how I write. Sometimes I have lots of full days to focus on novels, which is what I need. But this was supposed to be around 2000 words, and I had been plotting and devising and revising in my head for several weeks. It's a skill I learned a few years ago when I realised that actual hard writing time was going to be limited so, by golly, when I sat down at the keyboard, I'd better have something ready to go.
A small chapter book or short story can work itself up in my brain over a few weeks, bubble and ferment, and when the hours are available, away it goes.
Reading has been fevered. I started the new Mark Billingham last week and after about 50 pages I thought, This is pretty slow. But it did pick up and became a book I kept having to read at every opportunity (over breakfast cereal, over a sandwich, in bed when the eyes were drooping), so I finally finished it at 11.30pm one night, not being able to leave the last three chapters for the next day. Title? "Buried". Not the best of his books, but a good read!
Have just started "All the Fishes Come Home to Roost", which is a memoir by Rachel Manija Brown. Meg brought it from Tucson for me as I couldn't get it here. I'm not overly keen on memoirs (the depressing dreariness of "Angela's Ashes" got too much for me) but she was a student of Meg's at Pima College and I love to see what students achieve.
By the way, for those in Australia, Frank Moorhouse has published a 3-part article in the Weekend Australian newspaper discussing "What the hell is wrong with Australian fiction writing?" or something like that. Parts 1 and 2 seemed to be leading towards him blaming writing courses for all the terrible fiction writing around, but in Part 3 he kind of backed off. What is wrong with Australian fiction writing? (this is literary fiction here, not genre fiction which is doing very well, thank you). Well, dare I say it but it's just too safe. And nice. And meaningless.
I have found two novels in the last 4 years have been worth reading - "The Dressmaker" by Rosalie Ham (her second novel was safe and boring) and "Everyman's Guide to Scientific Living" by Carrie Tiffany.
I'm probably extremely biased though. I don't read enough of it. I did a radio show on writers and books for 7 years, and I read more boring fiction then than I care to remember. It put me off in a big way. That's probably a shame, and I should make more use of my public library. But let's be honest - if you had a choice between a rather boring, stylised, no-plot literary novel and a cracking good crime novel that kept you on the edge of your seat - what would you choose?
I'm over force-feeding myself fiction that's supposed to be "good for me". Probably why I read so much YA and middle grade fiction too. They are usually really good reads!

This is an experiment - I have just uploaded a photo to see if I can finally get that function to work. We'll see when I publish! The photo is of some Australian bush at Lancefield.
I'm madly writing course manuals at the moment - not very creative, but then the thought of travelling to Hong Kong to present them is a great incentive. I'm looking forward to it, and wondering if the shopping will be as good as they say it is.
Have my Lonely Planet guide in hand, and my colleague, Sue, and I have registered our new business. TextConnection - writing/editing/training.
At the moment the website material is hosted by me on my site, with URL forwarding from www.textconnection.net
Have done very little fiction writing recently, apart from working on a picture book. I am planning out a new chapter book, and have been trying to find time to write a first draft. No luck yet.
Meg Files arrives from Arizona on Saturday - she is my exchange person, a terrific writer and teacher from Pima College. My two weeks there last year was great, and I am looking forward to "hosting" her here.
End of semester assignments will be flooding in this week and next. Kitchen renovations move on - at least I have cabinets, running water and (in a couple of hours) fully functioning power. In the meantime I spend my spare minutes up a stepladder, washing the ceiling and walls ready for painting.
Reading? I manage a few pages at night before my eyes give up. Another Lee Child from the library, and then a serial murder mystery where the FBI agents are psychic. I thought it would be stupid but it was quite a good read!

There's nothing like house renovations to make you realise how much space you actually have - and how much junk. Having to move everything out of my kitchen means the computer room (spare bedroom that attracts junk at the best of times)is full of boxes and bags of food, kitchen implements, pots, all the phone books and recipe books, and the toolbox. The lounge room has the fridge and microwave and more food. As my husband said the other day, we are getting plenty of exercise, walking to and fro, fetching things and forgetting what we went for.
Then today I read an article in the Age about dumpster diving, people who call themselves freegans, and get all their food from the dumpsters out the back of supermarkets. I do know how much perfectly good food gets thrown out, but this article was astounding. Made me look at the groceries stacked around me right now and wonder if we really need all that food!
I am very pleased to announce that my friend from Chatauqua, Brian Anderson, has his first children's book out - Zack Proton and the Red Giant - published by Simon & Schuster. It's illustrated by Doug Holgate who is actually Australian. I'll be ordering my copy today! Try out Brian's website too - www.zackproton.com - it's hilarious.
Yesterday I bought a new Sharon Creech children's novel, "Replay". It's very interesting to see how she uses present tense and plays with time and imagination jumps. The voice of the book is light on top and thoughtfully deep underneath.
Only 2 weeks now until Meg Files arrives. She is my exchange person from Tucson. If you've read my blog for a while, you might remember my visit to Pima College in Tucson last September. Now it's Meg's turn to come here and I am so looking forward to it and seeing her again. We'll get to talk books and writing for 2 weeks!

This weekend I have been at a local event, the Willamstown Literary Festival. It's great to take part in, or be in the audience (I did both) of a smaller event. The Melbourne Writers' Festival has big name writers but you only get to see them on stage in the distance, and they are often reading prepared speeches and seem vastly removed.
A small festival allows you to really engage with the speakers and you also don't feel such a fool when you ask questions!
Yesterday at the festival Paul Collins and I launched our Quentaris novels, No. 21 and 22 in the series. I got to dress up as a pirate (albeit a restrained pirate, with a skull and crossbones Bandaid on my eyebrow) and teach the audience how to talk 'proper' - lots of Arrrrrrrrrs and Avasts and Aye ayes. And I threw chocolate gold coins and lollies in an old-fashioned lolly scramble. What great fun - and I did explain that pirates didn't understand public liability insurance before I threw them.
I also made a cake like a pirate flag, complete with skull and crossbones made out of white chocolate. If I could master the art of posting a photo on this blog (no luck so far) I could put up a photo. In the meantime you might have to visit my website News page, when I finish reformatting. Andy Griffiths did a good job of the launch, and we sold about 70 books between us. That's a healthy number!
Today I was the speaker in a session on Writing for Children, then sat in on a session about "The Death of Australian Publishing". Very interesting, and the focus was on literary fiction, which seems to have been dying in Australia for some time. Half the number of novels are now being published compared to ten years ago. Makes a person glad not to be writing lit fiction (but the yearning is still there! probably why I still write short stories. It's like hanging around the margins).
In the meantime, I love kid's books, and I love meeting kids at the launch and giving them large slices of my chocolate pirate flag cake.

Back in Melbourne and of course we have lots and lots of snow on the mountains (which aren't that close to the city but you would think we were sitting on top of them) and the temperature didn't even make it to 15C today. Brrrrrr. It was a fight to get close to the heater tonight as two cats took up prime positions and would not be moved.
Third day of the conference was as engaging and interesting as the first two. I had thought that Michelle Paver had pulled out, but in a session that was titled Book to Film (and had her name on it) she appeared and proceeded to keep everyone on the edge of their seats. Not an easy thing to do by just talking, but she told lots of stories about her research, including one about meeting a bear by a stream and nearly dying of fright, and another about horse riding in Northern Europe (didn't catch the name of the place) and eating raw seal liver and blubber.
She also told some very funny stories about her obsession as a child with the Stone Age, and how she slept on fake fur on the floor for 3 years and skinned a rabbit in her garage. Her mother must have been very understanding! It certainly explains why her books (Wolf Brother, Spirit Walker etc) are so wonderful at evoking life in the Stone Age. But it's also her writing style - very strong verbs, short sentences, great drama and tension - and her main character that makes her books a terrific read. I loved Wolf Brother and am reading Spirit Walker right now. Her books are being made into a film (by Ridley Scott) but that wasn't actually the topic.
Doug MacLeod and John Misto combined to create a very funny session on writing for film and TV, and the session on merchandising was amazingly informative. The changes in technology they expect over the next 10 years mean although we will still have books, there will be so many other options for how we use "content" that writers need to start thinking ahead. It's vital that we keep control of our content (our stories) and it confirms what I have thought about copyright. It is all the author has to sell, and even if you think you won't sell it (i.e. get published and paid for it), you don't actually know that. You just might not have approached the right market.
The conference ended with a debate - That the Film is always better than the Book - and of course the Book won, but the debaters were very funny all the same.
Some other interesting notes from sessions - in one on picture books, a speaker pointed out that picture books teach young children visual literacy, and the adult's job is to unlock the story for the child.
David Lloyd said when he reads a pb text to Helen Oxenbury, if she laughs then he knows she will agree to illustrate it.
Now back to normal life - kitchen renovations, planning permits, teaching, prep of class notes, reading, paying bills and all that stuff that gets in the way of writing! I have three picture books to work on, and have just joined an online picture book critique group (all ex-Chatauqua people) so hope we can all be useful to each other.

