Branding quandaries

Earlier this year I did a teleseminar series with Randy Ingermanson and Alison Bottke. I confess the main reason was the first session offered, which was about cleaning up your office. Mine has improved, and when Officeworks decide to supply me with the bookcase I have been waiting for for nearly three weeks now, it will improve further.
I also looked at strategic planning and vision statements - all the stuff I've done in previous jobs in a business context, but not for myself. Writers tend to be haphazard. We live from acceptance to acceptance, hang out for the twice-yearly royalty payments (if there are any) and generally don't think further ahead than the next book. At what point does a published writer decide to get to grips with the business side of it all?
I've been telling students for years that the publishing industry is a business, that publishers accept and publish your book because they believe they can make money out of it. There was a huge article in the Weekend Australian newspaper about how commercial publishers have given poetry collections the big A (dumped the lot), but if you need to sell 4000 copies of something to break even, then 500 copies of a poetry book doesn't have a hope. That's why I believe so strongly in good small presses and quality self publishing, especially for poetry and things like family histories.
However, I digress. Randy's most recent seminar was on branding. I've been wondering about this for years, ever since the SCBWI conferences started running sessions on it. What is branding? How is it done?
Firstly, I thought about some children's writers. What makes them recognisable as "brands"? Andy Griffith - bums. Paul Jennings - funny short stories for reluctant readers (usually boys). Terry Pratchett - humorous fantasy. Ursula Duborsarsky - literary fiction for kids and YA (Sonya Hartnett, same). Morris Gleitzman's books are all for and about 11 year old boys, and when you see his books in the shop, all the covers are the same kind. Series have brands. Penguin's Aussie Bites and Nibbles are totally recognisable.
So I have been pondering on this whole branding thing. Wondering what use it might be. Where I fit. Or don't fit. Is it even necessary? (And the answer to that last one is - if you don't find your own brand, you might get one pushed onto you, whether you like it or not.)
I know a lot of writers gag at this stuff. Bring out the vampire garlic and silver crosses. But the one thing that has been clear to me in all the research and thinking is: it's not going away, so it's better to educate yourself and make your own decisions about it.
Randy's info is mainly on his blog but if you search further, you'll find more. Or just Google "branding for writers" and see what comes up.
More later as I work this stuff out for myself.

Work (that pays the bills)

Back to work. Some people don't know what I'm complaining about. "You had two weeks off? Golly, you teachers do well, don't you?"
Well, no. I get paid for just under 23 hours a week. I average 30 or more hours a week on preparation, planning, marking, and actual teaching, plus the admin I do in the office. I do it because it's a great job (where else do you get to write poems and stories with your students, talk to them about the stuff that matters in writing, read lots of different stories and poems and hopefully give useful, encouraging feedback, read writing books and come up with great new ideas to share, talk to fellow teachers about same new ideas, etc etc?). Yes, there are times when it sucks, but I'd much much much rather be teaching writing than working in an office any day.
A writer friend and I have just discovered that we both worked at Pizza Hut back in the 1980s, and we both had awful bosses (in different countries, I might add). There's a few stories in there somewhere...
Finished Garry Disher's Chain of Evidence last night (because I couldn't bear to go to sleep without finishing it - a very good sign). He has really excelled in this book, particularly with the setting and description stuff. I think every politician should read it to get some understanding of Australia's working and under-class society. Disher's descriptions of life on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne are stunning, as is the stuff about rural South Australia. The MP is seen, around Melbourne, as a place for rich people to buy coastal properties and swan around the local wineries, but there is a whole other population there that he brings to life with stunning detail, enough to make you despair. To me, this is what terrific crime fiction does. It reveals the reality of all the people in this world who live among affluence but have virtually nothing, and what that does to them.
Don't let me put you off! It's a great story, with strong, interesting characters.
Writing today? Rewriting. I do this weird thing where I write a draft without chapters. If I come to a place where there could be a chapter ending, I'll leave a space, otherwise I just keep going. (My friend, T, thinks this is very strange.) So now I am going back, finding the best place for chapter breaks, rewriting cliff hangers and chapter beginnings, and also adding and adjusting all that stuff that I realised I'd left unfinished or unclear.
This week, I've had two great reviews of my new book Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!). One reviewer actually said "A brilliant book." I think I'm about to fall over and die. What more could you want? Now I can go and put quotes on my website!
And the advance copies have arrived of my new Nibble (out in August), The Littlest Pirate in a Pickle. As this has already sold to Happy Cat Books in the UK, it's obviously time for more champagne!

