Style Queen launched!

A challenge to strike fear into the heart of most children's authors - capture and hold the attention of 130 kids at once! Altona Primary School here in Melbourne kindly agreed to "host" the launch of Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!), and their 5th and 6th graders piled into the school's multi-purpose room. Purpose today? Launch and talk.
I explained to the kids that normally at a launch we have a big celebration with champagne, and I was a little worried at the number of kids whose eyes lit up at the thought of a glass of bubbly or two! But it was more likely the mention of the word party.
After a lovely intro by student Sarah, Federal pollie Nicola Roxon made the official launch speech and then it was over to me. I told them what the book was about, and described how a verse novel works. When I said, 'Like lots of little chapters' I could see heads nodding. Then I read a few poems to give them an idea of what happens. After a few questions, I then did an 'author talk' about how a book gets published.
It's always fun to show them drafts of stories with crossings-out and scribbles everywhere, and then to show stages of galley proofs, with more scribbles and notes. Also my chapter books with illustrations go through several stages, with roughs and final pics. I have lots of research stuff to show as well, including lots of pirate pictures and examples.
The students asked some really good questions, including 'Why are there often blank pages at the back of a book?' I threw that one over to Christine Alesich, my editor at Penguin, so she could explain the whole thing about multiples and big sheets of paper in printing.
It was a fun morning, and the next day, I was able to go back so a lot of the kids could get a copy of the book (signed by me!).
APS has a great reading and literacy program, and it shows in the students' interest in books and reading, and their thoughtful questions.

It's been an odd week of reading - I finished off an old Tami Hoag mystery, still musing over her continual 'head jumping' in terms of point of view, and wondering if the average reader would notice it happening. I leapt into my new Sarah Dessen YA novel - The Truth About Forever - and enjoyed it immensely. She has such rich characters, and even though on the surface there might not be a huge amount happening in terms of action, underneath everything is working very deeply.
I've also been reading the Poets & Writers magazine, especially the ads. There are so many MFA writing courses in the US, and so many conferences. I keep asking: Why doesn't that happen here? (The last time I asked that question, I ended up organising one myself. Hmmm.)

One Tucson thing I will miss

The Santa Catalina Mountains (I was somewhere up on top there yesterday). I love the way the shadows move across the mountains as the day goes on. Every time you look up, the mountains look different. Around 4-5pm is the best time. (This is about 6.30pm.)

Mt Lemon - 7500 feet up

I love waterfalls, but at this time of year in Tucson there aren't any. I did see a great water track down the side of a mountain that will be a spectacular waterfall when it rains, but it's not quite the same. However, I also like mountains and rocks, so I drove my rental car up Mt Lemon yesterday, and took lots of photos. (I am getting good at driving on the wrong side of the road but I do keep trying to get in the passenger side of the car every now and then.)

Up on the mountain it is about 10 degrees C cooler than down in the desert, and it's fascinating to see the changes in vegetation as you go up. First there's saguaro cactus and desert plants, then there's scrubby trees (many were dead, because there is a drought here and people have told me the cacti are suffering too), then there are wonderful spruce forests.

In Australia, you can smell eucalypts in the bush; here it's the the smell of spruce, and it is different from Australian pines. I contemplating walking - hiking, everyone calls it here - but the bookshops were calling me and it was a bit hot. Maybe next time.

I managed to fit in three bookshops yesterday afternoon, but how I will carry my bags today is another question. I have discovered that my suitcase is basically stuffed (as in broken from being bashed around by the airline luggage department) but I think it will make it home OK. As long as no one drops it from forty feet up.

I feel like I only just got here and now it's time to leave. But I'm already lining up which books I'll read on the plane. So much to choose from...

Has your book been beeped?

One thing I love about Tucson is the bookshops. Probably it's the same in every US city - YA and children's paperbacks for $3.99-$5.99, where in Australia we are paying $11.95-$16.95 (or more) for a similar or same thing. So you can understand why I go a bit berserk. I already have bought more books than I should have, but it's hard to stop! And when I can visit not only Borders and Barnes & Noble and independent Antigones, but also Bookmans secondhand bookstores (3 of them), it gets really hard to know when to stop. I have to keep reminding myself that I have to carry all of them home.
At one of the large stores, I met someone (who shall not be named) who explained to me why books don't stay on the shelves very long. Apparently every month employees go around with a scanner and scan all the books and the ones that beep get taken off and sent back to the publisher. Each book is programmed in the computer as to when it was put on the shelf, so that 90 day shelf life we hear about really is exactly 90 days in most cases!
What's worse is that paperbacks don't even get sent back to the publisher because the freight costs aren't worth it. They rip off the covers and send them back and the rest of the book gets dumped in the rubbish.
If a book is selling well, it gets to stay longer, but we all know how many books are published every month here and what authors are competing against - well, they're competing against sheer volume before anything else! Now I have to do some sleuthing back in Australia and find out if this is common practice in bookshops there.

Tombstone

This is the Boot Hill Cemetery at Tombstone. The only grave in the whole place that has the traditional concrete around it with a headstone is that of the guy who spent many years restoring the cemetery - Emmett Nunnelley.
It's funny - you see all the movies that feature Tombstone and hear so much about it that it starts to seem like just a story, but when you get there and see the cemetery and the graves of the guys who were killed at the OK Corrall, you realise that it did actually happen, just not with Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell.

The town itself is, of course, very much geared to tourists. Meg and I saw the Helldorado Wild West Show that had more bad jokes in it than any show in the US, I think, but it was so bad it was quite funny (which was their aim!). There are lots of shops to browse in, some museums and some saloons for eating in. Including one called Big Nose Kate's. I thought it was all good value, unlike Bisbee which was a little further down the road and was kind of disappointing. It's an old mining town, and maybe we missed the best parts, but it seemed a bit rundown and a lot of the shops were more like junk shops than anything. It didn't help that some of them were closed. But it was cooler up there - Bisbee is in the hills.

Sonora Desert Museum

This morning I crawled out of bed at the horrible hour of 5.30am, to get to the Desert Museum before it got too hot. Once the heat sets in, a lot of the animals in this wonderful outdoor "zoo" hide in the shade and sleep.

This time, although the mountain lion was nowhere to be seen, I did see the bobcats (such big ears!) and the coyote. The otters, as usual, were having a marvelous time in the water, the beaver was chewing determinedly on his piece of wood and the humming birds whirred around us like large, fast-moving moths, so close we could feel the wind from their tiny wings.

Even the snakes were moving around. In the walk-through bird aviary, the birds came close for great photos, and the mice ran around stealing bird food. In one corner we saw a snake that had nabbed a mouse for breakfast.

I did see a rabbit in the distance, but whether it was a jack rabbit with those amazing huge ears or not, I couldn't tell.

Pima Writers' Workshop - notes of note

Somebody is still alert in the heat. It's around 100 degrees F today, but I see the forecast in Melbourne is for rain and 12 degrees C this week!
Some quotes from the conference (paraphrased from my notes):
Think about how each character in your story or novel sees and experiences things - they will all see the same thing differently - Laila Halaby
A lot of query letters don't effectively convey conflict, plot and characters - if you can't get this down in a query, it often means your book isn't ready - Stephen Barbara, Donald Maass Agency
What will define the next ten years of publishing? Distribution. A number of large book distributors have already gone out of business, making it hard for the small presses - Kate Gale, Red Hen Press
Agents like writers who are well-informed about the publishing business - you can learn by reading industry magazines, websites and blogs - Emmanuelle Alspaugh, agent with Wendy Sherman Assoc.
All of the primary characters in your novel should change in some way during the story, not just your main character - Masha Hamilton
Have an ugly baby - Alan Woodman
(What Alan really meant was write an ugly first draft - once it's out there on the page, it can grown and mature and become more beautiful with rewriting. Get it out there as ugly, then you can improve on it.)