Children’s Book Council Conference – Sydney
Arrive in Sydney and discover there is still sunshine in the world! Melbourne is grey in the mornings now, and cold and wet. Found the hotel and it’s good – not flashy and not as noisy as I thought. The Vulcan. I am on the slightly-below-ground floor which means if I have the window open, I can see people’s legs going past.
First day of the conference and the queues are enormous. It doesn’t help when Meredith and I have stood in the wrong queue for half an hour before we get close enough to realise we should have been in A-K.
Into the auditorium for the opening session and I am glad I brought my glasses as the stage is a very long way away. We begin with an Aboriginal speaker and didgeridoo music which is interesting and eerie. One session with Helen Oxenbury and her publisher, David Lloyd, was very funny and very British. Helen speaks in measured, slow tones which makes it even funnier. David reminds me of how important it is to read your picture books with gusto and verve.
Day One ends with a cocktail party where there were copious amounts of wine and champagne and only enough food to feed a couple of peckish chickens. Many many complaints are heard the next day about paying $35 for chips and pretzels! And a few sore heads from drinking too much on an empty stomach. The food overall has been pathetic.
Day Two included a poetry session, a session on animals in picture books (which was disappointing because I was hoping for a discussion on anthropomorphism), and Leigh Hobbs and Shaun Tan talking about illustrating and what goes into it. It was great to get the other point of view on picture books. The other session I enjoyed on Day one was Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton talking about their collaboration.
We missed out on dinner with agent and others due to poor coordination of movements. Instead we lobbed off to the Asian restaurant near our hotel and had another terrific bowl of laksa.
The book fair has been interesting – a lot of smaller publishers, some I hadn’t heard of, and a huge range of books. Makes me feel overwhelmed, actually. All those books, more and more coming out all the time. How on earth are my books supposed to compete? And all these new writers, along with all the old ones. Certainly puts you in your place!
Day three program is about books and film. I'm not sure how interested I am in all of this, so will take something to read and might find a spot in the sunshine to read with a good cup of coffee. One of the very nice things has been Pan Macmillan's launches where the books are FREE! Amazing.

THE END. As in, this draft is done, finished, complete. For now. Soon I will print it out and, after I think I've created a bit of distance between me and it, we will get together again and I'll see what I think.
That is the hardest part - to be able to stand back from the work and eye it critically, seeing what still needs to be fixed, polished, rewritten. For me, it's often little plot holes that I don't see, which is where another writer/editor is useful. So that is planned for next week.
In the meantime, I have several other projects in front of me. A short story that I am looking at expanding into a novella (because it's a story with an ending that says there are many things that could happen to these people, and besides, there is a competition on right now for novellas and I love a deadline); another short story that is unfinished and it got out of control and needs a re-think; three picture books in various drafts that need a lot more work. Other things that I would love to write if only I had time. Oh yes, and six classes to prepare because I am off to the Children's Book Council conference next week and there will be no time to prep anything when I get back because someone is coming to start ripping out my kitchen and I have to pack up all my stuff.
Last night I saw on TV the first of the new series of Rebus (from the Ian Rankin novels). I know plenty of people thought John McCallum was not the right actor for Rebus in the first series, but Ken Stott is worse. Too jolly by far! And fancies himself as a ladies man - which Rebus is not. Still, this is what happens when books are made into TV or movies - you either go with the interpretation and changes or you don't. 'Charlotte's Web' is due to be released sometime soon. We'll see then what everyone thinks of that version.
One thing that I am finding interesting at the moment is the way some writers are using either their blogs or their websites to 'publish' their writing. There is an ongoing debate about copyright in this digital age, and the Australian government is looking at copyright laws again this week. We also have another case of what is being called accidental plagiarism (the Sloppy Firsts book etc). I am beginning to think I am very old-fashioned about all this, but to me, a book is a book (I also include journals and magazines here) and authors are selling publication rights. That is all we have to sell to make a living. It's a widget. People who invent new widgets take out patents, and then they get to sell their widget as an exclusive (yes, until a rip-off merchant copies it - that's illegal too).
If I have invented a widget story, that I hope to sell, there is no way I am going to show everyone what it is and make it available before I have sold it. Anything published on my website has already been published or sold before.
As I said, maybe I am being old-fashioned about this, but the bottom line is: if I want to try and make a living as a writer, what else do I have to sell?

The Delete key has been hot this week, taking out huge chunks of the last three chapters of my novel. Two whole characters - gone in an instant. All their dialogue, their interaction with the main character - gone. They became irrelevant, a sidetrack that I should have taken out before, but until I got nearer to the end and had made decisions about previous bits, they stayed ... just in case. Now they've gone to the Land of Unused and Unwanted Characters. Or, if you want to be clever, the Land of Unnecessary Characters, Animals and Subplots. Feed them all to LUCAS. Hmmmm.
Today I will be venturing into more new words, working my way towards the last paragraph (which remains unchanged, like any final destination - it's funny how you know exactly where the story will finish, but there are so many ways to get there).
Before then, I need to go to the gym to work out the horrible twisted mess my neck and shoulders are in, created by hunching over the laptop, digging in the garden and then sleeply badly.
I finished the Inspector Anders book. Very interesting. I learnt more about the Italian mafia and corrupt Italian politicians and bureaucrats than I thought possible. I did like the mc, Anders, but then a maverick is hard to dislike. Good mavericks in fiction always do the things you long to do yourself, if only...
Now I am reading Lee Childs. Jack Reacher is another maverick, a very clever one, and his confidence and expertise make him very engaging. A character who creates surprises in the plot, twists and turns that keep you reading. A great lesson in how to keep the reader turning the pages through character as much as plot, which is why I love good crime novels. They so often have these terrific characters that propel the story along - think Harry Bosch, Rebus - even Stephanie Plum.
On the other hand, I am writing at least one poem each day at the moment, after a drought of a couple of months. By drought, I mean I might write a poem occasionally but don't feel the urge to do any more. That often comes after completing a collection, or in this case, a verse novel. My brain seems to need a break and this time I had moved on to short stories.
My short fiction class recently studied the two Robert Olen Butler stories that he has included in "From Where You Dream". He has a "bad" story, written many years ago, and then the published story - which actually bear little relation to each other apart from the basic material that the ideas came from. In other words, the published story is not in any way a rewrite. What I liked was the change in subtlety - the first story had none, the second story was full of layers and subtle but telling lines and details.
I have an idea for a short story, which emerged from an exercise I gave them on Secrets, but have no time to write it yet. And an idea for another story that I fear might become a novel. Oh dear. I will have to make notes on both and save them up.

The joys and surprises of rewriting. My big analysis project (scene by scene) was useful but this week I have reached 'crunch time' - the point at which I have made major changes in the plot that will reverberate right through to the finishing line. Hopefully resulting in a much better ending.
It's like that cliche of throwing a rock into a pond - the ripples get wider and wider. So even small changes to a character gradually get bigger as the novel goes on. When I reach the point of writing completely new words (and deleting pages and pages of old words), I start to feel like I am really rewriting, really improving and strengthening what's there, rather than just fiddling around the edges.
I'm down to the last 30 pages and, of those, more than half will be deleted and new words written. The feeling of blocking huge amounts of text and hitting Delete is scary, but I know I still have a hard copy. Better to be safe than sorry! But I think I'm going in the right direction.
I signed up this week for the Knopf Poem a Day, and the first poem I received was an amazing piece from Sharon Olds. I was also able to click on the link and hear a recording of her reading the poem. Added to that, I bought a Sharon Olds book yesterday 'The Unswept Room' which promises to be wonderful. Reading good poems nearly always inspires me to write more. While I have found little new on the writing guides shelves at Borders lately, yesterday I discovered a great book on reading and writing poetry called 'A Poet's Companion: a guide to the pleasures of writing poetry' by Addonizio and Laux, and after reading the first chapter, wrote three poems last night. Now that's a good sparker book!
I did finish the book I talked about before (A Ship Made of Paper)and didn't change my opinion - the other characters in the book were good, but the main character was a pain and I was glad he didn't have a happy ending.
Am currently about 40 pages into 'The Wooden Leg of Inspector Anders' - a crime novel set in Italy. It's OK, but not holding me enough to stop me diving into the library today and borrowing two Lee Childs that I hadn't read.