Day Seven

Aha! You thought I was going to skip Day Seven. Well, I didn't write as such. I have filled a page with all of the things that I have forgotten to explain or tie up or develop to a resolution in the novel, plus I did a writing exercise from the Sellars book that resulted in something exciting and surprising for me in terms of story ideas. I have done two hours of writing, just not two hours of typing, and it's sorted out quite a few niggly bits for me.
I've been emailing a writer friend, K, about how much time we spend writing. I think both of us have decided that we don't do enough - not so much in words, but more in terms of focused, extended writing time. My two hours per day for seven days has shown me quite a few things about my current writing routine (things that I need to address). I tend to write in a "snatch and grab" kind of way, fitting it in between teaching stuff, but I can see that in a lot of ways I've been slacking off a bit. I'm terrific at procrastination!
There's been nothing on TV to interest me, so reading at night has continued apace. I finished Jerry Spinelli's There's a Girl in my Hammerlock, which is about a girl who goes out for the wrestling team to get a guy (so she thinks). This was fun but also was a good example of a character journey - starting with one goal and ending up with another.
I've also read The Fall - the first book in Garth Nix's The Seventh Tower series. I didn't expect to like it, as I don't like the Mr Monday series at all, but I really enjoyed this. He creates some great fantasy worlds, and sets the scene very deftly, giving the reader plenty of information but all via action and description (not info dumps). I've been reading a number of kid's/middle grade novels this week to keep my head in middle grade space.
Now I have started Garry Disher's new crime novel. More on this soon.

Nature 2

This is only the second winter at Lancefield that I have seen such an array of fungi - little toadstools and mushrooms of all shapes, colours and sizes. They grow everywhere - pop out of the ground on the tracks and push aside everything in their way, out of the old tree stumps, and even out of the gaps in the bark in the gum trees. Everything is damp, and most of the gum trees have masses of seed pods on them. It's the easiest way to tell the difference between the species sometimes - by the different seed pods (or gum nuts). I'm hoping this means that the butterflies will lay more eggs this spring, and that eventually we'll return to how it was five years ago, when everywhere we walked, dozens of butterflies would swoop around us.

Nature 1

No, our fence is not on fire! We've had a few days of rain, then this morning the sun came out and it was pretty warm for a little while, and the fence began to steam! Amazing.

Day Six

Three hours. Because I was near the end and I wanted to keep going. The draft is finished, but it's a bit minimal (it was written fairly quickly). However, that's often the case for me. I'm not a writer who overwrites by many thousand words and has to spend revision time cutting.
I tend to write lean and then build the characters and story up more in the revisions. Mainly, I wanted to get the plot right this time, and I still have some threads that need tying up.
That's a job for Day Seven, and the rest of the two hours will be rewriting on something else. Can't stop yet!

Random Facts

Fellow blogger, Snail, has "tagged" me on Random Facts. I freely admit that usually I throw away chain letters, and email chains too, but this one is at least interesting, and it makes a nice break from my Seven Day thingie.
So - Eight Random Facts About Me:
1. I have two very elderly spinster great-aunts who run a B&B somewhere near Ulverstone in the UK, and one day I plan to visit them (hopefully soon).
2. The only dog I have ever owned was a Basenji, and the reason I got her was because she was described as the dog most closely resembling a cat in behaviour. Also Basenjis don't bark, and as I grew up on a farm with constantly barking dogs, that sounded like a good deal to me. And she was a lovely dog.
3. My first bout of RSI came when I was typesetting for a printer, on a broken chair, with a double keyboard (I'm going back 20+ years here) and I still haven't learned my lesson about ergonomics, but I'm trying.
4. I used to waitress at Pizza Hut. Enough said. (Again, 20+ years ago.)
5. The worst haircut I ever received was in Salisbury, Rhodesia. It was so bad that when I was in Europe not long after, the border guard at the France-Spain post checked my passport photo and then couldn't stop laughing.
6. Yes, I lived in Rhodesia for four months when it was still Rhodesia, and don't ever get me started on how Robert Mugabe has absolutely gutted that country.
7. I am an All Blacks supporter, and Chris Jack is my favourite player (and you probably didn't want to know that, but watch him play sometime...)
8. When I was at high school, the absolute last thing I ever wanted to be was a teacher. Ha! Second abhorrent career was nursing, but the world is totally better off for me not being a nurse. Hopefully my students don't feel the same way.

