Canberra and home

After three terrific days in Canberra, I am home again. I did nine school visits in three days, and in every school the kids were just great. They listened, they barely fidgeted (pretty amazing on a Friday afternoon) and they asked fantastic questions like "Do you like writing in first or third person?" and "What would you want to be if you weren't a writer?" and "What would your publisher say if you stopped sending them stories?" The kids above are from Florey Primary School, my midday Friday visit. I should have taken more photos but I kept forgetting!
One question that came up several times was "Who is your favourite writer?". Now this is a question that I can't answer, because I have dozens, but it did remind me that I've promised several times to put a list of my favourites on my website. That's a job for this week.
While I was away, I read Sarah Dessen's Just Listen - I think she is one of the best YA writers around. She has the uncanny ability to get immense depth into her characters through their thoughts and emotions without being narcissistic or cynical, or even sentimental. Her novels are about relationships, both in families and among teens, and she depicts them so effectively that you can't help but care about the characters and want to know what happens.
I also read another Lisa Gardner crime novel The Third Victim, which deals with school shootings and puts a whole new angle on it. Again, her characters are very real and involving. She is also good at cliffhangers and chapter endings.
Today, I was hardly home (didn't even get the dirty clothes in the washing machine) when I discovered that my first session ticket for the Melbourne Writers' Festival was for 10am, not 12 noon as I'd thought. I raced off to make it in time for a session with Jeffrey Deaver, crime writer, and it was worth it. Notes from all of today's sessions will be coming soon.

Canberra Post

This is my third day in Canberra - second day of school visits. My voice is going OK, but at times I start to feel a bit croaky and have to try to talk with less volume! I hadn't realised how much I had got into the habit of shouting (or projecting, if you want to be nice about it). Most places I have been have had smallish rooms, or groups of kids sitting fairly close to me. In my normal classes, everyone sits miles away from me so I'm shouting across a wide space.
Last night I went to a panel session at the National Library - Bob Graham, Judy Horaceck and Gary Crew talking about "Inspiration and Intuition" - although, as Judy said, often ingenuity has to come into it as well. Once you get an idea, you then have to be quite ingenious as to what you do with it.
Gary mentioned he is currently writing his first adult novel (this is after more than twenty years of writing children's and YA novels) and he is finding it more difficult that he thought, especially in terms of character's voices. He also said that people often go to seminars or talks by writers, wanting to be writers themselves, and expecting that they will be "sprinkled with pixie dust" that will magically enable them to write a successful kid's book.
Oh, if only ... maybe I need to start looking for a pixie dust shop. Or at least a new voice shop.

It's not spring in Canberra yet

Up in the bush, the acacias are starting to flower. Most are budding but this one (getting more sun, probably) was in full flower. In my backyard, the clematis is also flowering, and up the street, someone's cherry tree is in blossom. Still, this morning it was down to 4 degrees. The afternoon was almost tropical, but as I am off to Canberra tomorrow for Children's Book Week, I am watching the weather, and Canberra is still veddy veddy cold. So the suitcase is being packed with woolly things.
Or it would be, if I could get my act together. I think it's something to do with not being able to throw oodles of books and stuff into my car and set off for a school, knowing I can always race outside and gather more things. No, I'm going to be flying, so I have to choose. I recently had a lot of sample pages and galley proofs laminated (part of my talk is on how a kid's book gets published) and I hadn't realised how much heavier the pages would be. My special carry folder won't fit in my suitcase, or the overhead locker in the plane, so I have to leave it behind. Curses! I want to take everything, and can't. And despite letters beforehand, only one school has said yes, bring books for our students to buy. So do I take what I have, and risk excess luggage? Or leave half of them behind and wish I'd lugged them with me?
Considering it's me who is going to carry this stuff, I will have to err on the side of my osteopath (who would frown at heavy weights as well as poor lifting techniques).
The best bit is choosing two books off my "to read" pile to take with me. Airports are great places for getting lots of uninterrupted reading done, apart from those uniformed people who want you to get on the plane a.s.a.p. So I've chosen Sarah Dessen's new novel, and an older novel by Lisa Gardner (I'm currently reading her crime novels and doing a lot of thinking about her pacing and chapter breaks - very useful if you want to look at tension and page-turners).
Now, where are my possum fur gloves?