Pima Writers' Workshop - last day

This is the panel for the final session today - not yet "at the table" are Richard Garcia and Allen Woodman. This is just as the "Keeping the Faith" session was beginning, with Meg Files at the podium. We were asked to give one last piece of writing advice for everyone to take away - as Meg said, after a great conference you can end up feeling down, maybe thinking it's too hard once the excitement and energy has worn off. So this session was about how to keep going, write no matter what, and persist.
The one thing that came through for me over the three days was about being professional, not just in the way you present yourself to agents and publishers, but also in the way you think about yourself as a writer. Take your passion seriously, give it the time and energy it needs, keep reading and learning, and yes, keep the faith.
Too often we put other things ahead of writing. Yes, life does have a funny habit of taking over. Yet at least two of the published writers who were the guest speakers mentioned that they had to get up at 4am to write their novels - they made a commitment to that time before the day started to work and write. I think I could do that if I had to - even though at 4am I'm almost comatose. But if I had absolutely no other time?
I'm lucky that I can carve out 2-3 hours here and there in my week to write, but it is so easy to allow other things to intrude - to allow other people to consume your time and energy, to put errands or cleaning or even a favourite TV show before writing, to think I'll just do my emails first and two hours later your time is gone. Heather Sellar's new book Chapter After Chapter says "Writers will not finish their novels if they say Yes to other things." And it's true.
Self publishing came up quite a few times during the weekend, and for some people it is a perfect option. But sometimes, as Allan Woodman pointed out, you can be in too much of a hurry to be published. Your book is getting rejected so you say, "I have to get it out there where readers can discover it", but the truth is, you might be getting rejected because your writing and your book are just not ready yet.
It was interesting for me to hear so much from Kate Gale about small independent presses and university presses. It is a whole different level of publishing which we don't really have in Australia. We do have a few tiny independents, and one or two university presses, but not like in the US. There are many fine writers whose work is not going to have a huge audience, and the "small" option is a real option.
But as Stephen Barbara (agent from Donald Maass Agency) said, "Don't quit your day job until you have a large audience for your work." That means a sustained audience who will continue to buy everything you publish, so that you have a substantial, ongoing royalty income.
Not a hugely happy note to end on, but a practical, honest one that serves us well.

Pima Writers' Workshop

Day Two of the conference has just finished - one more day to go. We are packing in so much, and I am learning lots of new stuff. For example, I did a workshop with Richard Garcia yesterday on the Deep Image - which I thought was going to be about imagery, but it was actually about a kind of poetry called Deep Image that uses the body and nature. I wrote a very weird poem about being a whale (kind of). I also attended Kate Gale's double session on The Inside Story of Publishing. I wondered if it would be interesting - how much more do I want or need to know about the subject? But she is part of Red Hen Press, an independent small press, and her information and stories about small press publishing were great - and very useful. She talked about very detailed things such as how they sell their books, and how they work with writers, and also stuff on self promotion. In fact, so much information that I'm really glad I took lots of notes.
On the first day, Stephen Barbara from the Donald Maass Agency talked about what agents do, submissions, queries and all kinds of agenty things. I thought it was interesting that his agency has boilerplates already negotiated with the large publishers. As he said, authors without representation who get the publisher's boilerplate are really starting at a disadvantage.
The very first session (yes, I'm working backwards) was Laila Halaby talking about truth in fiction - what is truth, what is real? And how do we create the real in something that is created out of our own imagination? She made good points about accuracy, and about the reader's trust in the writer.
Tonight, it was my turn to read, along with Donna Steiner and Richard Garcia. Donna read a wonderful non-fiction piece about a jeweller's loupe, and Richard had everyone laughing at his poems about his mother and his dog (dog as psychiatrist). How to follow two great acts? I read some very dark poetry - well, somebody had to be depressing! - and then we had a mini-launch of Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) with a little speech from Marge Pellegrino, a Tucson children's writer, and I read from the book (not so depressing... I hope). Then we had non-alcoholic cider and Vegemite. Meg is still trying to get rid of the jar of the stuff we gave her in Melbourne! Quite a few people tried it - "interesting" was one of the more positive comments.
I have met lots of wonderful, keen writers, and it is fascinating to hear people read out in the workshops. In my voice workshop today, everyone went along with my visualisation exercise and wrote a voice piece - the brave ones who read out were amazing. So different. For me, that means an exercise worked - when so many different voices emerged.
Tomorrow is the last day, and another agent is going to talk about query letters and first chapters - I will be taking lots more notes.

Live from Tucson

Arrived here after 23 hours enroute - including 4 at LA airport where I fell asleep in my chair and then nearly fell off it when a really loud PA announcement woke me up. What happened to the days when airlines flew direct from Melbourne? I think I am getting spoiled because my flight had the old movies on the screens up the front instead of in the seat backs and I was very upset about that! I love being able to press buttons and watch a choice of 20 movies on a little screen right in front of me.
Instead (seeing as how I had seen most of the movies on offer in the distance) I read a Jack Reacher novel - "Tripwire" by Lee Child, and had finished it before I boarded the last leg to Tucson. No wonder my eyes are hanging out of my head. And I spent most of the Tucson trip asleep (probably snoring). Woke up in time for the approach, and was just wondering if the very spread-out area of buildings in neat patterns below me was an army base or something when the man behind me said, "Wow, that is a huge prison, isn't it?" Guess that answered my question about the fences.
I always forget how Tucson is in a desert. And then I see the brown land stretching far and wide, and I remember. It reminds me of the Australian outback.
My volunteer conference driver, Kate, picked me up at the airport and dropped me at the hotel, so after a shower that woke me up a bit, I checked emails and found a dinner invitation from the Gila Gang. They are a group of children's writers whom I met when I was here last time. So after some fast ironing of clothes and a wait for a cab, I arrived at the restaurant, and no one was there. Small moment of panic - the email had been dated 24th, but I'd figured it was a day ahead because of Australian time on receiving log - had I miscalculated? No, they were out the back and I did find them. It was great to meet them all again and talk a bit about books and writing. The restaurant was Guatemalan, food was lovely, and I had this yummy drink made from rice milk with cinnamon and stuff in it.
This morning Meg called in with all my conference bizzo - schedules and location maps etc - and the last manuscript for me to read and comment on. It is two picture books that the authors have already created as mock-ups, and they look good - hard covers and all.
Meg also brought me some books, including her new collection of poetry - "Love Hunter" by Meg Files. More excellent reading to look forward to.
I'm reading Sherman Alexie's new novel "Flight" at the moment, which I bought at LA airport (why wait to start buying books?). It is very weird but I am enjoying it - and waiting to see where it will lead me next.
Now I am off for a walk around Tucson's historic area - sunscreen and sunglasses at the ready.

First Chapters at Conferences

I am about to fly off in a few days to a writers' conference in Tucson, AZ, where as well as speaking and running a writing workshop, I'll be having one-to-one sessions with a number of writers about their manuscripts. So I have spent the past three days reading, commenting and writing a report for each person (15 minutes talk time passes too quickly).
I know now why agents and editors hate it when people send in odd chapters of their novels, e.g. Chapter 1, then Chapter 5 and Chapter 23. I imagine writers think, 'These are the best chapters' or 'These chapters best convey what the novel is about'.
Well no, I can attest now that they don't. They create a lot of confusion and wrong assumptions. Especially when you send Chapter 1 and Chapter 4, and 4 seems to come right after 1, so what on earth could be in 2 and 3? (The assumption is - nothing worth reading that will add to the action.) And if the writing is good, which in the manuscripts I had was often the case, then reading bits instead of a decent slab is very frustrating. We all want to know what happens next - not ten chapters later. The story never gets a chance to work up a decent head of steam.
So here I am to tell you - send Chapters 1, 2 and 3. Please.
The great thing about this conference (Pima Writers' Workshop at Pima College) is that its focus is on writing. Yes, there is stuff on agents and publishing, but many of the sessions focus either on talking about craft or on actual writing. My workshop will be on Character and Voice in Children's and YA Fiction, and I have some good exercises lined up. I'm also hoping to attend some of the other sessions, such as the one on Deeper Imagery in Poetry.
What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the chance to spend four whole days talking to writers about writing and books, sharing ideas and experiences, and learning from others. That's what I love about writing - there is always something new to learn, and always I find new ideas bursting out of my brain as I spark off other writers' workshops, comments and suggestions.
So shortly this blog will go 'global' again. And I'll be in sunny Arizona, with my swimsuit instead of my warm coat.

What is Voice?