I am pondering the unlikeable main character - how do you get away with it? I'm still perservering with "A Ship Made of Paper", only because the author uses other point-of-view characters which provide some relief. But I still find the main character is just awful - self-indulgent, over-emotional and pretentious. I doubt that the author intended me to feel this way. Or maybe he did?
I have written a couple of things (short stories, mostly) where readers have commented that the main character was unlikeable. When I say readers, I mean editors who have given this as a reason for rejection. I guess we really want to love those characters and to care about what happens to them. Kids want this as much as any adult reader, but I think adult readers are more forgiving, more aware of the grey areas. But more than anything, the m.c. we care about is going to lead to the best-selling book.
I think also this begins with the writer caring about their characters. And not just caring as in "I made this person up for my story and I like them", but more like "I have spent weeks and months with this character, I gave them all these problems and I really want them to win through". Books written quickly may not have enough character depth because the writer hasn't gone deep enough.
It's a problem with student novels and stories that I read and assess. Often they are writing this novel or story because it's required for class, and although we do lots of character development stuff, it's up to them to create characters they love and stories they want and need to tell. Student writers who can "wow" me with things written quickly and for class are rare. I would guess that 95% of students never finish the novel they start for their class.
I have a middle grade novel that I have been working on for over two years, and I still don't feel as if I have really got to grips with the main character. This has come from beginning the novel with an idea based on setting, and then developing a character to live in and engage with it. It's not the way I usually do it, and it has caused me immense problems, trying to work out where the story (i.e. what the character does and why) really lies.
I love sassy YA, where the voice is funny and sarcastic and wry and ironic - but it's hard to write this without sounding whiny and depressing. And that brings me back to the book I am reading. I suppose I will finish it now to see if he gets his just desserts. And it even has an endorsement by Anne Tyler on the front.
I remind myself that I can learn from books I dislike as much as those I love!

Two days of rewriting, with classes wedged in between. I received an email from a writer friend who has also been teaching and will soon have the 3 months of the US summer break to write. Then he hopes that he can continue as his wife will have a great new job, so he will be home writing. Wow.
I am up to Chapter 11, with about 60 pages to go. Lots of comments from my two readers, plus various notes to myself about threads, foreshadowing, plot holes etc. I just have to keep it all in my head, keep it going, while trying to run my day-to-day life. I see now why people use those software programs to keep track of all that stuff, but I'm not sure I would get any benefit. At least my brain is doing the job OK so far...
This weekend is quarterly tax time again. Yuck. Now that is something there should be a program for, or a busy little elf who does it for me.
There was a bargain book table at my shopping centre last week and I picked up a $5 special, hoping I'd found a gem by accident. But I'm struggling with it, and I decided last night it's because I don't like the main character. He is just too self-centred and pretentious, and his angst over being in love with a woman not his partner is tedious rather than engaging. I'll give it another 10 or 15 pages, but if it doesn't improve, out it goes.

Where has the time gone? Two weeks since I posted here! Arrgghh. Classes started again after the Games finally finished, and it was like starting the whole year again. Now I have assignments to mark already.
An item in the Publisher's Weekly email newsletter made me pull out my stamps and cover letters and set the printer on High Speed. At Bologna Children's Book Fair, pirate books were the hot item. I mentioned in the last post that it's easy to get the feeling you are missing the boat. Well, when I read that item, I felt like the pirate ship had set sail without me and if I didn't get in my longboat and row like hell, all I'd see would be sails in the sunset. How's that for stretching a metaphor?
Seriously though, after the initial panic subsided, I decided I really did have to put my novel out there as a partial and work hard on finishing the rewrite. So that is what I have done. Has the rewrite proceeded apace? Not yet. But I know the first three chapters are vastly improved and ready to be seen, and the rewrite is more than half done.
In the meantime the renovations began, and the planning permit paperwork loomed. But I know where the priority lies, ultimately, so it will be nose to the laptop this weekend.
Received my copy of "Lasting: Poems on Aging" edited by Meg Files last week. Some wonderful poems about all aspects of growing old, and lots of humorous or wry poems too to make a balance.
Read Jonathan Kellerman's new novel "Gone" - a good read, but not a top notch suspense experience. Seemed to be an awful lot of dialogue between Alex and Milo, working out the case, rather than action. So rather slow but interesting.
Am reading Robert Crais' new book "The Two Minute Rule" - not an Elvis Cole novel but also a good read without being startling.
Yes, I have been buying books again. Just can't help it when favourite writers bring out a new one. Tried two new writers from the library but one was pretty awful.
I plan to buy the "Firebirds Rising" anthology for a friend's birthday - best collection of fantasy stories I've read in a long time.

Miss Snark's blog has been particularly snarky recently - and therefore most enjoyable. I'd love to start a Nitwit of the Week award but I think too many people would hate me for it. She does a fine job on her own. The clear information on the world of agents and publishing is so valuable. I imagine if she is stopping nitwits from annoying agents and publishers, they all thank her too.
The one thing that keeps coming up over and over is - make the writing great. Then originality and voice come a close second. And don't be in a hurry to get your book out there if it isn't ready.
I would've thought, after 8 years of rewriting, that my historical novel was getting close. I hope. It's so hard to hold back and work on a new draft when you see other similar books being published. 'No,' you cry, 'don't flood the market with them. Wait for mine!'
That's where the urge to get the manuscript out comes from. When you see publishers publishing books that you know are the beginning of a wave and you have probably missed it, you feel this unavoidable panic. The only solution is to tell yourself that if the novel isn't working well enough, sending it out will just cost you a large amount of money and time, and discourage you. That's what I say to my panicking self anyway.
One of my chapter books, accepted months ago, has been rescheduled for 2008. As it is the third in a series, and the second came out 12 months ago ...
I reworked five chapters of the historical novel while I was away, and need to keep at it. My writer friend, who loves revision and hates first drafts, can't understand my urge to put it aside and start something new. But that first draft excitement is addictive.
Just been to the shops and found the new Robert Crais and the new Jonathan Kellerman. My bribe to get me back into teaching and preparation and marking. If I finish all of that, and am ready for classes on Monday, I can start the JK. Or should I start the RC first? Decisions, decisions.
I have actually been reading short stories again. My niece very kindly gave me her copy of Ann Patchett's short stories - 'Mendicino' - and although the first few were a bit 'so what', they are improving. Her novel, 'The Dive From Clausen's Pier', was terrific.
Are the Commonwealth Games over yet? Unfortunately not. But it does give one a large amount of time to read instead!

The year has come to a halt, thanks to the Commonwealth Games. I am staying with my sister and out of Melbourne; classes are on two weeks holidays; the sun is shining and my laptop is humming.
The internet is everywhere. I'm able to keep up with my online class while I am away and also do my emails and read Miss Snark. But not having my research books and notes and the library handy does feel a bit weird. I brought the historical novel with me and finally, yesterday, I finished analysing the scenes and plot/character arcs. Now I know what Hemingway meant when he said he rewrote the ending of one of his books 49 times. After a lot of thinking and planning yesterday, I have changed the last quarter of the book yet again. It's all about motivation and action. Many times I can see the tension is too low, action too minimal, characters not involving enough, motivations too flimsy. I do hope all this work is helpful when it comes to rewriting. When I get away from the notes and tackle the words on the page, often I get bogged down in the sentences. I wish there was a way to have two "eyes" on the work at once - one for standing back and being clear and concise about what is going on and the other to focus on the actual writing.
Doing lots of reading - the great thing about time off - and just finished Mark Billingham's latest (UK crime). Am now reading a Jefferson Parker (US crime). The feel of each book is so different. Sometimes I think a lot of US crime writers don't get very close to their main characters. I feel distant from them. In the Parker book, his mc is a woman who has a two year old son, and it feels at times as if the writer just uses the son to show her other, more vulnerable side, but it seems a bit contrived. On the other hand, Michael Connelly and Robert Crais do intense mc stuff really well.
I hate it when I go to a bookshop and there are twenty shelves of books and I can't find a single one I want to read. Visited two bookshops yesterday (both secondhand, which explains a lot as I always think that the really good books are the ones people tend to keep rather than sell) but couldn't find a thing I wanted, apart from a very interesting short story collection - stories about childhood, edited by Lorrie Moore.
Today I will divide my time between rewriting, making a cake and going to the gym (the gym is to work out the kinks and knots from hunching over the laptop).
And to think I could have been fishing ... no wind today.