Day Five

Day Five started with a movie. T and I went to see "Nancy Drew", not because I was a big fan of the books (I've never read any that I can remember, and I never saw the TV series, although T says she did), but because my current work-in-progress is a mystery/suspense novel for middle grade. More suspense than mystery. Definitely not of the sleuthing kind.
I was astonished at the beginning of the movie, which is a bit overdone in terms of the 1950s- type town and soppy townsfolk, but once we got into the danger and daring part of the story, and I got a grip on what Nancy's character was supposed to be, I quite enjoyed it. About two-and-a-half stars out of five for me, probably because Nancy was so ... Nancy, whereas often in kid's movies, I cringe at the acting. For some reason, I loved the over-achievement at high school bit.
Anyway, it didn't inspire my writing at all, but I knew those two hours were ready to be counted, so off I went. And spent about fifteen minutes re-reading previous bits, trying to work out where on earth I'd been planning to go next. Luckily I had written notes for myself yesterday. I actually think the fact that my other half decided to sit and drink coffee with me was the problem. But shouting "Go away!" at one's nearest and dearest doesn't add to your relationship much.
I'm writing at the kitchen table, by the way, because the rest of the house is like an iceberg. I put the heater on low, so my ankles are warm and the rest of me is still kind of in motion. Probably being cold helps keep the brain working.
So two hours passed, around 3300 words appeared again, and I'm happy. Rewriting is in the distance (next week, before I start teaching again, I hope) and so for now, first draft flow carries me on.

Day Four

Ah, Day Four. Two hours zoomed by, in one block, filled with words. 3300 of them. Lovely.
Plotting continues, with diagrams, notes and reminders to myself. I like this new method I've developed, of having just one large notebook to put everything into. No more scrabbling for bits of paper - want to know when Great-Grandfather was born? Flick back a few pages to the family tree I drew. Finished writing these scenes I'd plotted? Turn the page and start again, or carry on the thread.
Beats me why I never thought of this before, although with the historical pirate novel, I have ended up with half of a filing cabinet drawer full of research, maps, timelines, photocopies, pictures and diagrams. The various drafts occupy another half of a drawer.
I'm not even thinking about Day Five yet.
Last night I finished "Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time" by Lisa Yee. She has managed to show both the outer always-in-trouble boy and the inner vulnerable boy so well. This is a book to re-examine for that very reason. She says in the back of the book that she had to go and eavesdrop on some boys of the right age to find out what they talk about and how they act together, as initially her boys were too "girly" (meaning they talked about their feelings etc). Her descriptions of how boys eat food are so gross but so real.
I was interested to see that this book is a re-telling of the Millicent Min novel, but from Stanford's point of view. And that she has written a third book from Emily's point of view, still about the same summer experiences. I hope to get hold of a copy of "Millicent Min, Girl Genius" and see how she's done it, as I'm the kind of reader who hates to know the ending. I also hate to know the endings of movies, and football games. It takes all the anticipation and fun out of it for me, yet I know someone who cannot read past Chapter 1 until she's gone and read the ending first. I think this is also why I resisted plotting and planning for so long. I had the idea that if I knew everything that was going to happen in the book, it wouldn't be so much fun to write. Now I realise that I always know what my ending is going to be anyway - the planning just helps me to weave it all together better, and not have great sagging holes in the middle.

Day Three

I was dreading Day Three. Not because 3 is unlucky, or guaranteed to be Writer's Block day. No, it just seemed as though, after two days of writing and 6000 words, that Day Three would be when I'd get well and truly stuck in the mud.
Isn't the psychological side of writing incredible? There was a chance I'd talk myself out of writing at all, but that's where the Seven Day Commitment kicked in. I had absolutely promised myself that I'd do two hours a day, even if that meant two hours staring out the window.
The first hour was mud-wading. Mud up to my metaphorical armpits. I ate lunch. I went for a long walk, planning to think about what would come next in the story. My mind was a blank, and I was blown around by the wind (but the sun was shining so the walk was great).
I came home, made myself sit down at the table and started writing. The mud slowly disappeared. By the end of the second hour, I was still going. Another few hundred words and I was able to sit there and work out the rest of the plot (with some major changes from the last draft that hopefully have solved my motivation and credibility problems). Day Four might not be less muddy, but at least I feel confident about where I'm going now.
While those of you who write six or seven hours a day might be thinking - two hours is nothing! - I can tell you that two hours equals around 3000 words for me, all going well. Not always, but if I have plenty of thinking/vegetating time around those two hours, I can usually write a couple of thousand at least. I'm a fast typist. It's the brain power that's slow!
Finished "The Crazy Horse Electric Game" by Chris Crutcher last night. Another great CC book. His novels are always top of my list for recommendations.
I've started "Stanford Wong Flunks Bigtime" by Lisa Yee. Had to buy it on Amazon (not available here, and her earlier novel not available anywhere) - and ordered it after reading Cheryl Klein's blog entries about Yee's books. Klein is an editor at Arthur A. Levine Books and her blog is here. She has some terrific articles on her website as well. And yes, she is one of the editors who works on the HP books.