The eternal question. Does it matter? Yes, it apparently does, especially when you hear editors and agents at conferences say, "A story with a great voice and a weak plot can be fixed; a story with a great plot and a voice that isn't working can't be fixed."
So, are they right?
Yes and no. Some stories emerge from voice. John Marsden says that he began the War series (which starts with Tomorrow When the War Began) when he heard Ellie's voice in his head - Ellie being the narrator. It's often the way it works for me. I started a story about a girl called Tracey Binns and her voice just took over - she was very demanding! But I have written other stories where the voice is not nearly so strong. With chapter books, it's not such an issue. In fact, I have a chapter book where the voice is probably stopping it being published, because the kid is pretty nerdy and weird.
In class, I try to get the students to do a lot of work on their characters, not because I think they need to know every single thing about their character's life (although it helps) but because in writing and imagining their main character, they can often "fall into" the voice. We do free writing, imagining our characters telling stories that begin, "Let me tell you how it happened ..." or in YA, perhaps, "This is how it went down ..." One good exercise I recommend is to interview your character via free writing, sit them down at a table, ask them questions and then let them answer. All kinds of strange and wonderful things can come out of this, including things that you didn't know were part of your character's life.
Back to the question - can you fix a weak/uninvolving voice? Yes, I think so, but it requires several things to happen:
1. That you put aside the manuscript and forget entirely about it.
2. That you focus on your character and spend a lot of time writing about them and writing things in their voice - role playing, imagining their world, and then working your way into seeing the world through their eyes. How your character sees/understands/filters/judges the world around them is, to me, an intrinsic part of voice.
3. That you create a whole, real life for your character - their family, friends, school/work, lovers, enemies etc.
4. And then you focus on their dreams, goals, ambitions and fears. Get your character to write secret thoughts about these things. Note I said "get your character to write" - by now, if you have really delved into who your character is, it really will be her or him writing about what they fear most, or what they want most in their lives.
If you haven't captured voice after doing all of those things, you need to ask yourself why not. And weird though it may seem, it might just be because you are too afraid to let your character be "real" to you.
Enough psychoanalysis-type stuff for one night.
I'm off to read some Peter Temple.

Book Hog

This is what can happen to a gum tree when it's been really dry (like our 8 year drought) and a few insects, probably termites and/or their relatives, move in. One day, for seemingly no good reason, the tree goes down. It's weird to see. We have plenty of gums that have succumbed to high winds, especially on the tops of ridges, but this one was down by the dry creek bed. What fascinates me is the way the tree splits into wedges rather than one great splintered mess.
Why am I a book hog? Because I bought the new Stuart MacBride - Broken Skin - and I have been reading it non-stop for three days. I tried to slow down. I tried to make it last. But I just had to read, read, read, until it was all over.
Aberdeen is still raining, only not as bad, and it's still full of people living in poverty that turns them into criminals, who are then caught by McRae. If you want a crime novel that has the most bizarre, yet entertaining, police bosses on record, try MacBride. Between Steele, who looks like something dragged through a hedge most days, and Insch, who eats lollies non-stop and is 13 stone overweight and about to die of apoplexy, McRae couldn't have a better pair of fictional bosses. A great example of major characters (technically secondary, I suppose, but they both burst the boundaries) who add a million percent to the whole novel. And the plot is multi-layered, with several crimes going on at once. So rather than one serial murderer or rapist or whatever, MacBride deftly handles half a dozen urgent crimes with corresponding investigations. Excellent.
Now I'm just sorry I pigged out, and it's over.
And as for my Super 14 team, the Crusaders, losing their semi-final ... the less said, the better. Sigh.

SCBWI Melbourne meeting

Today I went along to a get-together of our Victorian SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) - it's always great to talk to other writers and illustrators and catch up on news. At today's meeting, Virginia Lowe talked about her academic text which was based on the records she kept of her two children's book reading habits over a period of about 20 years! I can't imagine being that diligent, but some of her anecdotes about how her kids related to and understood the books they were reading were very interesting.
We also listened to a member who has spent ten years in LA, and she talked about organising events for writers in a city of 10 million people. I know myself from attending a couple of SCBWI conferences in LA how 900 writers and illustrators in one room can be overwhelming. A bit like my trip to Borders today, where I stood and looked at all those dozens of shelves of books and thought, How on earth are my books meant to even get noticed, let alone sold? Then I found The Littlest Pirate and The Littlest Pirate and the Hammerheads on their pirate display and felt much better. However, Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) was definitely wagging bookshop duty there today!
Third speaker was a CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) judge. As the shortlisted titles for their awards have been recently announced, it was fascinating to hear a warts-and-all description of how the books are read, dissected and whittled down to the Notables, and finally the shortlist. I think many people there were surprised at how lengthy the process is, and how, as in any judging panel of eight people, there is rarely a consensus on what should be a "finalist". Their points system seemed both fair and unfair but, as the judge pointed out, it has to take in a dozen different criteria as well as trying to avoid subjective or emotive decisions.
My predictions for winners? Well, I'm subjective too, but I'll stick my neck out:
Picture Books (Early Childhood) - Doodledum Dancing - Meredith Costain, ill. Pamela Allen (because it's great poetry for little kids)
Picture Books (Older Readers) - The Arrival - Shaun Tan
Younger Readers Award - Bird and Sugar Boy - Sofie Laguna
Older Readers Award - The Red Shoe - Ursula Dubosarsky
Information Book - Leaf Litter - Rachel Tonkin
Now I haven't actually read all of the shortlisted books, so I may change my mind later on, but you get the best bookie's odds when you predict early, don't you?

Final Style Queen Poem

It's Friday so here we go:

DEMOGRAPHICS

in class we learn
a new word –
demographics –
it means who we are,
who’s different
or the same
and how many

14 girls and 12 boys
8 blondes, 2 redheads and 16 brunettes
9 different nationalities
16 love The Simpsons
only 5 admit they watch
Neighbours

I do my own demographics:
5 computer nerds
8 netballers
5 soccer players
2 bullies
1 teacher’s suck
4 style queens
and me.

That's it for poems. If you want to read a couple more or hear me reading some of them (strange how the audio file uploaded on my site but the #@*% cover image won't cooperate!), head along to my website.
Normal transmission on this site will resume shortly! In other words, I have a book to review.

New Poem

GOING TO THE FOOTY

Natalie and I used to wear
our Demons beanies
and go to the footy
with Dad

now it’s just me
Dad gives me his scarf
and off we go
even though the forecast
is for sleet

‘we’re tough,’ says Dad
my bum aches
my feet go numb
Dad buys me a hot pie
that burns my tongue
a man shouts
in my ear
for two hours
but our team wins
and Dad and I
are happy.

Another poem from the book

Dawn starts to realise that her parents do nothing but fight, then the worst happens:

THEY SAY

Mum says
she still loves me

Dad says
he still loves me

but they won’t be
loving me
together

it’s not my fault
they just don’t
want to live together
any more

I’ve listened to this
on a dozen
different
TV shows

anyone would think
they’d been to Hollywood
for a script.

Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) - another poem

SUNGLASSES

I look cool
in these glasses
in the mirror
I am tinted
smooth
slick

Natalie said
my old glasses
made me look like
a bogong moth
big black orbs
instead of eyes

now I’m cool
lizard cool
beetle cool
cool insect
that’s me.

In case you're wondering, this is a verse novel for 9-12 year olds (or anyone who likes poetry). The main character, Dawn, is in Grade 6 - while it seems like all the other girls want to be style queens, Dawn wants life to stay the same and be fun. But at home, her parents never stop fighting and soon the inevitable happens. How will Dawn cope?
Yes - available at all good bookshops in Australia! Overseas? You'll have to email me for how to buy it.

Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!)

Today is the day - official publication day, that is. I said that I would put up a poem every day this week from the novel (it's a verse novel) so here goes.

ALIEN
A lot of the time
I feel like I must be adopted
or my brain got wired wrong
or I’m secretly an alien
(but they didn’t tell me).

I don’t fit
in my family
or at school,
I have friends
but sometimes even they
think I’m weird.

I say dumb things
I wear stupid clothes
I can’t make my hair behave
some days the whole world
looks wrong to me.

I wish the space ship
would come back
and collect me.

(When I work out why the cover image isn't showing up, I'll post a link to the book on my site!)