Due to the Commonwealth Games here in Melbourne, we have had three weeks of classes and now we have two weeks holiday. The second half of this semester is going to be very loo-oo--oonnng. (That's the sound of teachers and students moaning). I am glad that Meg Files is going to be our guest writer/teacher at the beginning of June. This will be the second half of our teacher exchange.
This week has been full of bits. Bits of paperwork, bits of writing, outlines and sketches. I am going to spend as much of my two weeks holidays as possible working on the historical novel. Few distractions, apart from some fishing if the weather is good, and partying (a significant birthday has arrived for me and I intend to party until it leaves me alone and picks on someone else).
Time also to type up my picture book drafts and look at what I have. And to read. I have the urge to bury myself in reading again, instead of dipping in and out of my book when I have time.
I have now got into the habit of having a book to read at the gym (the cycle and treadmill are incredibly boring without a book) and am choosing things I can pick up and put down when I go, books that don't require a huge amount of concentration but are entertaining. Last week's was a Gary Paulsen novel, set in the 1930s. This week is Nicci Gerard. Funny how we choose books depending on our mood and mindset. I remember it took me a very long time to read "The God of Small Things" - I felt I was waiting for the right time, so I'd enjoy it. And I did.
I received the contract this week for my book "The Too-tight Tutu" to be published in Spanish by a Mexican publisher. Now I want to find out what too-tight tutu is in Spanish. Yes, this is a children's book! Not a memoir as such.

I've just been to a book launch for a picture book - "Doodledum Dancing" by Meredith Costain, illustrated by Pamela Allen. If you are familiar with pbs in this part of the world, you'd know Pamela Allen's work. I still have my copy of "Who Sank the Boat?". But the best thing about this book is Meredith's poems. Long live poems for kids!!! It's aimed at littlies, from say 2 to 4, and is a real read-aloud, have-lots-of-fun book. Of course, my favourite poem is the pirate one.
My writing this week continues on the small theme - 250 word articles and stories. For some reason, I am continuing to also write new picture books, and completely rewrote an old one. It must be because I am teaching picture book writing again this year and reading all those pbs is inspiring me. Read small, think small, write small.
The rewrite was interesting. I had been thinking about this particular story, along the lines of "Darn thing, how come I've rewritten it a zillion times and it still isn't right?" Then one night I got a new line for it - not at the beginning but about a third of the way through - and kept writing, and came up with a whole new concept for the story. And I stopped myself from going back and referring to the previous draft because I didn't want to fall back into the old version.
Of course then I had to turn around and rewrite the first third. I haven't dared look at it since. Haven't even typed it up from my fevered scrawl. But I keep thinking about it, tucking it away in my brain for another simmer. Soon ... soon I will type it up. I even have a brand new title, which is great because the old title was too similar to two other pbs out there.
One of my students asked this week, "What do you mean when you say a story 'isn't right'? How do you know?" That's hard to answer, and maybe comes from experience - reading, writing and critiquing. You just know. It's close, but it doesn't create fireworks when you read it. And a pb has to create some kind of fireworks for everyone who reads it - child, parent and, of course, publisher/editor.
In the meantime, I continue to diagram scenes from the historical novel and ask those crucial character and plot arc questions. My writing group is using a new workshop method (new for them, created by my fabulous writer friend, Tracey, for teaching in her class). It uses de Bono's 6 hats, and has been a great shot-in-the-arm for our workshopping. I have now given them some pages of the novel to pull apart. It should be fun. Excruciating fun.

I've found a great new stress reliever - it's called a mulching machine. After cutting down what seemed like a mountain of bouganvillea plant (complete with giant thorns that snagged me every minute or so) I was able to feed a lot of it into this machine that chewed it up into little bits. Never mind that I now have mulch for my pitiful garden (I'm afraid gardening comes way down the list from writing, teaching and reading), I got rid of my bad mood via a great amount of vicious, thorny plant fed without mercy into a munching machine.
Seems like a great remedy for one too many rejection letters too! although we won't mention that the plant got me back with a huge thorn stuck in my finger which took me three tries to get out. Ouch.
Still working on the novel (historical middle grade) and after two critiques, I've now started on an analysis of my own. Specifically, chapter by chapter, I am working out: 1) what happens in each scene, 2) what the purpose of the scene is, 3) does it move the story forward?, 4) what are the character motivations in the scene, 5) how does this scene fit into the overall story/character arc.
See, ARC is one of those words that I'd never heard of up until about 4 years ago, when a critique person (not an editor or agent) at a SCBWI conference in LA tore the first 40 pages apart and kept rabbitting on about ARC. Character arc, plot arc, 'why don't I get a clear sense of this character's arc from Chapter One? Seeing as how it was the first time I'd heard the term, I couldn't answer (and she, unfortunately, didn't bother to explain it to me - which is why I nearly threw the novel in the bin when I got home, and it took me nearly two years to return to it).
But enough whining. Ultimately she was probably right, she just didn't provide any help or suggestions or directions to make me feel that another few drafts would see me right.
Still, here I am, and it's Draft Nine, and I think I'm finally seeing the light. I sure hope so anyway. I'll get this novel right, any way I can.
In the meantime I have other writing to do. Finished my short story for a competition in the UK and nearly forgot to email it off (got too excited about finally finishing it!). Have written an article - too short and not sure yet how to expand. Was planning a book review but haven't got there yet. Too much mulching going on.
And finally (yaaayyy!) got a copy of Best American Short Stories 2005. Went right to the Joyce Carol Oates story first - really good letters story. It's hard to use that form these days and do it well, but then JCO, well...
Have read 3 other stories so far, and they've all been good. I especially like the bit in the back where the writer says what inspired the story. I never read that until I've read the story first.
I see there is a Kelly Link story - must read that next! Have heard a bit about her.

Being a bit short of spending $$ (the kind that don't have to go towards bills), I've been a regular visitor to my local library lately. And found it very disconcerting to try out a new crime writer, whose book is apparently their fifth, and put it down after less than ten pages because the writing was so bad.
I see problems with tense changes in students' writing all the time. They don't even see half the time when they've done it. Usually they slip from present into simple past and vice versa. Now when I see this in a published novel - and there was no way it was any kind of style thing or neat device - I cringe. A lot. It was so awful in this novel that I kept wincing, and wincing doesn't encourage me to keep reading.
Forty winces later, I chucked it. In case you're interested, the book was "Broken Bodies" by Sally Emerson. Maybe someone out there who has read it can tell me what was going on. It just looked very sloppy to me, or at the very least, a style thing that did not work.
Only writing this week was the rewrite of my friend's fantasy novel - one scene that I cut from about 8 pages down to 4, just like she did for mine. The first thing she said was that I had taken out a lot of her description and she was right. I had felt that the problem with the scene was it was too long and the tension was not maintained, nor did I feel inside the viewpoint character's head and emotions. It was too distant. Again, just what she'd said about mine!! A very interesting exercise to do, and to see the outcome when someone else does it on your work.
Classes start on Monday. Prep continues.