Online learning

Where I work and teach, there has been a push for several years to get us to provide our courses and/or subjects online, particularly so we can offer them to overseas and remote/rural students. While some people shudder at the idea of studying via the computer without the stimulation of the classroom, I actually did most of my degree by off-campus delivery (no online technology in those days!) and recognised then and now that what made it work for me was the terrific study guides and course materials.
In some ways, writing is a great thing to study via the internet. When this push first started, they funded some of us to go online and become students for a while, testing out for ourselves what worked and what didn't. I chose to study the Writer's Digest Advanced Short Story course, and really enjoyed it. Mikki Hayden was the instructor, and as well as a structured series of units, I had access to their online library of articles and resources. What made this course especially memorable for me was that 9/11 happened about four weeks in, and several people ended up dropping out because of different ways in which they were affected by it (family or friends dying, living close by, etc). They did explain this to the rest of us, and then we all took a deep breath and kept going with the course.
So, in creating new materials and writing new content for my units, I keep all of these experiences in mind, plus the knowledge that younger students these days are much more used to using technology and the internet for study and fun. Still, how do you replicate a great classroom discussion about plot and pacing in a historical YA novel, or repetition and irony in a poem by Billy Collins? Or the experience of workshopping a chapter of your novel, or your poem about death that was based on your uncle dying last week? In the classroom, the teacher is able to push the discussion along, or introduce a new idea quickly, or temper someone's comments when they've become less than constructive. How do you do that online when mostly it isn't happening in real time, so a rude comment can be up there for several hours or days?
All good questions, which is why we keep going off and doing more training and talking about these issues and how to resolve them.
But beyond that, I think offering subjects online provides a great resource for any writer who wants to increase their skills, get some unbiased feedback and feel like they're not so alone. Even a writer in the middle of a huge city can feel isolated and depressed about what they're trying to achieve. Who cares? How can I know if I'm on the right track or not? Is this story any good?
When I did my degree, a large part of it was focused on writing - it was the first time I was able to get feedback on my stories and poems from experienced writers/readers who didn't know me from a bar of soap. So their comments were, to me, more valid because they weren't there to pat me on the back - they were there to show me how to improve.
At the moment, I'm working on creating online content for three different subjects - writing picture books, a preparatory unit (like a short "taster" for our professional writing course) and helping another teacher, T, with our fiction subjects. We're about to completely restructure these latter modules and develop a whole new approach that we hope will give students a stronger grounding in the basics of fiction writing. Phew! Hopefully, they'll be ready to run in 2008.
In the meantime, we are still teaching our usual classes on campus, and trying to write when we get the time and headspace. This is usually when that "writing full-time" dream starts to surface, and I start double-checking that I've bought a Lotto ticket this week!

Why I Love Blogs

Friends often ask me - why do you read blogs? Why do you waste your time? They're boring, aren't they? Well ... no. I loved Miss Snark's blog, and she gave out a heap of relevant, straightforward info on how to get an agent (and not be a nitwit) that couldn't be duplicated anywhere else. I will forever be grateful for her Crapometer and the opportunity to put up a bit of my crime novel for evisceration.
I have about ten blogs that I read regularly. Three of them are by people I know personally, and I find it really interesting to read what they write, simply because they are writing for an (imaginary) audience, so it's different from what they'd tell me on the phone. They are aware of audience, and they are writers, so they write, rather than blather on like raving rabbiters (whom Miss Snark would banish to Rabbitania).
I have other blogs I dip into occasionally, to see what's going on. There are lots of blogs that I read via links from other people (e.g. recently I was reading the Neilsen-Hayden blog - a lit agency in NY - about the current A&R uproar that's going on - it was fascinating, if only because they were talking in NY about an Australian issue, and some of the comments were both insightful and hilarious).
Blogs tell you what's going on. What people in the industry are thinking and saying right now. Writers' blogs are great because they are written by writers. Think that's obvious? Try reading blogs written by people who don't seem to know what the English language was invented for. Yes, those are the time-wasters for me. Don't go there.
Blogs are also great for people who want to have a say about something. Right here, right now. No pussy-footing, no trying to be nice. So I loved the following blog. It tackles that bugbear of children's writers everywhere - the celebrity author who writes crap books and gets paid big bucks for them. Yes, we all know that editors justify this by saying the money the celebrity books make bankrolls unknown writers. I get that. This blog talks about this dilemma from the editor's point of view. Let's face it - what writers need is for book buyers to start asking for good recommendations and stop buying X or Y because Madonna or Billy Crystal wrote it.
The revolution is coming (I have faith!) - I believe this because of the number of people who have commented on how they don't buy books from A&R anymore because of the lack of quality. We live in hope.
If you buy children's and YA books, how do you choose? I look at CBC shortlists (because the books must be there for a reason), but if they don't appeal, I search the shelves for something I do like. I read reviews, and note books that sound interesting. In bookshops, I read blurbs and first pages.
I see and hear people, often grandmothers, in bookshops asking what they should buy for little Jack, and being given "safe options" - classics or prize winners or the latest hot thing. The sign of a good bookshop is staff who read. Readings has tons of shelf recommendations - from staff who've read something and want to tell you about it. But all bookshop staff need to be more adventurous in their reading.
By the way, am I the only person who thought that Neville pulling the Sword of Gryffindor out of the hat was a bit too convenient and doesn't hold up logically in the plot? (this is a HP7 question). Well, I know I'm not the only person because I've checked out some of the discussions! Quite a few people, however, seem happy to glide past that question with comments like "The hat has always provided Gryffindors with what they need in dire times". Huh! I'm not convinced. The curse of the writing teacher ... to pick out plot glitches.