Williamstown Literary Festival

(Crime Writers' panel above)
Have just spent a large amount of my weekend at the local Willy LitFest, putting up a display of stuff from the course I teach in (and talking in a session about the course, and about writing groups - doing a hat switching trick), and listening to people talk about writing and books.
Joan Kirner opened the festival and then 15-year-old Alexandra Adornetto spoke about the novel she wrote over summer when she was 13, which is now being published by HarperCollins. It's a fantasy of course, and sounds like fun. I realised that the strange sound I could hear was all the adult writers in the audience grinding their teeth. Of course, how hard is it to write a book and then get it published? Piece of cake. We all know that!
Later in the afternoon, the winners and final ten entries in the Ada Cambridge Writing Competition were announced. I say winners, because for the first time, they awarded a joint first prize. My writing group, Western Women Writers, did the shortlisting of the final ten, and I understand the judges' dilemma over two very different stories (but I know which one I would have given it to!). The AC is a different kind of story competition because it's for autobiographical/biographical work, so you get a lot of people entering life stories who might not normally write short fiction. Some terrific stories which are now published in the anthology.
Sunday was a mix - the most popular session by far was with William McInnes, sometimes TV and movie star and sometimes writer. I didn't get to this session but I believe the masturbation story was very entertaining.
I did attend the crime writers' session with Garry Disher, Adrian Hyland and Angela Savage, moderated by Carmel Shute. A good session as Carmel prepares her questions with experience and thought, and the writers all write quite different stuff. Later, I got a chance to chat with Adrian Hyland, who wrote "Diamond Dove". He is working on another novel with the same main character, while teaching at La Trobe. One of the things that came up during the session was whether a writer in Australia can write full-time - most can't. But Garry said when he made the decision to do it, although his income dropped dramatically, he felt suddenly free (funny that, since he was teaching creative writing!). Now he is in the position of being contracted for two books at a time, and having to often write what publishers dictate, so there are ups and downs in every option.
The day was finished off with a book launch - Shaun Micallef launching Claire Saxby's new picture book. And as I was late getting there, I missed the story about nudity in the swimming pool changing rooms. But I heard about it later. A good small literary festival means you end up hearing all about the sessions, even if you didn't make it there yourself!

Those Were the Days

The neighbours invited pirates in to celebrate their child's birthday (never mind the kid is only one - the other kids loved it). Did I get an invite? Even though I am the foremost pirate expert in the whole street? No. I was forced to peer over the fence and listen to the screams of glee...

The Pesky Novella

Last night, I went to a session at Readings in Port Melbourne, where the guest speakers were Cate Kennedy and Paddy O'Reilly. They were there to talk about novellas, principally because Five Mile Press has just published a collection of four, including the one that won the Meanjin Novella Competition. Cate edited the collection and Paddy's was one of the four in it.
It's called Love and Desire because that was the theme of the competition - at the time (June last year) it seemed like everyone I knew was writing a novella to enter. Prize was a few thousand dollars and promise of publication. I even thought about it! But didn't.
The discussion was very interesting and quite wide-ranging, involving the audience (we were all gathered in the coffee shop so it was cosy and easy to chip in) and throwing up some good quotes which I will endeavour to include here. Cate began by saying, "In the novella, it's like the short story - there is nowhere to hide. In a novel you can write your way out of trouble." Paddy's story was 45,000 words to start with, and was cut down to around 25,000. She only achieved this by taking out huge chunks rather than cutting sentences and paragraphs, leaving her with a story that has almost-self-contained chapters.
Cate, as editor, also had to cut one of the other stories quite a lot and work with the author. She said, "With the novella, you need to have the same satisfying experience as with the novel, but with less words. You also need to have your hands on the wheel in terms of imagery and metaphor when working with shorter prose." They both agreed that imagery and metaphor help you to say a lot more with less words, an essential in short fiction.
There was also discussion about what is the difference between a novella and a YA novel, if they are both of a similar length? Various comments included that a YA novel has a teen protagonist, more plot, plenty of pace, less sophistication, a theme that is more about identity and rite-of-passage. I guess I would agree with most of that - except you can find all of those things in a novella for adults as well. I think most novellas (at least the ones that were discussed last night) are literary fiction, and therefore the author's purpose and audience is different, right from the first word written. That changes language, theme, complexity - everything the writer is trying to achieve. Often people look at the finished book and say it is this or that, based on a judgement of what they see, yet they forget that the writer had to have an intention right from the beginning, so isn't it more useful to ask what that might have been?
Anyway, towards the end Cate talked about all the novellas she read for selecting the final three (plus the competition winner) - her one criteria that stood above the others was "Which stories stayed with me? Which one was I still thinking about in the shower, or the car? Which ones energised or inspired me?"
When asked, she said that too many of them were really novels - that writers had started with concepts or stories that were too big for the word limit, and so there was too much telling, too much trying to cram in a lot of information. Someone asked about cutting words - how do you learn to self-edit like that? Cate's answer - take one of your short stories and cut it by half. Be ruthless and see what you end up with.
Paddy added that you should take off the beginning and the end and see what you are left with in the middle - if there's nothing there, well ...
It was a very good session, with lots of great input from the audience and some useful comments and questions (including from the publisher and sales people from Five Mile Press, who were also there).

Away with the Penguins

I have been away. At Phillip Island, which is about 2 hours south-east of Melbourne, and is famous for its Penguin Parade, where thousands of Japanese tourists (and lots of others too) go down to the beach and watch the penguins waddle in at dusk, heading for their burrows.
I was originally asked to run a writing workshop at the inaugural Ibis Writers' Festival, and then organised a school visit to Cowes Primary School. The whole weekend was given over to the writers' festival and people came from all over the area for workshops on writing for children (me), writing poetry (Kristin Henry), writing fiction (Bruce Pascoe) and writing plays (Ian Robinson). I first ran a writing workshop in Cowes about 16 years ago, and there were people at this weekend who attended that original workshop of mine. Amazing.
On Friday night, we went to a dinner featuring Dorothy Porter as the guest speaker. Her new book Eldorado has just been published, and it's another crime novel in verse. I've heard her read from it twice now, and it sounds fantastic.
Dorothy also talked about what poetry can do that fiction can't, and some of the other themes and subjects she has tackled. A great presentation.
On Saturday night, local performer Maggie Millar was to give a presentation of fairy tales for adults, but she bowed out due to illness so Kristin "dobbed in" herself and me to fill in. Now, fairy tales for adults is not our thing, so we decided to continue on with the theme of the afternoon forum - Identity and Family Storytelling. The forum ended up being more about stories as a way of perceiving and understanding national identity, so Kristin and I brought it back to the personal, reading our own poems about family and discussing where they came from and why and how we write them.
I read a few poems from my new book Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) and got an excellent response from the audience.
Did I do any writing while I was down there? No. I did nearly lose my voice, mainly through getting a bit carried away with the school kids on Friday with practicing our pirate Arrrrrrs. And I have a new idea for a series of poems, but haven't started yet. Still thinking.
And still reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It is amazing. Some of the typographical images alone provoke much thought, let alone the characters and story.
I did get to mark a great pile of student assignments while sitting in a nice coffee shop down near the water. And hear a lot of rain falling on the roof on Friday night. Yaaayy!

Rain

Yesterday and today, it has been raining. Not a huge amount, but enough so that when I went for a walk today, people's lawns and gardens looked thoroughly soaked. And the birds and butterflies were going berserk! I'm used to going up the bush and having butterflies drift around me or rise up from in front of me as I walk. Not so much in the city.
Yesterday, in the bush, before it rained, all we saw/heard were two kookaburras. But there's been some earlier rain up there because where we've cleared away some dead bracken, green things are growing!
Finished Jonathan Kellerman's new book "Obsession" while sitting under the gum tree. It's good - I liked how the villain developed, how the story started as a possible crime and grew into something so much worse. But this book did a lot of what the last one did - characters sitting around talking the investigation out. I enjoy the actual investigating and questioning of the minor characters so much more. Kellerman has some great minor villains in this book, including a nose-picking sleazy PI and a tattooed guy who is a health nut.
It's easy to become so involved with your protagonist and antagonist that you forget about the other characters and they end up being one-dimensional. On the other hand, some writing books warn you against minor characters that are too colourful because they can take over the story. After reading Kellerman, I vote for the colour and variety - they can add extra layers to the plot and the theme and make the story so much richer.
I'm now back reading "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer. I've kept at this book because it's written in such an interesting way (also has pictures and graphics) but I'm at the point right now where the dialogue is giving me the irrits. He doesn't use paragraphing for a lot of it, so there are long blocks of short dialogue with "" all jammed in together. Example (main character talking to Grandma on walkie-talkie): "Are you home? Over." "Yes. Over." "Have you had dinner? Over." "Not yet. Over." "Where is your mom? Over." "Don't know. Over."
OK, so I actually made up that dialogue but that's how it reads on the page. And it goes on and on, and a lot of it is of the "please pass the butter" variety. I'm waiting to see if this has any other purpose than saving pages.
My friend G listened to this book as an audio, so I will ask her how it came across without the speech marks and jamming together. Probably a very different experience.