From 78,000 words to 2,000 max. From a full novel to a short story. A nice, challenging change of pace. It's always a shock to come back to half a short story started two months ago and suddenly see that it is really, really bad. 1100 words written and maybe two lines of dialogue in the whole thing - a ton of telling and no showing, no action ... OK, plenty of character but again, mostly told. Well, at least I can recognise it now when I see it. And I didn't want to slit my wrists. In fact I saw right away how to fix it. That's a step forward!
After several hours of fixing and adding more story, now I have no ending. So I'll leave it to vegetate again and see what grows or dies in the time-out. Yes, a mixed metaphor. I can see them too. Sigh.
For a complete (sort of) change of pace, this week I read the new Dean Koontz. Now I know why I haven't read him for at least 15 years. My reading has moved on. I still love crime novels (didn't he used to write horror?) but they have to be great crime novels that are involving, entertaining and have strong characters. DK goes to the bottom of my list, even from the library.
I've gone back to a collection of short stories from Andre Dubus III (he of House of Sand and Fog). I must have read 60 short stories or more over the past few weeks, trying to find good ones for my class reader. Then I realised I only needed 10 for them to study, and that made it easier. I finally found the Alice Munro story I wanted and included it.
Classes start in one week. Arrgghhh! I'm not ready. So this week very little writing will get done as I madly create three weeks worth of class prep.
A writer friend and I are doing an experiment that we've talked about for ages - we are taking 4-6 pages of each other's novel and rewriting it the way we would write it if it was our work. The kind of thing everyone says you must not do if you are in a workshop - never, never rewrite people's stuff for them! But she did some for me first and it was such an eye-opener! Of course, the voice changed and she cut it by about 60%, but there was lots for me to think about. Now I am about to do it for her (after telling her that her scene felt too slow - out with with hatchet).
Half of last week was spent on sending out manuscripts and creating good cover and query letters. That is an art in itself, I think. And sending out feels like fishing, always hoping for the right fish, nice weather and not too many waves.

From 'The Book Thief' I launched back into crime fiction with the new Val McDermid. She is usually a bit gory, with interesting characters (such as Tony Hill, the odd psychologist from 'Wire in the Blood') but this one 'The Grave Tattoo' is very tame. It's about William Wordsworth (yes, the poet) and his connection to Fletcher Christian from the mutiny on the Bounty. Of course, murders do eventually start happening, but not until halfway through the book, and the main character is a bit ordinary.
This books also treads the same ground that 'The da Vinci Code' and the latest Kathy Reichs books do - where the author takes a religious (or in McDermid's case) a literary/historical mystery and uses it as the basis for the story and why people keep getting murdered. McDermid includes the transcript of what really happened on the Bounty and afterwards (supposedly as told to Wordsworth by Christian) and thus plays with creating 'new history'.
I think I must be one of the few readers in the world who find it really irritating not knowing where facts end and the author's fiction begins. I end up assuming that the whole thing is fiction, yet McDermid includes a bibliography at the back. Does this mean she researched it enough to 'fake it'? I can only assume so.
Maybe the fact that I have been writing a historical novel for 8 years and have taken great care in trying to get my details correct makes me biased. And what is true anyway? The outcry over James Frey has been interesting. Are people upset because he lied in his book? Or because he lied about it being true? There is a line there between those two things, however faint.
I continue on with short story reading for class. Trying without success to track down an Alice Munro story where the main character stops during a long road trip and climbs the fence for a swim in a closed public swimming pool. I figure if I remember the story after 3-4 years, it must have been a good one.
No writing this week much. Life has been consumed by totally ridiculous council regulations and how to comply without busting a boiler.
Jane Yolen's journal has been so sad lately. Her husband has a recurrence of cancer and she writes about the daily small battles, while she continues to try and write. Today she said that for the first time, she has no urge to write. This is a woman who has over 300 books published. Her journal is a privilege to read.

I've finished 'The Book Thief' and I did enjoy the second half more than the first, possibly because I made myself sit down and keep reading, rather than dipping in. OK, I think it would be considered a literary novel, therefore the term 'page turner' should not really apply. Literary novels have other things in them to enjoy. I've mentioned already what I liked and that continued. Other things I liked included the kinds of books she read (and stole) and the way reading those books led to other things. The ending was sad but understandable and credible. Maybe the fact that the ending didn't greatly upset me (unlike the ending of 'Brokeback Mountain'- the movie, which I saw on Monday) showed my lack of involvement and deep engagement with the characters.
It's hard. I wanted to love the book and I couldn't. I liked it, and would still recommend it, but it's not a 5 star book for me. Sorry, Markus.
And I also don't understand why your editor let you have a group of characters 'ejaculate' their dialogue. Although a friend pointed out to me today that JKR uses that word in one of the Harry Potter books. Errggghh. Worse than expostulate, even.
My writing group has started the year with goal setting, as usual. I told everyone they weren't allowed to include anything that had been on their list for 3 years or more. That caused a slight panic! But we all came up with great lists and feel very inspired by each other (or I do, anyway) and I hope I can achieve most of mine.
I always put in some hard ones as a challenge. My first goal is a short story that has to be in by the end of February.
Teaching looms closer, and I am reading lots of short stories in order to select some for my class to study. Have read dozens of flash/sudden fictions and found some gems. Am about to order Best American Short Stories 2005. It's usually a great collection.
I'm also teaching poetry this year to first-years, and trying to control the urge to give them 1000 Billy Collins poems.
One of my publishers, an independent Australian company, has been bought out by Time Warner. A friend who has a children's book with said small publisher has just had a statement to say her book (only published late last year) has had most of the 5000 copies deep discounted to someone/somewhere and she will probably not earn out her advance because of it. No plans to reprint. My book is due out in June and given the nature of publishing, am aware that anything could happen. Fingers crossed.

'The Book Thief'. Hmmmm. I think I am about halfway on it. I love the narrator (Death), I love the little device (headings and 'pronouncements'), I like the flow, the setting ... but I don't feel close to or intensely interested in any of the characters, not even the book thief herself. So I read a little more every night, but it has not been one of those books that I couldn't put down. But I would still recommend it because it is really well-written and I think my response is subjective. More comments when I finish it (and it's a large book).
In the meantime I am still reading writing books for my classes this year. At the moment it's the one on short story writing by Damon Knight. Lots of good advice. I have about 6 to go, but there aren't many that focus just on short fiction.
No writing. I am resting and becoming good friends with my new air conditioner (because it's very hot here at the moment) and hoping the bush fires get put out really soon.

Finished. For now. Like any book, as soon as I think I am finished rewriting, I start to worry about what I've missed and should I go through it again and maybe I should apply that bit of advice I've just read in a writing book and probably it's not working at all and ... really, I've done all I can at this point and have to leave it for a while.
I am lucky to have two people I can swap manuscripts with for feedback - two people who are different but whose opinions I respect - so I will wait until they tell me what they think. And by then I will have been away from it for long enough to see it with a fresher eye.
Instead I will write some poems, rework another story, try to finish two different short stories that have been sitting for a month or two, and think more about my goals for this year.

The rewriting continues - although I'm not sure I can call it rewriting as mostly I am deepening the research for historical authenticity. I use the authenticity word to mean "creating the world" rather than implying I'm going to be historically accurate. I am trying to get the details correct but I'm sure there will be small mistakes, and of course because many of my characters are fictional, they dictate the story so the timeline won't be exactly right either.
It's interesting, after all this time and with all the books and photocopied materials and website printouts I have gathered, to see what some people put on their websites and how much is just plain wrong! I found a website the other day that eventually I decided was mostly fiction - it was a site for a role-playing game but the person had put enough information there to make me wonder whether it was ALL fabricated or perhaps some of it was true. I've found that the most "trustworthy" sites are those from state governments and universities where they are using genuine sources and quoting them.
After a couple of false starts (lack of concentration) I am finally reading "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak. The narrator is Death - thankfully he has a sense of humour - and it has little heading-and-comment things inserted. An interesting device. The characters are gradually becoming more substantial but I need to read another 50 pages before I can work out if I like it or not.
The Stein book continues to be useful. I read a few pages at a time and then think about my novel. Keep having to find bits of paper to write myself notes (such as - make this clearer, check that, work on this minor character more).
Enough blogging - time to write/rewrite/edit.