Day Two

Two hours again. The first hour went smoothly, words came, stayed, sounded OK. Then I had a break, a phone call, lunch ... the words started squeezing out like half-dried glue stuck in the tube. I persisted. Lasted the hour and fifteen minutes more. Around 3000 words. Only tomorrow will tell if they are worth keeping.
I keep telling myself it's the rhythm that counts, the sticking-at-it until the flow happens on its own. That's one thing I learned from doing NaNoWriMo one year - the more you write on a daily basis, the better it gets. It's the times when you can't write for a week or more that causes the blockages. You're not inside the story and characters anymore.
I am persisting with fp/pt, despite the fact that late in the second hour I found myself accidentally back in fp/simple past for a few paragraphs.
My reward for today's toil was to go and sit in the sun, weak and wintery though it was, and read some of my Chris Crutcher novel. It's old (published 1987 - now that is a solid backlist when someone can still pick up a 1987 book in the bookshop), but good.
I am still trying to move a whole heap of books out of my office, but as the bookshelves still have not arrived, they are sitting in boxes. What this does do is remind me that I said I would put a list of my favourites on my website. It's coming soon ... but first, two hours writing every day.

The Seven Day Plan

I felt like I wasted an entire week last week. Horrible. I think I managed 6000 words of editing, plus 500 new words. And after my comments in this blog about first person/present tense, I was horrified to discover that this new draft of the novel has elbowed its way into exactly that - fp/pt. Arrgghh! I'm going with it for now, knowing I can always change it back later, even if it will be an excruciating process, because ... that's the way it's rolling out on the page.
And if nothing else, it's making me very conscious of showing instead of telling, and making sure there is plenty of movement and action. But at the same time, it's slowed me down, and today I felt as if I was wading in thick mud most of the time.
This was Day One of my Seven Day Plan (sounds like a diet), in which I committed myself to writing a minimum of two hours each day, no matter what. That two hours does not include research - today I was researching crime in Melbourne in the 1920s, and Squizzy Taylor in particular, who died in 1927 as the result of a shoot-out in Carlton. I got briefly sidetracked into an article about a murder in a rooming house in Carlton around that time, along with some really interesting background info about how Carlton was a slum area then with lots of brothels and illegal businesses, as well as extreme poverty. Hard to imagine it, as Carlton is now known for its Italian restaurants and great coffee, as well as very expensive restored houses.
The two hours also does not include plotting. As I have put aside all earlier drafts of this novel and am starting again from scratch, I need to keep track of the plot elements I want to keep, but re-order them and add more. I have cut out one main subplot, and need to build up the others.
The commitment to write every day will keep the novel firmly in my head, and it's the thinking time that contributes as much to the novel as the writing time.
At a 50th birthday party I went to yesterday, a writer friend was telling me how she is reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron at the moment, and is up to the part where she has to read absolutely nothing for a whole week. Not even the newspaper. Not even the back of the cereal packet. I'm not sure I could do that. I'm not sure what that would do to me, or my sanity.