A couple of good blogs/sites

There's nothing I like more than to spend a little time (not too much) following interesting links on the internet and finding new sites and blogs.
Julius Lester is a terrific writer whose book "When Dad Killed Mom" is one of my favourite middle grade novels. He has a regular blog, but this one: http://acommonplacejblolio.blogspot.com/
is an offshoot, just one entry where he talks about the importance of children's and YA books, and how it is possible to change a child's or teenager's life with a book. He also talks about the concerted efforts of many adults to control what kids read.
The other thing I found is a website devoted to Australian crime fiction, which also includes an online crime fiction magazine (short stories). For someone like me, who likes to use the library to try out new writers, this site is going to be very useful.
http://www.crimedownunder.com/index.html

The Value of Silence

I love silence. Silence is usually what I get in the bush. No phones, no television, no cars roaring past, no neighbours fighting, no kids screaming. Occasionally I get motorbikes or chainsaws. And last weekend I got wasps. Lots of buzzing. Quite lulling really, as long as they didn't hang around being annoying. European wasps here are a blight. We seem to have a nest that may need eradicating. If I ever find it.
Sharon Gray is a columnist for the Age newspaper and her piece this week was on silence. She did a 10 day silence retreat over New Year - I try to imagine that but I can't! But she quotes a saying which I am requoting here: "Before you speak, ask yourself: is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?"
Thinking back over some things I've heard people say recently, I reckon that's a very good question.
In fiction, I often see student writers who forget the value of silence in dialogue. Silence can be an effective powerplay in an arguement, it can be a turning point, it can win or lose the fight. If you watch too much "talking heads TV", the kind where words just fill in all the airtime and give the glamorous heads something to do other than exchange long, smouldering looks, I think you can fall into the trap of thinking that your characters have to do the same thing. But I do love great dialogue in a book. Snappy. Smart. Funny.
I've read two of my three "desperate shelf picks" from the library so far. Interestingly, both had main characters who lived on the fringes. "Keeping Bad Company" by Ann Granger features a young woman who has been living in squats and gets involved in a kidnapping via a conversation with a homeless man. "Beautiful Lies" by Lisa Unger has a young woman who is a freelance writer (although she seems to get pretty good writing assignments!) and lives in a crumby part of New York, in a building that is falling down. Apart from an incredibly slow beginning, where Chapters 2 and 3 are nearly all backstory and explanation, the novel was a good read. Lots of twists and turns and surprises. A lot of it felt guessable but I resisted. I don't like having the solution too easy to work out. I have to say, though, that now I've finished it, I can't remember exactly who the villain turned out to be. There was more than one, but who was the real baddie?
I am currently making lists of questions for my crime novel rewrite. The kinds of questions that you ask a policeman or a doctor. Luckily I will be able to ask the right people. And then I need to go for a drive to some of my locations and take photos and make description notes. It may mean I have to rewrite some parts of the novel if I guessed wrong in the first draft, but that's part of creating a credible world.
Now if only I could travel to Charleston and North Carolina for location research for my historical novel...

Nothing at the Library

It was time for a library visit (this usually means if I don't get my books back right now they will charge me a humungous amount of money, commonly known as "late fines") so away I went, anticipating many shelves full of books I just had to read.
Nothing.
Not that there were no books - there were just no books that I wanted to read. I wandered, I picked up books at random, I looked for familiar names in case I found something new, I even got desperate enough to check out the Large Print section. Nothing appealed. Nothing jumped out and said "Read me! I'll be good, I'll keep you hooked for hours on end!" So I came home with three kind-of-OK-maybe-readable books. At least when this happens in the bookshop, you can go home feeling virtuous about how you didn't spend any money (for a change).
Maybe I'm anticipating my trip to Tucson next month where there are not only several Borders and Barnes & Nobles, but three branches of a second-hand bookshop chain called Bookmans. And a great independent bookshop called Antigones.
On another tack, maybe I was put off the library because the first book I picked up inside the door (it was on a display) was "The Idiot's Guide to Branding". There are writers' conferences now where they run sessions on branding. I know it's becoming part of publishing now, I know for lots of authors it helps them to sell more books, but I haven't got to grips with it yet. I equate it to words like "pigeonholing" and "nice little box" and "you shouldn't write anything else". But I guess that's why pseudonyms were invented.
A couple of days ago, I started "Best American Short Stories 2006". I say started because this yearly feast is not something to be raced through, it's like a 20-course meal. I like to read two or three stories, then put it down for a few days. Then two or three more. The stories are so different, and often demand time and reflection. What I also like about BASS is that in the back of the book, each writer has a bit that explains where the story came from, how it was written. I never read this until I've read the story. Other friends of mine always read that bit first.
Short stories ... here in Australia it seems there are a million competitions (usually with a 3000 word limit, which can act like a garotte) and not many publishing outlets. Another handy extra in BASS is a list of magazines/journals and their submission addresses.
Long live the short story!

Lunching and Present Tense

This being the mid-semester break and all, it was time for a literary lunch. A real literary lunch, not one of those ones where you pay $55 for a big plate with a little bit of food on it, a glass of wine and a famous writer who seems too bored to prepare an interesting talk and instead does a ten minute self-promo and then waits to sign a billion books (all right, I've only been to one of those but it was pretty disappointing, especially when the book was only available in hardback so I didn't buy it).
By a real literary lunch, I mean eating nice food, drinking champagne (to celebrate my new book) and then spending nearly three hours talking books, books, books and writing, writing, writing, and a little bit of other stuff for variety.
My friend G and I love to swap recommendations (today we had a great discussion about "We Need to Talk About Kevin") and I often come away with my notebook filled with titles and authors to find at the library or buy. I introduced her daughter to Louise Rennison, and G has just given me "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" - Jonathan Safran Foer. I had to take it to lunch with me to show her the internal layout of text and photos/illustrations as she had experienced the book as an audio book.
And we talked about this first person/present tense thing. Having recently read M.J. Hyland's novel that was shortlisted for the Man-Booker "Carry Me Down", G made a really good point about why she found the fp/pt in this novel so difficult to read. It's relentless. Everything has to happen in the now, and so everything has equal weight. Pouring a cup of tea is as important as demanding a divorce (as a quick example). The reader never gets a break from being "always in the now". Things go on and on.
Simple past tense seems to allow for more variation in pace and tension, and events are able to be given their proper importance in the scheme of things.
Now, of course there are writers who use fp/pt to great effect. Anything can be used to great effect if you understand what and why you're doing it. I think a lot of YA is written in fp/pt for exactly that reason - adolescent angst/rite of passage stuff can be portrayed extremely well in fp/pt. But not always. And it also tends to "disallow" genuine reflection by the main character or narrator. Instant analysis of current or just-past action tends to be fleeting or shallow - time and some distance is what allows us to think more deeply about meaning and consequence.
OK, this was a small topic in a lunch spanning many books and writing quandaries and challenges. G is off to find "The Red Shoe" by Ursula Dubosarsky, and I will be hunting down M.J. Hyland's first novel, "How the Light Gets In", which she did recommend.

Rocks and Writing

After waterfalls, I have to say I like rocks. I like the coast and the beach too (especially in New Zealand) but there's something about rocks that appeals to me. These are three at Lancefield, about an hour north of Melbourne, and there are quite a few more of them around the place. Some much bigger. These rocks looked very patient, and old, and rugged. Many of the rocks in this area are rounded - I'm not a geologist but I imagine this is from glacier movement a very long time ago.
It's a calming experience to sit by these rocks and listen to the birds and think about whatever comes into my head.
The rest of the time that I spent near these rocks in the past two days went on reading, staring at gum trees, looking at birds through binoculars, and reading a finished novel draft that now needs rewriting. Thinking time is writing time just as much as typing time is. I like to ponder a draft as I read it through and look for holes and glitches in the plot, and weaknesses in description, character motivation and dialogue. And write comments to myself for later in-depth re-thinking. This is just the first stage but it gets me going on the long road of revision.