I'm reading a book about writing - one of many around, but sometimes you just need a bit of outside input, one way or another. It would be great to have an experienced mentor, someone to read my stuff and say exactly what's wrong with it and how to fix it, but that's unrealistic so ... it's up to me.
The book in question is by Sol Stein - Stein on Writing. As a long-time editor, he has some good things to say, and what is useful is to read a book like this while reworking a draft. Not because it's a recipe, but because suddenly a lot of what he says becomes relevant to what I'm trying to do with the draft. Strengthen it. Deepen the characters and motivations. See where the holes are. So I keep a piece of paper handy and every time an alarm bell rings, I write down what occurs to me.
Example: he makes a point about motivation and gives an example. One of my characters jumps up and I think about what he's doing and why, and realise that I haven't really explored and shown that well enough. So I make a note.
Found a good website - www.etymology.com - which has been helpful with finding out when a word was first in common usage (or recorded in a newspaper or book, etc). Can't beat the OED but as that is at the library, it's handy to have a quick check via the internet. Anything doubtful is still followed up in the OED though. One example is "troublemaker" - not an 18th century word, I have discovered. At that point, the challenge is to find a suitable replacement.
Another problem word was "toff" - not used until after 1800 so the best substitute was "nob", and it fitted the moment very well!
Took the opportunity to start goal setting today, something that becomes more and more useful each year, as long as I'm realistic about goals and keep focused. It's like a personal deadline or incentive. As a friend of mine said, you don't set goals such as "get my novel published" because to a great extent you don't have a lot of control over that. You set a goal along the lines of "research the appropriate publishers and send my novel out and don't give up". I've known a couple of people who worked on the principle of never letting a poem or story stay in the house more than 24 hours - get it out there again. Novels are a little different, but the perseverance principle is the same.

Three solid hours on Monday and the close edit is finished. I ended up taking out a chunk near the end. I had a feeling I would - I had added two more characters towards the final scenes of the story and they'd "got away" on me, trying to add their own story (about cocoa beans, believe it or not). So they got chopped back to walk-on parts again. And may eventually be reduced even further.
I was worried about the last 2 chapters, whether I'd given them enough emotional resonance, but they seemed OK. Not too fast (I often hurry the ending and have to watch myself!) and time to link back to earlier stuff without being too obvious. Well, that's how it feels to me, but other readers are a whole new ball game.
I am still dismayed by the middle grade novel I had rewritten 5 times and the responses I received, when I thought I had solved the problems. The author's perennial problem - how to "see" what you have written through a new reader's eyes.
This always leads me back to the value of a solid outline before I start - I resist doing them but time and time again, when a novel isn't working, it's because I haven't worked out what the story is about before I start.
This is not just plot - this is character arc/journey/need ... whatever names you want to give these things. I just call it the "thing that drives the main character through the story" and it still doesn't really capture what I mean. But other writers will know!
My next step is to read through all my research materials again, some of which I haven't looked at for over two years, and add some more historical detail to the story. Not a lot, but what Michael Connelly calls "the telling details" - the ones that bring the setting alive without going on too much.
And I have to check words for authentic usage - via the Greater Oxford Dictionary. I'm pretty sure nincompoop is early 18th century!

There are so many well-known blogs these days (Miss Snark and other agents, political blogs, ones that make the news) - then I read in the news that there are so many million blogs on the net now, people everywhere publishing stuff about themselves and their lives. So it always comes as a bit of a shock when someone emails me or says they've read my blog!
After a while, with no comments forthcoming, I tend to think of this blog as a journal more than anything, forgetting that it's available to anyone who's interested. Then I wonder how much rubbish I've raved on about, and how boring I am! Oh well... It serves a purpose for me. It's often a reflection on my writing, how things are going, a bit like a sounding board. And it's a reflection on my reading. I'm not in a reading group, I couldn't be bothered doing full-length reviews, but it's good to comment on what I thought worked in a book (or not as the case may be). Again, it's all part of writing.
Editing on the pirate novel continues - it's as if I can't stop. Sentence by sentence editing, and always thinking about the main character. Is that scene strong enough? Do I need it at all? How does he react? Have I shown this well enough?
Always reminding myself that action shows, telling doesn't. I'm up to page 102 (I edit single-spaced so I can see more of the text on the screen) with about 23 pages to go, but this last section will be the hardest. I made a lot of changes in this new draft, altering the story more and more as I went along, so it is quite different from the previous draft (which is over a year old). The question is whether I have left any plot threads hanging, one of my weaknesses, and whether I have rushed the ending.
I've just finished reading a book of poetry I was given for Christmas by my sister - "The Art of Walking Upright" - it's by a doctor in New Zealand, Glenn Colquhoun, and I've read another of his collections before and loved it. That one was about being a doctor - this one is about his experiences as a Pakeha in New Zealand and about Maoris he knows and his connections to them. Some great images and he's not afraid to experiment with structure, which creates little surprises in the poems.
Also read most of the latest issue of "Famous Reporter", a literary mag out of Hobart, Tasmania. Lots of good poems.
Now reading Sara Paretsky's "Blacklist" and finding it heavy going. Not enough action? Not sure what the problem is yet but I keep wanting to give up on it.
"The Book Thief" is still sitting there. I think it's next, when I either finish "Blacklist" or give up.
I am strongly resisting any urges to start preparing for this year's classes. As my night class has been cancelled, that means I don't start teaching for another 6 weeks yet, so while I'm reading poems and stories and deciding whether to include any in my readers, I am not preparing class work.

Christmas and New Year - traditionally that time when everything stops, people here go to the beach or on holiday somewhere, spend time with family (or avoid them), and generally laze around. I managed to do nearly all those things. 10 days away in Tasmania (island state of Australia off south coast of Victoria) which included husband's family, a little touring around, a lot of food and wine, and a huge amount of sitting outside on the verandah (patio to you in the US) gazing at the Tamar River.
But all that downtime on the brain gave the cells a real rest and I managed to then spend many hours working on the pirate novel. Mostly fine editing/fine tuning but I had a rethink about the main character's arc and have rewritten little bits here and there that I think strengthen the story more.
I read lots of books - Sue Grafton's new one (S is for Silence), a Kathy Reichs I'd missed, and a historical mg novel called "Powder Monkey" which is set on a Royal Navy frigate in 1800. I was very interested to see how the author handled the historical details, and mostly it was good. In the first 40 pages or so, the main character took a while to grab me but after that it was an enjoyable read.
I also took photocopies of two novels (a few pages from each) and did some analysis, looking at language and rhythm and voice. It all sounds like work, not holiday, doesn't it?! But I had a great time and fitted in the lazing around with the writing very nicely.
Back to work tomorrow - it's called paying the bills. But I hope to keep up the holiday mode writing, giving it lots of headspace.

I have a writer friend who absolutely loves rewriting. And almost hates first draft. I have another friend who rarely rewrites, loves the 'rush' of the first draft and then just puts things away and starts a new piece.
Both of these have their drawbacks. The rewriting fiend can't send work out because it always needs one more rewrite. The first draft fiend sends things out occasionally and after one rejection, tosses it in the bottom drawer and moves on to the next story.
I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't enjoy fiddly rewrites, where I'm doing very little to the story, but I recognise they need to be done. It's where the sentences matter, where the language improves, where the characterisation deepens. But it can also be where I step too far back from the voice and the action and then I start to lose the depth of character. I try now in rewrites to imagine myself into the heart of the story and work from there. This is where the silent house is important. Nothing to distract me from the heart.
A few years ago, I listened to Adib Khan speak (he is an Australian literary author) and he says he does four drafts, but for the first three, he puts the previous draft aside, doesn't even look at it again and starts the new draft from scratch. Each new draft is like a distillation of the previous.
I have found this also to be useful. It helps to re-vision the story, rather than just fiddle around the edges.
But everyone is different. What to do with a new work that suddenly develops into something unexpected? That's where I am with a YA novel right now. I thought it might work based on emails, but the character has other ideas. This will be a novel where I do a lot of experimenting, on the basis that not all of it will work, and I might have to throw out lots of pages. But the central story and character excite me, so it will be fun. Even the rewrites sound promising already!

This is that time of the year when a great "tidy up" tends to happen in my chaotic office (i.e. the spare bedroom). By tidy up, I mean two things. The first is obvious and requires the use of a large rubbish bin.
The second is about following up on anything that has been bugging me or left hanging or just plain needs to be finished. Thus the tidy up list includes: copying all 58 poems in my verse novel into one computer file so it can have page numbers and a set order and be printed out properly (and sent to agent for reading); following up on manuscripts that have been sitting on someone's desk for way too long; following up an an advance that should have been paid to me a couple of months ago; updating industry news and networking stuff; sorting out what projects I have completed this year and where I am with the rest (kind of like a progressive goal setting thing I've started doing); having Xmas lunches and stuff with various writers and friends; buying books that I will devour over Xmas when there is nothing to do but relax; planning what writing I will work on while away with laptop; debating whether to buy a second laptop battery.
And making decisions about some important writing issues that have come up. Outcomes will be deliberated on in the New Year.
Have started reading "Best Australian Short Stories 2005" and got right back into short fiction all over again. Want to read more poetry. Am hoping that my copy of Meg Files' new anthology, published by Pima Press, will arrive very soon. It's a collection of poems on aging and the samples she sent were great.
Also I have been reading "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver and loving it. One of those books I plan to photocopy some pages from and analyse the writing. She is so good with setting and voice. But first to simply enjoy it.