Book signings vs Book launches

Yes, this is me at Dymocks Southland, doing a book signing gig. Notice the lack of people? Unlike a book launch, where you invite lots and lots of people and have champagne and celebrate, a book signing is "people by chance". The bookshop arranges for you to be there on a day when they are usually busy, with lots of customers and passing traffic, and you sit and look happy and approachable and wait for lots of people to buy your book and then you sign it.
I did meet some very nice people, and the bookshop staff at Dymocks were terrific, and we did sell two books. While sitting there, I noticed the number of kids who stopped and looked at the poster for the new Harry Potter book (due out in July) and argued over whether the cover on the poster was going to be the cover on the book ... and wondered if I should have hinted in some way that I was related to JKR ... (except I'm not).
Book signings are often like this, believe it or not. I think it's good to be there, to have your books on display, and chat to people. They might come back later and buy a book, or they might remember your books next time they're in the shop. Linda at Dymocks had made up little giveaways with my postcards, and I will go back next year when the Littlest Pirate picture book comes out and read at their Storytime morning. It's all good.
Unlike my rugby team, the All Blacks, who lost last night to the Wallabies. Grrrrr. We went to the game at the MCG and were overjoyed that not only did our team lose, but we had a bunch of idiots in front of us who spent most of the time standing up so we only saw half of the game. Makes me almost glad I can't afford to go to the World Cup in France in September. Children's author assaults rugby spectator never makes a good headline!
Onto books - just finished Golden by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I wanted to read something in YA that is part of the latest hot genre - paranormal. Golden is about a girl who can see auras, and tell from their colours what the person is like and what mood they are in. All of the females in her family have the Sight in one way or another. It was interesting, but the aura stuff went on for ages and ages, focusing on the teenagers in the school and their relationships, then suddenly in the last 25% of the book, it turned into a murder-suspense story. It was an OK book, but felt a bit unbalanced, almost as if it changed horses mid-stream (excuse the cliche). I think teen and tween girls would like it. I felt an urge to ask the author to do another draft and make the first half stronger. But that might be the grumpy All Black supporter in me coming out this morning.

The Interruptor

There are all kinds of interruptions in life. In my house, the heat from the fan heater is most often interrupted (read "hogged") by this cat, who plants herself in the prime position.
In my writing life this week, it has been paint. Specifically, having the hallway and doors painted. It's great that I don't have to do it, but the house smells very strongly of paint, to the point where I feel like I've been drinking it! And the painter has been around so it's been hard to focus on the novel (not that I need any excuse to procrastinate!).
Then yesterday morning, I woke at 5am with the first three lines of a short story in my head. They wouldn't go away. Every time I woke up, they were still there. Finally I got up and wrote them down, and kept writing. Three pages later, I had the start of a story that came from nowhere. I don't even think I was dreaming about it.
My other aim while on leave - apart from writing - was to continue cleaning out my office and getting rid of stuff. This means moving a large number of books out to a new bookcase. But the new bookcase has not arrived at the shop. So I am dodging piles of books and archive boxes and trying not to touch wet paint.
It's about now that I'm wondering why I didn't book for two weeks in Vanuatu or something. Because, in order to help the paint to dry, we have all the doors and windows open, and it's about 12 degrees. Maybe if I imagine myself lying on the beach in the sunshine with a great book to read, I'll feel warmer. There's certainly no point trying to get close to the heater...

Another writing book

Along with the other two books I'm "consulting" right now, I've added "Writing the Popular Novel" by Loren D. Estleman. He's been around for years as a western and crime writer, and I haven't read as many of his books as I'd like to. In particular, I now want to read "Bloody Season", which is his novel about Tombstone, Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral.
Estleman has a direct style, and his book warns you that you'd better be serious about writing - his routine is five pages a day. I like the little quotes at the end of each chapter, and one talks about how Agatha Christie killed off both Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple in books that were published after her death, thus ensuring that no one else would be able to write novels about them. Not that that would stop anyone these days (that's why the prequel was invented) but apparently no books have been published with Poirot or Marple in charge.
This, of course, would just add more fuel to those who are placing bets that Harry Potter will die in Book 7.
Back to Estleman - one of the points he makes is about relying on the internet for accurate information. His comment about those who believe vows of accuracy: "any credentials posted on a Website are liable to come from the same bozo who posted the misinformation in the first place." That gives you an idea of what the book is like! Down to earth and direct. And useful.