Blogging about writing

My friend and fellow writer, Tracey, now has her own blog - Speculating About Fiction - and it's interesting to see what people you know choose to blog about. Tracey has been posting about things we have done together, such as shortlisting for a local writing competition, and the joys of submissions.
Another writer friend, who is also a scientist and naturalist (and teacher), blogs about all of those things. I always enjoy her posts on birds and insects - not so keen on the spider photos, but at least I know what to avoid in the garden - and her comments on teaching and writing are fun for me too.
Both blogs are listed in the side column here.
Other blogs by agents are always useful for current information and advice. Kristin Nelson has just been in New York and commented on what children's editors are looking for at the moment. Miss Snark covered stamps and postage rates this week, among other things! And for something to make me think, I read Julius Lester's blog.
I still subscribe to Writer's Digest magazine, despite some disparaging comments recently on various blogs about their advertising policies. I find the articles are useful for my students to read, and this month's issue listed 101 top websites for writers - also very useful when you don't have time to trawl the vast reaches of the internet.
One comment in an article about writers promoting themselves and their books caught my eye - the writer said that blogs are no longer seen as a promotional tool for writers because there are so many of them now. They've lost their novelty (or something like that). I'm not so sure about that. Particularly when another article in the same issue was by a writer who had been connecting with book clubs via phone links and visits. He talked about the desire of a reader to connect to the writer, to understand more about the book, to be able to ask questions and receive answers that helped them to engage more deeply. To me, a blog can provide something of this experience via the comments column, if you want a blog that works that way.
Years ago, I hosted a community radio show called "Writers At Work", which gave me the perfect opportunity to ask writers, not just about their recent book, but about their writing practise, their ideas, their ups and downs, their problems and challenges. In seven years I must have interviewed 400+ writers, and had a wonderful time along the way.
This is what I look for at writers' festivals - not the writer and interviewer who collude to put on a big promo-fest for the new book, but an interviewer who is able to draw out the writer, ask them interesting and involving questions about writing and craft, and a writer who is willing to be honest and open. (And then, of course, an audience who asks good questions too instead of pontificating, "look at me" dumb question/statements!)
And I now take this opportunity to warn you in advance - very shortly I will be shamelessly promoting my new book on this blog!
Title? "Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!)"
Coming soon to a bookshop near you - I hope.

More on Books about Writing

I always say to students: "Have a good look through a writing book before you buy. They often cover similar topics but in different formats or with a different style. See what 'speaks' to you before you hand over your $." For example, some people love Kate Grenville's "The Writing Book", whereas I don't. I find it too "bitsy" and I'm not keen on books that use dozens of quotes to illustrate points.
Robert Olen Butler's "From Where You Dream" is a series of transcripts of his talks to students, many of which I find kind of interesting, but the best part is a story he wrote twenty years ago (one which he considers stinks) and the new version written twenty years later. The new version is not a simple rewrite - it's a whole new re-visioning of the material, the idea, the characters and the POV. When we looked at this in class last year, some people could see nothing wrong with the first story, until we began picking it to pieces. Principally, the main fault was that too much was told, and there was little depth in the story.
The new version required the reader to think more, to work things out; there was less telling, and the style was definitely more literary. The class was divided over whether they liked it or not, but most could at least see what Butler had done with the material.
What have I read this week? A crime novel from Erica Spindler, "In Silence", which I think would be labelled a cosy. The main character was a journalist, returning to her small home town and getting involved with solving murders. I did look up the definition of a cosy, and it seems to have expanded from the traditional "set in a small village with puzzle/murder to solve" into something much wider. I enjoyed this particular book although I guessed the villain before the end (which I don't like to do - I love being surprised - but not tricked).
I'm also reading "The Red Shoe" by Ursula Dubosarsky - great voice and characters, and it gives a real sense of the era - 1950s Australia.
On Saturday my poetry class and I visited the National Gallery of Victoria to write poems about artworks - these are called ekphrasis, to give them the correct term. You are now allowed to take photos of the paintings and sculptures (new rule) as long as you don't use a flash. This is a great help if you want to write a poem, although the gallery shop also has postcards of quite a few of the paintings.
It was quite strange to see the "Weeping Woman" by Picasso, just hanging on the wall along with all the others. (It was stolen a few years ago and eventually found in a left-luggage locker.) Somehow I expected it to be huge, but it's not so big after all! In the Contemporary Art area there was a very long painting by New Zealand artist Colin McCahon. It's all in black, with lots of writing on it (all of his work that I've seen has words on it) but this one began with a panel that was subtitled "Rain in Northland". Seeing as how my family live in Northland in New Zealand, and they've just had the worst floods in 200 years, I thought that was very apt. And took a photo for them!
It's posted here at the top (the glass over the painting means you get a silhouette of me too).

Books about writing

There are really only two places to get books about writing in Melbourne - one is Borders, the other is Amazon.com. A few other bookshops like Readings have a small stock but Borders usually has about 8 shelves of them.
However there are new ones coming out all the time. Writer's Digest Books publishes a lot of them, but I've noticed there are more now from small presses. Most books about writing are good, some are very good, and some are the ones you return to again and again. Even though Lee Wyndham's "Writing for Children and Teenagers" has been around for years (and has been through three editions), it is still a staple on my shelf. Her twelve points for plotting is a simple blueprint that is great as a starter or as a check when your story is not quite working.
Others on my shelf that I use often are "The Art and Craft of Poetry" by Michael Bujega, "Scene and Structure" by Jack Bickham, "Write From Life" by Meg Files, and "Solutions for Novelists" by Sol Stein.
One of my all-time favourites, though, is "Write Away" by Elizabeth George. Why? Because after reading this, in particular her chapter on plotting, I was able to come up with a method of my own to help me plot effectively at last.
What more could you ask?

Writing Time

The perennial problem of writing time has come up again this week, not just for me but for several writers I know. Most writers have to work at some kind of job to pay the bills and keep a roof over their heads. The average yearly income for a writer in Australia is around $6000 (I imagine that's for writers who file tax returns as writers - it wouldn't include those the Tax Office consider to be hobbyists). $6000 would barely pay the rent on a small apartment. So we work at "real" jobs, ones our families acknowledge because we get money for them each week.
Therein lies part of the problem. Families (including spouses, children and parents) usually consider writing to be either a waste of time, a nice little hobby, or something annoying that takes the person away from what they should be doing - looking after everyone else. Women suffer this more than men (and you can argue with me about that until the cows come home, if you want, but it's true).
How do you carve out writing time in a day that is probably filled with work, cooking dinner, cleaning up, paying bills, organising things to be fixed, quality time with family, relaxation ... you can add your own time-consumers. I've read lots of those articles where famous writers talk about writing their first novel by getting up an hour earlier, or writing on the train, or running away on weekends - snatching any kind of time they can to put words on the page. And it's true. Until you sell your first novel/book, that is exactly what you have to do.
No one is going to knock on your door and offer you two hours a day to write. If only. It's also unlikely that your family is going to offer to go away and entertain themselves for two hours a day, or do half of your chores and errands for you (oh, if only!). The only person who can find that time to write - wrestle it barehandedly out of the 24 - is you. You have to want and need it badly enough to do it, or it won't happen.
I probably learned this lesson through participating in NaNoWriMo a couple of years ago. Suddenly, because I had to write 50,000 words in a month, I found the time. Half an hour here, an hour there. Leaving my computer on with the file open helped a lot. No down-time waiting for things to boot up - I could just sit and go.
But I still have to remind myself of this lesson every so often. Especially when life crowds in and it becomes almost easier to give in, to say "maybe next week I'll find time to write". No, you won't. That's like saying "I have a big bill to pay - maybe next week I'll find $200 lying around". Won't happen.
By the way, we've started a blog for our writing students, a place for them to post their writing or thoughts about writing. We've given them some jumping-off points, and hope they will all contribute - that includes our fellow writing students in Tucson, AZ.
Check it out at http://pwe2007.wordpress.com