Want to Write a Poem?

yellow mountain watching

azure skies over bush again
fat woman arrives, cleans about
looking rough and raucous
the only cumbersome part--that mountain
watching near silence
where cat awaits

now yellow mountains fade
into azure beginnings
then cat once more

You, too, can write a poem - fill out the word boxes and this site writes the poem for you. I have to say, what came out surprised me!

The Publishing View from an Editor

Interesting blog on the Guardian website which talks about book publishing from an editor's point view. Louise Tucker is, as she says, an editor for one of the big four publishers in the UK. They publish 400 books a year. She is defending some of the perennial complaints about publishing - not enough editorial input to books, too many awful celebrity books, etc, and suggests that if people want better publishing of better books, they should buy at full price and not at Tescos (or here it would be KMart/Big W).
As I've read this today, after reading all the stuff about A&R in Australia, I found her arguments were a little bit hollow. But I do think that many editors do the job because they love it, and in spite of the bean counters. I've heard more than one story of an editor fighting to publish a book they love by a new author, and being shot down by either marketing or the bean counters.

The A&R Furore

This week, writers everywhere in Australia have been madly discussing the A&R letter - namely, a letter that booksellers Angus & Robertson have sent to smaller book suppliers/distributors threatening to stop buying their books through them. If you go here, you'll be able to read the Sydney Morning Herald blog, which includes not only the original A&R letter, but a very pithy reply from Tower Books.
One thing that should be made clear (and kind of is in the two letters) is that this letter is from the A&R Head Office that manages most of the stores. However, there are other A&R bookshops that are franchises and presumably not under the HO thumb when it comes to managing their stock, although this was not totally clarified for me.
Last weekend I did a book signing at A&R in Box Hill Centro Shopping Centre, and the couple running that particular A&R couldn't have been nicer or more supportive in what they did with publicity and encouraging people in the shop to buy my books. I suspect that they are franchisees, although I didn't ask. A few years ago, we had a Collins branch at our local shopping centre, and the couple running that were forced out by Collins HO through a series of very shifty moves. We've never had another bookshop there since.
I don't understand what A&R hope to gain from this. If Borders coming into Australia has proven one thing, it's that bookbuyers want choice. We don't want just The Da Vinci Code (well, I never wanted that book!) or the latest Harry Potter (I did buy that, but at the bargain counter at KMart) - we want to be able to browse, find new authors, get what we want, when we want it - or we'll go to Amazon.
The best bookshops in Melbourne for browsing are Readings and (for me) the Sun Bookshop in Yarraville. I don't know what it is, but whoever selects books at the Sun is great at choosing things that I cannot resist. But I shop at Borders too because they have the best selection of books about writing, and a great children's section. I never shop at A&R because their shop at Highpoint never has anything I want. They simply don't buy in a stock of decent books for the serious reader, and they always seem to have bargain tables full of the most awful, cheap books that I wanted to put into the mulcher.
For me, this letter thing (and Tower's reply) confirms what I've suspected, and others agree with me, that the A&R buyers and buying division have been doing a very bad job. It's like they're supposed to be buying fresh vegetables and they keep stocking tins of baked beans.
I presume Tower Books (and others) are going to tell A&R to go jump. Judging from the 129 comments (so far) following the blog entry, so are all the bookbuying customers.