Books about Writing

There are always new books coming out, and I blogged recently about "Chapter After Chapter" by Heather Sellars, which is more about actually being a writer rather than the nuts and bolts of writing fiction.
At the moment, I'm working my way through "Characters, Emotion and Viewpoint" by Nancy Kress. This is very definitely a writing how-to book, with lots of interesting points on all those things associated with character, such as motivation and conflict. I find it useful to read a book like this while I'm wrestling with a rewrite/revision, as I can focus on the bits that relate to what I'm trying to achieve with the manuscript. The current version of this particular novel of mine has, let's face it, too many "issues" to do with the main character and they get in the way of the story rather than deepening it. So something had to go, and I've more or less decided which issue will bite the dust. It's a middle grade novel (or upper primary) so I need to focus on the tension and pace of the story and allow the mystery/suspense elements to integrate more with the family stuff. The bullying issue will still be there, but in a different way, not in terms of a big backstory element that was slowing down the narrative drive.
Kress's book has a great chapter on the motivationally complicated character. There's a tendency with kid's books to think that it is all about one thing, one character goal, one need or desire. But many stories start with the character wanting one thing, then further complications and disasters lead her into wanting a much bigger thing. It's part of the character and plot arcs, and means tension rises effectively. It also means you have to keep your eye on the ball (excuse the cliche) and make sure your story doesn't get out of control. Everyone struggles with mixed motivations and emotions, e.g. it's possible for you to dislike someone and feel sorry for them at the same time.
Kress also talks about whether your characters are changers or stayers. And that you should know this about all your major characters. Not everyone has to change. Not everyone has to change in a big way.
The other book I'm skimming at the same time is "You Can Write a Mystery" by Gillian Roberts. This is very much a down-to-basics book (hence the skimming over the standard character/genres/point of view stuff) so my interest here is in her pointers on plotting. How to lay clues, red herrings, create other suspects, etc. My novel isn't strictly a mystery, more suspense-oriented, but my plot does need a restructure, so anything that makes me think more about specific problems to be solved is useful.
Yesterday, I had a reading pig-out again. Finished "Bad Luck and Trouble" by Lee Child before going to bed. Great read. Every now and then I stop and look at how he uses short sentences - an interesting stylistic thing that adds to the main character, Reacher, because it makes you feel like he is a man of few words before you even get to his dialogue.
I make my second year students do my version of close reading on several different excerpts, and even though some of them complain, if they start to see and understand even one or two things about language and style and sentence construction, I'm happy.

How do writers party?

Now that we've had the official launch for Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!), some of my writer friends decided we needed an unofficial celebration (despite the number of kids whose eyes lit up at the mention of champagne, our school launch went without!).
A few people had other things on, so our numbers were small - small enough for us all to sit around, drink champagne, eat a mountain of food, and talk about books and writing and publishing. And websites and publicity and agents. And other stuff too.
It's great to celebrate a new book with a bunch of people who understand exactly how hard the journey is, and that it's a new mountain to climb each time. My writing group always celebrates each publication success with a cake, but sometimes a whole book needs more.
Writers tend to be solitary. It's the only way to get the job done. Socialising and doing housework and running kids around and cooking and going to (paid) work all keeps us from writing, so when we do wrestle free time from the daily grind, we have to be alone. I don't even listen to music when I write anymore. Silence is bliss.
I write in another world - my made-up world - and emerge from it blinking and a little dazed. Now that I have two weeks leave, I have a rewrite of a middle grade novel to finish. And I'll be doing it alone. My kitchen table will be my writer's retreat.
But it was great to have a writers' gabfest night before I head into solitude.

Errors that are catching

There are some errors that drive me nuts. I see so many people write, "I thought to myself." Er, unless your character is telepathic, who else would they be thinking to?
Wrongly placed apostrophes grow like mushrooms. If you see the wrong it's in a story, it won't be long before you'll also see your's and her's.
Miss Snark and others had a field day a few months ago on her Crapometer - the problem was the people who talked about having written a "fiction novel". A novel is fiction. That's like saying an automobile car.
I thought it was obvious. Then today I received my email newsletter from Borders and it has a discount coupon on it - 20% off a fiction novel.
Arrgghhh!!!

All Readers are not created equal

I've just finished reading King Dork by Frank Porter, and I'm a little mystified on how to comment on it. It's YA, it's about a guy who believes (probably correctly) that he is the biggest dork in his school, and the novel is about a couple of months in his life. He and his friend are in a band, although neither of them can really play the guitar and it takes them a while to find a drummer, but he can't count beyond 3. The dork has a very weird mother and a hippie-like stepfather, he obsesses about a girl he groped and kissed in the dark at a party (first time ever), and also obsesses about his father's death and reads his dad's old books from high school to try and find out more about him. Towards the end, he also tries to find out how his dad really died.
That's about it really.
I was trying to describe it to my friend, G, and saying that it was quite a long book but nothing really happened. She said, "Do you mean the dramatic story arc just stayed low (imagine her hand in a very gentle upwards slope) instead of having that big rise in tension and drama that we're used to (hand veers sharply upwards)?"
Um, yes. I did keep reading it to the end, but it was an effort. Then I started wondering who the intended reader is. Some girls might like it, and feel sorry for the main character. In trying to work out what kind of young male reader might like it, I came up with either: 1) guys who think they, too, are dorks and identify with the character and story, 2) guys who like music and the whole wanting-to-be-in-a-band plotline, or 3) guys who like reading (there are quite a few) and like the characters anyway.
I don't think I'm the intended reader - not just because I'm not a teenager, but because I do like stories with bigger dramatic plot and character arcs. I find them more interesting and satisfying. I'm going to keep a look out for reviews on this book, especially those written by teen readers. Or if you've read it, please do post a comment.
I've moved on to the new Lee Child. Jack Reacher rules!