Beginnings

Last week I tried out a new crime writer (from the library, of course) called Meg Gardiner. The book was "Jericho Point" and it was OK. Lots of action and I particularly liked the details when her main character was beaten up - it's hard to write fast, real action and injury scenes. But the beginning was a bit confusing. I know, it might just be I didn't pay enough attention again, but we talk a lot in class about opening chapters and what they need.
Obviously they need action and story questions to keep the reader hooked and wanting to know what happens next. They also need a sense of the main character and what is going on - I call this "situating the reader". You want to know where you are in the story, and feel confident that if you read on, the promise of bigger and better things will be kept. You don't want to feel like the writer is keeping you in the dark and trying to be deliberately mysterious or misleading. I don't, anyway. I think "Jericho Point" is the second book featuring this character, and the writer had chosen to only gradually reveal what she does for a job, and why she's involved in this situation. If I'd read the first book, I would have known a lot of that. But in this book I was floundering for a while.
Sue Grafton always tells her readers upfront who Kinsey is - in fact, in "O for Outlaw", which I picked off my shelf, she says on Page 2: "Those of you acquainted with my personal data can skip this paragraph." Then she goes on to give a potted life history of Kinsey to date. If the O book was the first Grafton novel you'd ever read, I imagine you'd appreciate the information and would read on, not needing anything more.
Some would argue that what Grafton does is throw in an info dump, but I think a new reader does want to know that stuff.
Fantasy is a different problem. Not only do you have to do all those first-chapter things, but you have to let the reader know lots about the world of the novel without big chunks of explanation. How much is too much? Too much is when it interferes with the flow of the story.
I also read "Allie McGregor's True Colours" by Sue Lawson this week. A younger YA novel, Australian, not heavy on plot but focused more on relationships and the family vs. friends thing. Who is a real friend? How can you tell? What happens when your family faces cancer? An enjoyable read, a bit emotional but very real without being soppy.
And finally, I finished Peter Temple's "Black Tide" last night (I've got to do something while I'm lying down doing this "resting" thing). Very snappy dialogue, and a plot with lots of twists and turns. I do like Jack Irish as a character.
Writing (which can be done very well sitting down, while thinking about writing can be done very well lying down) has proceeded this week to the point where I wrote what I think is the final dramatic scene. The climax. The end of the search for the grail, if you like Hero's Journey references. Now for the resolution, the tying up of loose ends.
And then the rewriting.
It takes a long time before I can truly write THE END on a story.

Too Much Information

How much do you tell the reader? How much can you assume they know? In a fantasy novel, for example, you pretty much have to tell them everything about the world they need to know in order for the plot and setting to work (e.g. if this society has an outcast system, the reader needs to know how it works and how it affects characters, motivations, plot elements etc.) But what about a genre such as crime where, in this day and age, much of the basic background information on forensics and detection would be known by the reader, either from other books or some of the dozens of crime TV shows such as CSI and SVU?
This was the question I puzzled over as I read "The Murderers' Club" by P.D. Martin. I read a lot of crime fiction, and I found the author's info dumps on things such as rigor mortis, how an autopsy is performed (yes, there was dialogue in that scene but it was contrived) and how a computer boots up and with what operating systems to be quite tedious.
Are there crime readers now who need these things explained? I'm not sure. As always on this blog, I put in the disclaimer Maybe it's just me!
And I know it's just me when I say - please stop writing in first person, present tense. Some kinds of novels suit fp/pt wonderfully well, but Patricia Cornwell's latest efforts in this style are clunky, and I felt Martin's fell into the same trap. Fp/pt doesn't always add immediacy and drama to a story, and it often means that if you aren't good at sentence construction and variation, you end up with an awful lot of sentences that start with I.
On the other hand, I did read a YA novel with pace, great voices and a story that kept surprising me. "The Long Night of Leo and Bree" by Ellen Wittlinger. It was short, but that was OK. Although the premise sounded familiar (rich girl meets violent poor boy), it defied predictability and was full of depth and complex insights that left me thinking afterwards - always a good sign.
Yes, my brain is returning to some semblance of working order at last. My feet are still up, I'm still walking very slowly, but that's OK. I feel like a living embodiment of the Slow Food Movement, with time to savour the small things for a change.
That's includes time to watch a movie or two. "The Good Shepherd" was slow but totally involving, and even had me pulling out the encyclopedia to check what happened with the Bay of Pigs and Cuban missile crisis. I liked it a lot.

More (Unintentional) Research

You can tell when a writer is sick because if they are really, truly sick, they not only can't write, but they can't read either.
Imagine being stuck in a hospital bed for 3 days with nothing to do but stare at the wall. Perfect time to read and relax. Except my brain was mush, and the last thing I was capable of was creativity. Pity. I could've read at least one novel, or written a good 5000 words. Instead I lay there (with holes in me that connected to tubes with drips and medication) and did nothing. Well, I have to admit I did "listen" to dozens of conversations. Not eavesdrop, because it wasn't deliberate, but I was in an open ward where the only thing between me and all the others was a curtain. And voices carried quite clearly. Nothing I think I'd ever use in a story or novel, but impressions and emotions, and some funny incidents. Grist to the mill, as a writer friend said to me.
Other unintentional research? I got to ride in an ambulance, and see bunches of trainee doctors trailing around after the surgeon on rounds, just like on TV, and hear lots of medical terminology being used.
I also discovered that when you disappear unexpectedly for three days, all those things you had scheduled are suddenly up in the air. Discussing final editing/proofreading of your new book from your hospital bed is difficult. Deadlines sometimes can't wait.
If you ever have to rush off to hospital (public, not private), don't forget your toothbrush and toothpaste. It's not supplied. Not being able to brush my teeth was horribly disgusting, and it was the first thing I did (twice) when I was finally allowed to come home. And then I went looking for a good book to read.

Truth in Fiction

Why do people read fiction? The most common answer I get (I ask this in class) is for entertainment or escape. But after that, people often answer that they are looking for the truth about the world - not necessarily their world, but a truth. Maybe it's a truth that they want to hear, as in crime fiction where the villain is always caught (and if he/she's not, the reader feels cheated!), or romance fiction where the girl always ends up with the hero who turns out to be perfect for her.
Books that tell the truth too clearly are often the ones that cause a stir and end up being widely acclaimed. I'm thinking of "We Need to Talk About Kevin", in which we have a mother's burning need to be totally honest about her son's life, and her relationship with him, in order to try and figure out why he became a mass murderer. It's a scary book, and I wonder how many people saw their own relationships reflected in the story, even if only in small ways.
How do we write something "true" when we are writing fiction? I still believe you have to write from what you feel deeply about, even though I know lots of people who don't, and are published. But maybe the books that make a mark in a reader's life come from somewhere else in the writer. Something that has to be expressed, a story that has to be told. Will Charles Frazier ever write something as good as "Cold Mountain"? Lionel Shriver wrote and published many novels before "Kevin". I think back over books I've read that had an impact on me, and very often that author has written others, but there is that one book that stands above the others.
Where does that book come from?
Another aspect of this is the need to produce, of course. A first novel can take years to write and rewrite, and it has to be really good to get published (the first-time author is, I believe, the marketing department's nightmare!). But then there is pressure to write another, and another. The next books don't receive the same care and incubation a lot of the time. Sue Grafton wrote a stinker half-way through her alphabet crime series, and she was able to say to the publisher, "Enough. I will write at my own speed from now on, thank you." (not a direct quote!)
One book does not earn you enough to quit your job and devote your life to writing, unless you like bread and water. That's another truth about fiction.
Note: The Varuna fellowships are announced today. This is the scheme where writers submit fiction manuscripts and five are selected by HarperCollins editors for an intensive 10-day workshop up in the Blue Mountains. This year, the editors received a shortlist of 26 manuscripts, and I bet most of them are publishable. However, Australia's literary fiction scene is getting smaller and smaller, and all of those writers not in the 5 will have to call on every ounce of that vital quality - perserverance - to keep going with their books.
That's another bit of truth in fiction!

Research

If I had a choice of what I'd like in my research library, it would start with the Greater Oxford Dictionary (13 huge volumes) and two or three different encyclopaedias, include texts on every subject I was writing about (which would require an ongoing outlay of many dollars), and probably the entire set of Norton's anthologies. Just for starters.
But as a backup, the internet is a pretty good alternative these days, as long as you triple-check your information and learn which sites are likely to have errors. I've done a huge amount of research on pirates over the years, and there are lots of websites created by pirate fans, but quite a few of them are wrong. They repeat common assumptions rather than accurate facts. That's OK, I've learned to research widely enough to find out where the errors lie. Books can be wrong too. It depends who wrote them, and what their agenda was. There are different versions of Australian history, depending on whether the author believed that white settlers and soldiers massacred Aboriginal tribes or not.
What I love about the internet is that I can rustle up some needed information in a flash, and the kind of thing I often need is short and simple. This week it has included how the 'jaws of life' work, how the board game Cluedo is played and what the cards and playing pieces look like, at what age a child can be toilet-trained, and what are the stages and ages of little kids learning to understand and to talk.
So along the way I discovered that people are selling sets of the 'jaws of life' on Ebay, that Cluedo has been around since the 1940s and is still being made (I think it's even in a computer game version!) and that even in an article on toilet training, the Americans still talk about teaching a child to 'go to the bathroom'.
Just finished reading the fourth and last 'Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants' book. I think I'm glad it's the last one. I'm waiting for the pants to turn up in my mailbox. It would be lovely to have a pair of jeans that actually fitted me comfortably.