Clive James on writing

On the ABC's Talking Heads program tonight, guest Clive James was asked about how he deals with writer's block. His answer: "No, I've never had a long block. And the reason... The way I've actually developed as a writer, over the years, is I've learned not to panic when it won't come. Because when it doesn't come, that's part of the process. That tension of not being able to do it means somewhere in your brain you're sorting out something that's too complex for immediate expression, but it will be when it's sorted itself out. The expression "sleep on it" comes out. Sometimes I work in my sleep - I know I do - because I wake up more capable of expressing what I have to say. But to become a professional writer, it's necessary to reach the stage where you can live with the tension when it's not happening, because that's part of the process."

You can read the transcript of the interview on the ABC site here.

Conquering technology

An old friend of mine, Doris, used to say that inside her computer were two little green men on bicycles, and the harder they pedalled, the better her computer went. When it stopped working, the little green men were on strike.
Whereas for me, having seen many computers go Phhhttt!! or remain black-screened (or even pink-screened, like one of mine years ago), and seen many computer users turn into hysterical wrecks, or at least throw a decent tantrum, when their computers have died, I'm the cynical kind. If it can go wrong, it will. And usually in ways you can't predict. Witness the successful transfer of most of my stuff onto a new computer last week, but before the remaining files and programs could be sorted out, the old computer was accidentally dropped from a height of about two metres. Less said about that, the better.
However, my new tech phobia related to fiddling with my website. I'm happy to update it and add new book covers, but the thing that I kept putting off required me to download code from Paypal, after creating Buy Now buttons, and insert it into my webpages where needed.
I've been avoiding this task for two months. I kept telling myself that when my brain felt more tech-inclined, it would happen. A pathetic excuse.
Finally, I have done it. Last week I spent a bit of time on Dreamweaver, playing with a new site I'm creating - the confidence level increased, and today I thought, Do it now.
So I did. I have four buttons on my site to allow overseas readers to buy some of my books (I am trusting that I have done everything required to make these work!). I can't sell my Penguin books directly to people in Australia though, as I'm not allowed.
And I can't sell my out-of-print picture book as even I don't have copies to spare anymore. My plan to print more in Hong Kong, as I have the rights back, fell in a heap after I discovered that the illustrator does not have the rights back for the illustrations. It's a long story...

It's a Cat's Life...

No, she's not dead. She's now hogging the big heater in the loungeroom. During the day, if the sun is out, she finds the warmest spot outside to sleep. Our other cat, Roko - large, black male - prefers to find the highest spot, usually the back of the couch when inside, and sleep up there with one eye open to make sure everyone is behaving.

Differing views

In the Review section of the Weekend Australian (4-5 Aug, 07) there is an article about an English writer, Scarlett Thomas, who writes what seems to be spec fiction with an experimental edge. She talks about receiving a letter from Phillip Pullman (of Dark Materials) which questioned why she was writing in the present tense, like "many young novelists".
To quote, Thomas said: "I wrote back and said the problem with narrating in the past tense is that you get a sense of somebody sitting comfortably in a rocking chair at the end of the narrative saying, 'Let me tell you a story'. You know, everyone's fine and they survived. There's a sense of a kind of after narrative, but I wanted a sense that there might not be an after. You're there in the present and everything could crumble at any moment."
Pullman responded again and said: "OK, I take your point about the rocking chair, but the present tense is like having the narrator talk breathlessly into a tape recorder while they're doing everything that they're doing..."
The article doesn't say if they agreed to disagree! But it does show that everyone has different ideas about past or present tense - I guess the main thing is to know why you're using one or the other, and be consistent. I see a lot of student work where the writer slips from past to present and vice versa, and doesn't realise they're doing it. We (as in teachers, two of whom teach editing where I work) talked about this the other day. You can teach how to use verbs, how to form each of the tenses, and practice them in sentences in class, then test correct usage. But that is doing it in isolation - how do you teach someone to recognise "slippage", or even to understand the effects of past or present tense on how the story is told, its tone, style or flow?
I think that, after you've done the classroom stuff, you have to read and see it in action. It always astounds me how few books many of our writing students read, and its one thing I try to weave into the classes throughout the year, especially in areas like children's and YA novels. If you want to write the things, surely you should be reading lots of what is out there at the moment? But also I try to get students to read like writers - to think about language and character and dialogue and all those other things that make up a story - enjoy the story first but then go back and read again to learn.
At the moment, I'm reading a few Jacqueline Wilson books. She has been out here recently for a short tour and I missed seeing her at the Reading Matters conference. She is hugely popular in the UK, and becoming more so overseas, so I thought I would read several books and think about what she is doing. (I read The Illustrated Mum a couple of years ago and didn't like it, but my writer's curiosity has sent me back.) I was quite surprised at the amount of what some editors would label telling. Yesterday I finished The Suitcase Kid, today I'm reading Dustbin Baby, and it's interesting how strongly these two books rely on a narrator to simply tell a story. There is plenty of action, but there is also a lot of the narrator's voice explaining. I'll read on, and think more about this, and how it works.