It's a funny thing, being really tired and yet twitchy to write. The brain says, "No, no, sleep or veg out or something" but none of those things satisfies.
I'm end-of-year tired and grumpy, and wishing I was about to have 3 months off instead of 3 weeks (if I'm lucky). A country far far away sounds good right now but I might have to settle for Narnia.
Tried to be a vegetable last night and watch mind-numbing TV but it wasn't working. The twitching grew worse and in the end I had to rev up the laptop and write something - anything! Turned out that the beginning of a short story I wanted to add to had disappeared; thank goodness for hard copy and my need to print stuff out to "see" it. So I retyped it and made a few changes and seeing as how I had just that day made some notes on where I thought the story could go, I kept writing and have ended up with 2500 words. It's not finished yet but I'm happy.
It's a fantasy short story, not something I write often, but the Firebirds anthology has been inspiring so I thought I'd take another look at what I'd started.
I loved the story in Firebirds by Diana Wynne Jones - from a cat's point of view, which I have seen a few people do a miserable job on, but the story was great. An excellent example of how to have seven characters (cats) and keep them all clear and defined in the reader's mind. No confusion at all. I can't speak for dog lovers or cat haters, of course.
Miss Snark's blog continues to entertain. I even entered her 25 word competition and did about as well as I do in baked bean slogan competitions - zilch. But it was fun, and more fun to read the winning entries.
I also have read a children's classic - "The Midnight Fox" by Beverly Cleary. It felt old-fashioned but still very engaging. I think the old-fashioned feeling came more from the main character than anything - he was a funny sort of boy. But a lovely book.

Even though I didn't reach my 50,000 words for Nano, I seem to have inspired (for lack of a better word) a couple of others to try it in December as November just wasn't the right month for them. I really appreciated the Nano site with the graph on my page - there was something about seeing the graph go up that was encouraging. Maybe that's a bit sad, I know, but sometimes that outside "poke in the ribs" is just what you need. For one of my friends, I've created her own graph. Will it help?
In the past, when I've ground to a standstill for one reason or another, I've done various things to reignite me. One was to write a poem every day for a month. Sounds easy until you get to about Day 10 and end up writing a limerick about your bathroom! I've also used books like "Wild Mind" by Natalie Goldberg - very useful.
The Sue Miller book was "Lost in the Forest" - I think I gave the wrong title earlier. I enjoyed it - and envy her ability to get right inside her characters and make each one so interesting.
Currently reading "Firebirds" which is a fantasy short story anthology edited by Sharyn November. Most of the stories so far have ranged from pretty good up to great. Often with an anthology I hit a spot in the middle where I get a bunch of stories that just don't grab me and it takes a lot of perseverance to keep going (last year's Best American Short Stories did that - it's still sitting there half-finished).
I was asked recently to contribute to the Read Alert blog at the State Library - my favourite book for the year. That was a hard choice but I went for the Chris Crutcher book in the end (Whale Talk) - the voice of that character has just stayed with me for weeks.
After writing about 3000 words of a new YA novel at the end of Nano (and I had to stop because I had no idea where to go next) I am now ready to do some planning and exploring. I know the story I want to tell - the central one - but this novel needs much more than that. It's multi-layered and the other layers have to work too.
So the next couple of weeks will be thinking, writing, exploring, and then there's still rewriting on other projects to do.
Who has time for Christmas?

Today I did what any sensible writer does - I rewarded myself for writing. With a 45 minute Chinese massage. It was meant to be 20 minutes but the guy said my back was very stiff (it's called computer scrunch, a new medical term I invented) so I went for the extra 25 minutes. Floated home and promptly attacked a rewrite of 'The Littlest Pirate Number 3' which has been waiting for my scalpel for several weeks. I was hoping my brain had returned from the hidey-hole it had crawled into, but it only put in a pale appearance and then went again, so I struggled on by myself. I did manage to cut 400 words, only 100 short of what the editor asked for. And I left in most of the funny lines, I think. I hope.
On Friday I went to the Dromkeen lunch. For those of you not in Melbourne, Dromkeen is the homestead at Riddell's Creek, an hour from the city, which is a gallery and exhibition and workshop/school visit place that focuses on picture books. The lunch is an annual thing which honours librarians and has illustrators doing demonstrations. The guest during lunch was Marc McBride who does the Deltora covers and he created an airbrush painting of a dragon while we watched.
Every time I see what illustrators do, I go green with envy. They create such marvellous things. I did a little bit of video/filming for my teaching materials project at the university, but it was a horrible rainy day so not much scope.
Still reading the Sue Miller book.
Finally got around to copying some old files off my ancient computer in the office and now am not sure what to do with them. After having several floppy disks die on me recently, I'm loathe to leave the files on them. These file depositories in cyberspace sound interesting, but the mainfile at work might be more convenient. Ultimately I should print out hard copies too, but all that paper ... and as it is I have spent 3 hours today trying to tidy up the office. To add more seems self-defeating.
More rewrites coming up. I wish I could do both at the same time, i.e. alternate between first draft stuff on one book and rewriting on another, but this is one area where my brain seems to need to do one or the other, not both.

Nano sure does take up a lot of time! But it was inspiring and educational, if nothing else. It showed me I can write any time, any place (I have a photo of me with my laptop out in the woods, writing), and also fit in writing in the odd half hour if I really want to. It cured procrastination (not once did I have to use the alarm set up on my computer that is supposed to tell me to get writing or else!) and I got back into that old habit of continually keeping the novel in my head and thinking about what comes next so as soon as I sat down, I was ready to go.
All of that was very satisfying (but not always fun).
I also found that those people out in library research land are still being wonderful to me - hence an email to South Carolina resulted in an answer to a question that I had spent hours trying to find out via books and internet. Thank you!
On the down side, I am absolutely exhausted. As well as Nano, I had marking to do, then stuff started going wrong at work and things piled up at home, waiting for me to do them, and the pressure built. Mind you, chopping down a bouganvillea tree and feeding it into a mulcher did wonders for my aggro.
I did not reach 50,000 words. For one simple reason. I finished the novel I was working on. It came in at around 75,000 words (it was already started when I started Nano) and although I did start on a new novel the very next day and managed a couple of thousand words on it, I just couldn't continue. But I am very happy with my novel draft and looking forward to working on it more (probably cutting some of it for sure).
Now I am a vegetable, a reading vegetable, taking great pleasure in soaking up someone else's words. First up was Tess Gerritson's new book (yes NEW, unlike the last one) called "Vanished". That got four stars. Now I am reading Sue Miller's new book "A Walk in the Forest". Very different, not crime. And a weird point of view, as in many points of view. She changes from section to section, and you can't really call it omniscient POV because it's not distant. It's right inside each character's head and emotions. One to study.
Next on the pile is Marcus Zusak's new book "The Book Thief". Hope it's as good as everyone says it is.

Work stuff (that's the 9-5 thing I get regular money for) has obliterated my week. Here it is, Thursday, 24 days of Nano and I have only added 4000 words since last Saturday. So disappointing.
I think I'm also brain-dead, again work-related, and so I'm reading a lot of poetry right now to feed my creative brain rather than add more "work" to the mix.
No sense blogging though, when I could be Nano-ing!