First Chapter, Next Book

Just finished Stuart MacBride's crime novel, "Dying Light". The kind of book that you read way too fast because it's so good you can't stop turning the pages. Then you get to the end and you hate the fact that you read it so fast because now it's over, there is no more, and it was only his second book so you can't go back and read the other 12 you missed...
MacBride does for Aberdeen what James Lee Burke does for the area around New Orleans. Yes, I've said this before but it does bear saying again. MacBride's books don't seem to be freely available in the bookshops here in Australia, but they're five stars in my little reading world.
That whole thing of wanting more as soon as the last page is read is what leads publishers (I think) to inserting what must be the most infuriating thing in publicity history. The first chapter of the next book. This usually only turns up in paperbacks, because the author is about to publish said next book in hardback, and this enticement is supposed to make you go out and buy the hardback in a fit of reader passion.
Not here, where hardcovers retail at $45. All that happens is if you give in to tempation and read that darned chapter, it gets you nowhere. Except in the waiting zone for many, many months while you wait for the paperback to appear.
In my case, this is what really happens. Months later, I see the paperback in the shop, pick it up and read the first few pages (having forgotten about that pesky publicity chapter). I think ... Hmmm, this sounds really familiar. I think I've read this one. And I don't buy it.
Before you go thinking I'm entering early senility, everyone I know has this problem. I think everyone who reads a lot has this problem. That's why when you get a book out of the library, you see all these funny little marks in it. Page 72 circled, a tick on the top of the title page, tiny initials inside the cover - this is the avid reader's coded signal to themselves to say "I've read this one already". If you don't believe me, check it out next time you're in the library.
The excessive version of this is someone I met at a garage (yard) sale once who was buying romances. She had a little notebook in which she had written the series and number of every romance she'd ever read (apparently they are numbered, or they used to be).
How do you keep track of which books in a series you've read?
Postscript: Just checked out MacBride's website and he had posted this: "COLD GRANITE has been voted the best first novel published in the US 2005!"

Libraries - You've Gotta Love Them

Hmmm, the new Blogger doesn't like me. It's now taking me 3 attempts on different pages to log in, and sometimes it won't let me in at all. Hence this post has been delayed. I only like technology when it works.
I have just collected a reserve from my library - the second novel by Stuart MacBride (he of the crime novels set in Aberdeen where it rains all the time). I've never found any of his books in the bookshops here, so that's why I love the library. And why I shudder every time I read of funding cuts to libraries. Not just because it might affect me, although my local council is pretty good about our library funding so far, but because there are thousands and thousands of people who can't afford to buy books or even have the internet at home, and most of them are kids. You want your kids to learn stuff and love reading? Take them to the library, get them a library card, and then let them loose to choose whatever they want.
I discovered a new blog the other day, by accident, as we often do on the net. "When Dad Killed Mom" has long been a favourite book of mine, and then I found that its author, Julius Lester, has a website and a blog. His blog is wonderful, and is the kind of reading that keeps you thinking for some time after. The other day he was writing about silence and rest (ah yes, I kind of remember what they are!), and then about the way we are so obsessed with buying and selling stuff, and how commerce rules our world.
Have a look at http://acommonplacejbl.blogspot.com/
I've just finished reading a Peter Temple crime novel - Temple is one of Australia's best-known crime writers and wins lots of the local awards. I have been trying to track down some of the books by the newer female crime writers here but no luck so far. I belong to Sisters in Crime, and often read the reviews in their newsletter, but finding the books in the shops is not quite so easy.
Writing here continues, somewhat like wading through a bog in gumboots (galoshes? wellingtons?) that are a size too big for me. I sometimes talk to students about the middle-of-the-book-blues, but mostly we never get to that point because in a year of classes, most of them don't get beyond Chapter 3. So instead I talk a lot about perseverance and words on the page (regularly) and discipline and sticking at it and goal setting ... in the end it's up to them. You either have to really want to write that novel and tell that story, or you end up with odd chapters all over the place and nothing finished.
I agree with the people who say just finishing the first draft is worth a bottle of champagne!

It Has Rained

After two horrible hot days, we have just had a short thunderstorm and some rain. Rain is rare enough here these days to warrant a mention. Back to 38 degrees (C) tomorrow and Sunday. Erck.
The week has contained two Orientation days for students, one meeting with a local literary festival committee, much budgeting and paperwork, one interview with a police detective, one talk given by a Fraud Squad detective about identity theft (very interesting and now I want to buy a shredder), and one visit to my osteopath for acupuncture and various other treatments on the bits of me that have stopped working properly. And you're right - hardly any writing done.
But the research has been terrific, and I am currently reading another book written by an undercover cop which has some hilarious bits in it.
I also wrote a poem (yay!) and got a reply from an anthology publisher about a story of mine that made it right up to the final cut but not into the book (not so yay). And I found three boxes full of my old essays and stories and poems from my degree, which were a lot of fun to read. It was also very interesting to read their comments and compare them to the comments I make on my students' work. I think I'll leave that topic alone!
The festival is in Williamstown (in Melbourne, Victoria) and this will be the fourth year they've run it. They do a really good job and the festival gets better every year. Last year there was a session on Australian fiction publishing which was great, and because it's not a huge venue, the audiences are interested and keen to listen. I wish the Melbourne Writers' Festival had such a good atmosphere. There it tends to be extremely crowded and often the sessions are a bit boring because the speakers are 'playing safe'. Whereas at Willy last year we even had one of the comedy speakers strip and run around the hall!
Classes begin on Monday - I have boxes of stuff ready, and some notes, but I need still to organise the 'agenda' of what will happen when. That won't take long and then I will be writing.

Book Designs

My new book, "Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!)", is coming out in May and we are up to page proofs. Normally I think I would have done these earlier, but the book has a very interesting page design and the publisher (which means the editors and designer) have been experimenting and trying out new things.
It's fascinating to see how this concept has developed, and then to see other publishers doing similar things. I picked up a copy of "Cathy's Book" a couple of weeks ago and it has been created to look like a girl's everyday school book, with a hard, black cover and the book inside like a notebook with doodles all over it, plus a pocket with other stuff inside the cover. I haven't read the book yet - it's a diary - so can't comment on the quality of the story. Yet.
I've just finished reading "Searching for the Secret River" by Kate Grenville, which is about the research and writing process for her novel "The Secret River". She details how she went about finding out information on her great-great-great grandfather, Solomon Wiseman, and how eventually the non-fiction book became a novel, in order to tell a story. A very interesting book if you like to write historical fiction. I have been to Wiseman's Ferry near Sydney and remember enough of it to be able to visualise what she writes about. It also helps that she is terrific at description!
Also have almost finished "The Silent War" - another of those books about crims and cops in Victoria in the 1980s and early 1990s (true crime). Quite a bit of the material has been in other books I've read, so the authors must be doing well from the same stories. It's one form of research, but the State Library newspaper files will probably be more useful. And interviewing a police detective is top of my list!
Went to see "Miss Potter" the other day and loved it. A five star movie for me.
Writing is in "struggle phase". It took me 5 hours to squeeze out 1700 words on Wednesday (admittedly there were interruptions, but still...) whereas on a good day I often write 2000 in an hour. But I am at that point where I need to make sure I'm not creating plot boo-boos that will affect the rest of the book, so slow and steady is probably the way to go.
And as it's only 9 days until teaching starts, I'm using the available brain power while it's there!

Drought and Bushfire

This the Australian bush right now. Even the bracken is dead. The leaves, twigs, dead bracken and fallen branches make a thick layer of fuel - one lightning strike or pyromaniac is all it takes. The lightning we can't do anything about. The pyromaniacs? If you live near bushland, keep an eye on it.
But amongst all the dead stuff, we are still getting bush flowers. I think these are orchids.