Writing but not writing

While the 100 words of my YA novel has been sagging (400 on Monday and none since), I have been doing other writing. My writing group is attempting to write a group novel. We have worked out a plot, each taken a character and written about 2000 words so far. It's multi-viewpoint, and each piece is in the first-person voice of the character. This way we avoid any problems with trying to create a consistent style or voice. The big challenge is plotting. Yesterday we ended up creating a timeline, to sort out what is happening when and in what order (e.g. X can't phone Y before 8pm because Z has to talk to W first and provide that piece of information). We also have some minor characters who have to be woven into the story without having voices of their own, so B is in a scene with R, but we still have to work out who B is, what his motivations are and what he is actually doing there, so that the person writing as R can complete the scene with the right information.
Sound complicated?! It is, but as we sit around the table and work it all out, we are having a lot of fun, and we are also writing something that is exciting, challenging and interesting. And for some of the group members who normally don't write much, it's invigorating and satisfying. There - lots of energetic adjectives!
The other writing I have been working on is actually an interview which provided a lot of great background information for a story idea I'm developing. I did vow last year that I would only work on one project at a time, but when other things pop up and the energy is there to follow through on, I'm going with it! It's another way to get over the winter blues - have several projects that excite and interest me, and keep me moving.
Last night I had dinner with two fellow teachers and a friend who was teaching with us and has resigned. Her new life is about writing - that was what she wanted to focus on for the next 18 months (she writes plays) - and she seemed very happy with her decision to forgo a regular wage and some security for the opportunity to write. There's no doubt that her writing will benefit hugely from the focus and concentration. We are all a little bit envious, but then she has no other commitments or dependents, so she is free to make that choice. We wished her lots of luck, and gave her a voucher for Officeworks (all writers need stationery!).

Scary computer stuff

Today was the day I had been avoiding/putting off/trying to ignore for several weeks. The day my husband took on the task of moving my files and programs onto a new computer. I had backed up everything (I hoped) onto a small hard drive and given instructions - minimal but clear - about where things had to go, file- and directory-wise.
Then I went to work. And spent most of the day either trying not to think about it or crossing my fingers.
Came home and he's all grumpy. Uh-oh. What happened?
Well, the transfer worked fine, but when he was carrying the old computer (which I wanted to keep for a while just in case) outside, he tripped on the steps and dropped it. Not a good thing to happen to a computer. It won't talk to us anymore. He's still working on it.
In the meantime, I have realised that all my bookmarks in my net browsers are gone. Thankfully, my emails and address book moved OK, thanks to good instructions from Eudora. The bookmarks may be a benefit. I have to try and remember what they were, so any I don't use regularly are gone from my memory as well as the computer's.
This will be an ongoing process. Patience is required.
Saw an interview tonight on the ABC with Tom Keneally, and laughed at some of the things he said. Talking about writers, he said a novelist has to believe the world wants and needs his/her book - that requires a huge amount of confidence and a huge amount of ego (paraphrasing here). He also said his family has kept him sane, and that being on your own all the time as a writer encourages dark things like self-doubt. A writer needs to go out in the world to talk to people, and it's why he likes talks and book signings. It's a chance to see that people actually do buy and read his books - I know the feeling. Often you feel like no one knows your book even exists, and if they do, they're going to ignore it!
It occurred to me that school visits do the same thing for a children's writer (provide that contact with real people and real readers). Good to keep in mind.
In August during Children's Book Week I will be in Canberra for three days, doing nine school visits. Once upon a time that would have scared me witless, but I'm getting better at it. I just wish the kids would get my jokes more....