After 18 days of Nano, I'm up to 25,000 words and still going. The novel I am working on has just hit 60,000 words, and my aim to complete it under 70,000 (because children's publishers don't like long novels unless you are JKR or writing fantasy) is looking possible. Even if I go over, I know I can still cut.
I have two manuscripts on my desk, waiting for editing and small rewrites to go back to an editor and I must start working on the first one ASAP. But it's so hard to stop Nano once you get into the swing of it. Any day that no writing is done feels like an empty day!
It has spin-offs too. I am writing poems at night, and rethinking a couple of half-finished short stories. But the novel is first.
Reading Michael Connelly's "The Lincoln Lawyer" and enjoying it. It's that thing where you know you are in good (writer's) hands from the first few pages. Initially I was a bit worried that the main character was going to be unlikeable, but the author does that thing where you see other sides of him - in other words, complexity!! By the end of teaching and grading this year, I was becoming convinced that it was the key to the next level of improvement in so many novels I saw. Too many felt one-dimensional, focused only on the main character and even then his or her life and back story was so limited. No material for subplots or depth of feeling or motivation or any of those important things that draw the reader in.
As entertainment, I continue to read Miss Snark. There has been a bit of debate about whether she is really an agent but a lot of what she says sounds too industry-savvy and sensible to be a writers. On the other hand, another blog by someone called SammyK who says he is an agent is just too stupid and rude and obnoxious to be real.
Bought Rosalie Ham's new novel yesterday. Everyone I know to whom I have recommended her first book "The Dressmaker" has loved it. Fingers crossed this one is as good.
She writes adult fiction, by the way, and is Australian.

Grading is almost finished at last and NaNo is good! I passed 10,000 words on Wednesday, a miracle considering what else I have been doing. I'm amazed at how I really can find an hour to write at odd times, just because I have this target and don't want to fail by TOO much.
I am now a third of the way through "Icemark" and it still is a struggle. Having read lots of good reviews of it (and then reading the publisher's note which says that the author rang him up and pitched the story and it sounded so terrific that he just had to read the manuscript), I thought What am I missing here? What is the problem?
Maybe I'm just tired? But every time I think about it, it's that the main character is too flat. Yes, she's courageous and headstrong and brilliant at everything she does, but she doesn't feel real to me. And after about 80-90 pages, I think that is a problem. Other comments welcome!
I've bought four new books this week, as rewards for finishing all the school work. Started the Tess Gerritsen book and was very cross when I realised it wasn't new - it's a reprint of an old one with a new cover to match the others. I got sucked in by "branding"!! It's like Tami Hoag's early novels - way too much romance and not enough crime. Hoag changed the balance later in a big way, as did Gerritsen, but the soppy bits in this are too M&B for me.
Bought Marcus Zusak's new book "The Book Thief" and also Michael Connelly's new one. Ah... holiday reading. Nothing like it. Once work is finished I tend to read until my eyes fall out of my head.
But I will still be writing, never fear.

Student grading is nearly finished, and NaNoWriMo keeps going. I'm up to 4315 words, not keeping on target but good considering the workload of all those student novels to read and comment on. I can't see me hitting the 50,000 but I am writing every day, even if only for 30-45 minutes. That's all it takes!
Have started reading "The Cry of the Icemark" and so far it's not doing much for me. Maybe I'm a bit impatient with fantasy at the moment. Sometimes I just have to be in the right mood for it, which I guess says I'm not a dedicated fantasy reader. Well, I already knew that.
Two of my classes this week have focused on "The First Five Pages" - it's been a good exercise to briefly look at the main points from the book. Then I asked them to evaluate the first five pages of a fellow student's novel. I didn't read their comments, just told them to pretend they were overworked editors at publishing houses! It's always good for me to be reminded of that stuff too.
One of my other goals this week is to add some photos and other stuff to my website. I also have to alter the work website as our course is changing next year so a lot of the info has to be updated. I practice on the site at work, then I come home and feel more confident about altering my own!
As an aside, I'm wondering when Miss Snark might be inspired to write her own book?

My internet connection is being incredibly slow this morning, so things had better not disappear into black holes - mind you, there is an apartment building in Sydney at the moment that is doing exactly that. Disappearing into a hole, thanks to tunnel construction.
NaNoWriMo has started, and so have I. Tally so far - 500 words. Probably nothing today, although my writing group is having a writing session so if I carried my laptop inside from my writing hovel in the back yard... Yes, good thinking. I did have a short story I wanted to work on, but I guess it could wait.
Finished reading Doris's novel last night - "Forgotten Dreams". I kept thinking it was going to have romance in it, but of course it didn't. It was a good read, lots of twists and turns, and with the religious connections and mystery in it, it felt a little like Australia's answer to the da Vinci Code. Except Doris would probably bop me for saying that!
Student grading goes on, and on. I made the fatal mistake of doing all the good ones first, and so had to tightly rein in my impatience when I got to the not-so-good students and discovered there were still people not able to work out how to indent their paragraphs. How hard is it, for gosh sake??
Reading Miss Snark's blog daily at the moment - such a tonic!

I cannot believe I just finished typing this long entry and it has now disappeared somewhere, simply because I tried to Bold a word - and the whole thing vanished! Grrrrr. There are times I wonder if LiveJournal might be more cooperative.
So a quick reading summary: "Simon Says" Elaine Marie Alphin - very intense and dark.
"The First Five Pages" Noah Lukeman - reading again to present the main points to my novel writing students at the end of the semester (which is very soon - yaayyy!)
"From Where You Dream" Robert Olen Butler - also about writing, focus on literary fiction. Lots to take in. A slow read but very interesting.
"Forgotten Dreams" Doris Leadbetter - novel by my dear friend who died last December and never got to see her book in print. For all you procrastinators - write now! And submit when it's ready.
I have signed up for NaNoWriMo - write a novel in a month - November 1-30 to be exact. I am determined to get this historical novel finished (draft 6) and hope the November thing will get me moving. Never mind how much student writing I have to grade!
Now to post this before it vanishes again.

Having lugged home a box of books weighing about 26 pounds, plus another 8-10 pounds in my carry-on bag, I thought it was time I did a short round-up of what I have read so far.
"Catalyst" by Laurie Halse Anderson (YA fiction). I loved her first novel "Speak" and enjoyed this one almost as much. She has a wonderful way with voice, and with seeing right inside a teen character without making her sound whiny or immature. Recommended.
"Olive's Ocean" by Kevin Henkes (mg fiction). I did like this, but felt at times that the character and the story he was trying to tell was bigger than he could manage. Very occasionally it felt slight somehow, and I didn't feel that the whole thing about Olive dying and the ocean was as well handled as it could have been. But still a good book and very accessible to mg readers (who wouldn't be as critical as me!).
"Dead Run" by PJ Tracey (crime fiction) - excellent - up to their usual standard (it's a collaboration like Nicci French), with lots of twists and turns, and female characters who are very real and full of guts.
Two novels by John Harvey while I was away - both very good - that I passed on to a friend.
"Word Work" by Bruce Holland Rogers (writing book). Full of stuff about being a writer rather than writing craft and how-to. I really liked the bits about Pig Will and Pig Won't - did the exercises which was enlightening - and also about writing rituals. Later chapters on rejection and sticking at it also good value. This was a very intensive read, there was so much in it. Worth going back and re-reading bits for more thinking later.
As for writing, I did about 3 hours today (yaaaayyyy!). OK, it was rewriting but what is writing but making it better? This is draft No. 8 of my mg novel, and the ending needs more fixing. Obviously since I have spent a year working on my plotting and have improved on that, now I need to spend another year working on my endings! Thank goodness for honest writing friends who can critique fearlessly. Thanks, you lot.
I have downloaded an alarm clock for my computer which is designed to get me off the internet (my favorite procrastination tool). When the alarm goes off, a siren sounds and the words pop up on the screen, telling me it's time to WRITE!!!

The inclination is to say "Now I'm back in the real world' but of course Tucson and San Antonio were the real world too. It was just that it was a world with no bills, no teaching to prepare for, no student work to grade, no phone to answer, and lots of new things to see and do. It's kind of a jolt to come back to day-to-day living and realise how little time I have to write, how many small chores there are to do that fill up the hours in a flash, how I am going to have to get back to strong determination just to carve out time to write.
Stupidly, I had set all three classes an assignment due in this week. The advantage is, once they're done, it'll be another 3 weeks before the end of semester work piles up, waiting to be graded.
But then (I raise my head for a moment and gaze at the distant horizon where the word HOLIDAYS hovers) I really will have more time to write.
I collected my second film from the photo place today and gazed longingly at the photos, especially the one of the InTown Suites. A very boring building to look at, but that quiet room ...
OK, I'll stop complaining now. Besides, there is rugby on TV to watch, glass of wine in hand. The day is over.