Delving Into Point of View

It can be hard to get inside your character's head. Sometimes the plot idea comes first and the main character seems a bit fuzzy, or you can't quite decide who they'll be. And because character backstory, motivations and actions/decisions all feed into the plot, if you go ahead and develop your plot without doing the work on your character, you end up with someone who doesn't feel "real". Her/his voice is bland, actions seem inconsistent, motivations unclear - all this leads to the reader not being fully engaged with the story.
It's almost a rule in fiction - if the reader doesn't care what happens to the main character, they won't want to read the book. I say almost a rule because characters like James Bond work differently, but mostly your main character needs to be strong and engaging.
Then comes point of view. Beyond whether you tell your story in first person or third person (intimate/subjective - there are different terms for this), if you are using that close POV, the reader wants to feel they are right there with the character, thinking their thoughts, feeling their emotions, experiencing their life with its highs and lows.
Sometimes this inner bonding with your character comes easily, maybe because they are part of you, or express a part of you that you explore via the story. You hear their voice, seem to know them intimately before you've written more than a dozen pages, understand their strengths and failings and how these will figure in your story.
But more often, you have to make them up, and then make them real. Masha Hamilton (at the Pima Writers' Workshop) said that probably only 10% of what you know about your character will appear on the page. The rest is all the stuff you need to know and understand about them, their life, their backstory, in order to be able to write about them convincingly.
There is a trap within first person narrative. It's the assumption that once you "get" the voice of that narrator, the rest will fall into place. If you are able to write your character onto the page as you go along, great. But you have to do a lot of writing to get there.
It's easier to do the background stuff first, even if it looks like a lot of extra work.
I see a lot of students struggling with POV, and ending up with pieces of writing or chapters where everything seems to happen at a distance, as if the narrator is just reporting, or it's the author who is doing all the work and the narrator is looking over her/his shoulder. A simple sign that this is happening is when the narrator refers to their mother as "my Mum" (as in - My Mum said, "Where are you going?"). When you are right in the POV, your narrator would usually just say Mum - Mum said, "Where are you going?".
This is where I am right now. I am up to Rewrite Number 8 on a manuscript that I haven't looked at in nearly a year, and I've kind of lost my grip on who my characters are, why they're doing what they do in the story. I also need to do a lot more work on my other major characters, to avoid them being one-dimensional and poorly motivated.
My mantra is: Every character has their own journey in the story.
And I need to know what it is. Out with the notebook and pen, and away I go.

Website Problems

I've been having some annoying problems with my site in the past few weeks - mainly that although I can update and change/add text, I can't upload any photos or book cover images. They upload from my end but when I look at the site, they don't appear. I've tried everything - reloading, taking other images out, disarming the firewall (temporarily) and, finally, completely uploading the site from another computer.
No luck. So I am forced to conclude that it's my ISP that is the problem. I am supposed to have 10MB of space, and you would think that if I had somehow exceeded my limit, then taking material and images off the site would make room for the new ones. When I called my ISP Tech Help, they said they had no way of checking if I was over the limit and even if I was, I couldn't buy any more!
To say I am not happy about this (especially with a new book just out and some great photos to add) is an understatement. So I've gone away and paid for hosting with another company, and in a few days will undertake the big move. A bit daunting as I am not a website expert - I tend to stick with what I know and keep my fingers crossed.
Stay tuned for screams of frustration (or, hopefully, cries of joy).

Chili Again

My recipe - I warn you that this is just a good estimate. I tend to cook without recipes for things I'm familiar with, or I try to reproduce something I've eaten in a restaurant by guessing. Not always successfully.
So I'll give this a name (because I like titles):
WRITER'S HOT FINGERS CHILI
500gm good beef mince - brown it in a non-stick saucepan and then drain off the fat.
Add 1 large chopped onion, cook for a couple of minutes. Then make a hole in the mince and onion so you can put the following onto the hot surface of the pan: 1 tsp chili powder, 1-2 tsp minced garlic, 1 tsp minced ginger, 1 tsp cumin, 2 tbsp tomato paste.
Cook the spices etc for half a minute, stirring so the paste doesn't burn, then mix into the mince. Add one tin of chopped tomatoes (can add two if you really like lots of tomatoes in it). I also add stock powder - about 1 tsp (then you can add salt later if you think it needs it). Cook for about 15 minutes, add a tin of kidney beans (what size is up to you), and cook another 30 minutes.
I serve it with rice, but you can serve it any way you like - rice, burritos, tacos, etc.
If you want it really hot, you can increase the chili powder, but I find chili can be vicious in powder form - it's often stronger than you think!
And like curry, it improves with age, so leftovers next day might be even better.