100 x 100

Monday of last week, I started the 100 x 100 thing (running via a YA group I'm in) where you commit to writing 100 words a day for 100 days. At the same time, I made a personal commitment that, when possible, I'd try for an hour of writing instead of 100 words. So it's been 12 days of meeting either the 100 or the hour, and yesterday I ... didn't.
I could say it's because it was the day I set aside to clean out two rooms in my house - the two that accumulate the biggest amount of stuff that eventually gets to a point where we have to do something or we can't get into the rooms. Sadly, one of these rooms is my office. After doing Randy Ingermanson's seminars earlier this year, sorting out and clearing out my office was a big goal for this year. The other room was just full of junk - bits of computers, discarded things like clothes for the charity shop pickup, old books and papers, old bits of cars - you name it, it was probably there. So I spent the whole day on it.
There was still no excuse for not writing a measly 100 words. Except ... I had decided to use this writing thing to work on a new YA novel and because I haven't planned enough of it out yet, I'm winging it. Which I hate. Because I start to feel like I'm writing a load of rubbish that will all have to be taken out again later.
Someone (might have been E.L. Doctorow) once said that writing was like driving on a dark road, and you only see as far ahead as the headlight beams allow. At the moment I feel like I'm driving along at about 100km an hour, shining a torch.
For the next few days, the 100 words or one hour will have to be spent on planning and character work and building new plot possibilities, or this novel will be put out with the stuff for the charity pickup!
In the meantime, reading continues. Finished Ranger's Apprentice by John Flanagan, which is about a young boy who becomes a Ranger rather than a warrior. Has the standard evil lord who is trying to take over the world, etc, but also some humour and good characterisation to carry it. Also read Dead Weight by John Francome, a crime novel set in the world of horse racing. When someone is touted as the next Dick Francis, I get suspicious. Francome is not bad, and is different to Francis in that he uses several different 3rd person viewpoint characters. I've always like Francis's characters and thought they carried his plots with extra dash, but then I am a first person kind of reader. Francome kills off a character unexpectedly and this raises the tension level for the rest of the book quite considerably.
I tell students (and constantly remind myself) that you have to raise the stakes and keep the tension working in a novel, no matter what genre it is. Being too nice to your characters ends up being pretty boring!

Winter Blues

I received an email from a friend yesterday who said she'd had the winter blues, but she was over it now. It sounds like a strange thing to say, but here in Melbourne it's actually a recognised condition, due to not enough sunlight (well, that's one explanation). After years of telling us to stay out of the sun, now we need more of it in winter. Vitamin D and K, I think.
We see it in classes at uni - this is the time of year, running into mid-August, when students are likely to drop out. Especially from night classes, where the effort required to come out on a wet, cold, dark night to class each week can get too much, and if you come down with the flu, it's another big strike-down that's hard to struggle back from.
As a writer, you'd think that staying inside by the heater, writing and reading ... what more could you want? But the cold and wet and darkness does start to get to you.
Gradually, the book you're working on starts to seem like the biggest load of garbage you've ever written, you feel like you'll never have another decent idea ever, the rewrite looming when the editor's comments arrive will be impossible (and she's going to hate the story now anyway), and all the other stuff that's crowding into your life threatens to smother you.
A desert island starts to look like a viable option. One where there is no electricity, no pens or paper, and no one wanting anything. But with lots of sunshine and lazy days. Aahhhh....
Not going to happen. Instead, you (and that does mean me, too) have to find ways to revive, restore and re-inspire.
1. A good movie, at the cinema, that you can get lost in. No, haven't seen the new HP yet, so might go this weekend.
2. Poetry. Billy Collins' poems are the best for this, I find.
3. Footy, or any sport where you can go outside and scream your lungs out.
4. Long walks, even if it's raining. The winter air is terrific for recharging your energy.
5. Finding something new to try. Something active that gets you out of the house.
6. Lunch with a bunch of writers, and no one is allowed to grizzle or grumble. You all have to celebrate being writers, talk about great books you've read (and swap titles), and celebrate your achievements.
That's a start, at least. And the next time the sun is actually shining outside, I'll be out there, gathering as many rays as I can.