Hot Chili on a Cold Night

It seems everyone has their own special recipe for Chili (if they eat it). Mine has onions and kidney beans in it, and plenty of hot chili. But while in Tombstone, I spotted a Tombstone Chili Mix. Having just visited Boot Hill Cemetery, I was a bit reluctant, but Meg assured me she had tried it and could vouch for its tastiness. So I brought some home, and even declared it to Customs and Quarantine. It passed.
It's been very cold here in Melbourne this week. Frost and ice. I keep waiting for it to snow. So it was a good time to break out the chili mix. The recipe was quite simple but required "1 12oz bottle of cheap Mexican beer". There is no such thing in Melbourne, so I bought a bottle of Sol beer (cheaper than Corona) for $3.29, and prepared to get cooking.
Did it taste good? Yes, it did. Did it feed 6 Gringos, as the packet suggested? No. It fed two hungry gringos with a bit left over.
Did it warm us up without stripping the lining off our stomachs? Yes, very definitely.
So, if you get the chance, try some Tombstone Chili. Wyatt Earp's Original.
My other souvenir from Tombstone, also thanks to Wyatt Earp whose stamp of authority is on it, is a poster that warns "UNATTENDED & UNRULY CHILDREN WILL BE ARRESTED AND SOLD AS SLAVES".
I'm thinking of making copies and posting them around my local supermarket.

Recent bloggings

My friend, Tracey, has spent the weekend at the NatCon (SF and fantasy convention) in Melbourne, and has posted highlights of the sessions she attended on her blog: Speculating About Fiction.
I've also been following the blog of a children's editor, which has some interesting comments and explanations about the world of editing and publishing: Editorial Anonymous.
I had to replace Miss Snark with something!
Tracey has also inspired me to start a mini-blog - we are using them for tiny poems and images, as a way to keep the creative juices flowing. You might like to try one too!
Playing with Words and Quicksilver.

The publishing journey of a story

A new book comes out, and after you launch it into the world, you have to then jump on board and keep madly paddling (yes, a bit of a strained metaphor - never mind). Your buying audience can't purchase a book they don't know about!
When I talk about publishing, what people are interested in, I find, are stories about books that sink or swim in interesting ways. I think it illustrates what publishing can be - yes, a business, but often things can happen to your books that you never anticipate.
My picture book, Wednesday Was Even Worse, was a CBC Notable Book, yet 18 months after publication, the small publisher decided to close down. While quite a few of their titles were sold on to a big publisher, Wednesday was not one of them, so it was remaindered. I bought as many copies as I could afford (trust me, you always wish you'd bought more!) and requested my rights back. Later, when I'd sold all my copies, I spoke to the illustrator and she said she'd be happy for me to reprint the book myself. Except somewhere along the line, paperwork had exchanged hands and she doesn't have the right to give me that permission.
Big publisher doesn't want to reprint (who would, five years later?). Stalemate. It seems I finally have to let this book go and either submit text only to new publishers, or just keep my few remaining copies as souvenirs.
A situation I imagine quite a few authors find happens when out-of-print clauses come into operation, but when the text is illustrated, things get complicated. Nevertheless, I was glad to see Simon & Schuster appear to be backing down on (what I call) their infinity clause.
I digress.
The other end of this publishing journey is the story that will not die. Or the story (in this case, a short story) that keeps being reprinted. Quite a few years ago, a small feminist crime publisher was producing anthologies of short crime fiction. I had published two stories with her, and she asked for a story for the next collection that had "lots of dialogue please - I have too many exposition-heavy stories". I wrote a story called Fresh Bait and, to date, as well as the original anthology, it's been published four times elsewhere and a young film-maker has written a script from it and is planning to make the short film this year.
You just never know what is going to happen to a particular story or poem or novel. And that's why you have to get expert help with your contracts! It's not the everyday nuts and bolts of the publishing industry you're guarding against, it's the weird and wonderful that might happen in the future.

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!