Close Reading

It's that time of year again, where we've spent a lot of time in class developing characters and plot, writing, talking, reading and analysing (generally focusing on character and plot again), and a modicum of workshopping. Now I want to get serious. I want to get pedantic. I want students to examine sentences, words, figurative language, metaphor, and get down to nuts and bolts on style. To me, this is how you figure out what a writer is doing.
So the Poetry 2 students copped it first. Last year I put the Short Story 2 students through it. They moan, they groan - I don't care. I believe if you really want to improve your writing, you have to get down to the nitty-gritty. You have to take a good example and pull it apart, to see where the joins are, examine word choices, think about why the author chose this word over another, why this sentence is short and that one long, and how all of these things create the work in front of you.
From this, I take students into the same examination of their own writing, word by word, phrase by phrase. It's slow. It's heavy on the brain. And if you do it properly, if you tackle it as a writer wanting to learn the guts of what makes writing work, it's a goldmine.
But always for some, it seems pointless (and if I'm honest, I have to say maybe it's the way I teach it). After teaching for ten years, I have no sympathy. If there's something offered to you that will help you be a better writer, why would you say no? (You can supply your own answer here.)
A little more on The Overlook - review by Simon Clewes in the Age last weekend came to the same conclusion as me. Skimpy book.
Evanovich's latest had me laughing out loud - great antidote to winter chills.
Now I'm reading Ranger's Apprentice, the first in a YA fantasy series. Heard a lot about this and got a copy from the library (spent too many $$ at the bookstore lately). It's got me hooked because of the humour. Could well be the cold here in Melbourne making me yearn for a good, warming laugh.

Grumpiness is catching

When you live with someone, you can't help but be affected by their moods. For a writer, this can be a problem. If they are driving you nuts, it can keep you from your writing, or make you so uptight that you can't concentrate.
You can't get into your novel when someone else's grumpiness is crowding you. Or if you are writing humour, maybe someone else's joy can overshadow your fun. Moods create atmospheres. A lot of writers do things like putting on certain music to help create the writing atmosphere they want. But when the house is grumpy ... it takes a lot of willpower and the ability to shut out everything and everyone to write what you want, when you want.
Luckily, I've had lots of practice.
Another 800 words today. Total for the week since Monday? 6,800. That's because I decided to do the 100 x 100 (100 words for 100 days) from the YA writers' list I'm on. And when possible, stretch that 100 words to one hour of writing.
So far, it's going OK. Onward and upward.

Critiquing

One of the best things in the world that a writer can have is someone who is a great editor and critiquer. I am super lucky because I have two. My friend K is also a children's writer, so she 'gets' what a children's novel needs. She also understands stuff like the level of complexity - you can have a lot more in a children's novel than you think - what you can't be is obscure.
She has just done a critique for me on a novel that I've been working on for about four years (on and off, because I have to have time out between drafts). She saw an earlier draft, which she really liked, despite its problems. I had changed a lot this time around, including point of view and a lot of the plot, and I wondered what she'd think of the new version.
Her insightful comments were terrific, and I love it when someone is really picky. Even little things that jar can pull the reader out of the story, and it's hard to pick them up yourself. I plan to return the favour soon.
My other friend T is also a great editor. She's picky in a different way. She doesn't write or even read children's novels, so she critiques from a different perspective. She's the person I go to when I know something is wrong but I can't figure out what it is. Through discussion, we often succeed in identifying where the problem lies. She is also merciless.
Now, neither of these two are going fix everything, and neither should they. Ultimately it's still my job to get the manuscript to the best I can before handing it over. They're not there to fix my punctuation and spelling, although they might pick up occasional awkward sentences. The grammar stuff is MY job, and this is something I try to drum into students.
An editor picking up an unsolicited manuscript is not going to bother reading something with five or ten mistakes on every page. There are always some people who honestly believe that the brilliance of their writing will overcome the obvious fact that they don't know how to punctuate a sentence so it's readable. The sad truth is: if you can't construct a good sentence, your writing is not going to be brilliant.
Or publishable.

Books to heat you up

Finished The Overlook by Michael Connolly. Felt let down. Wondered why.
Read an explanation in the back of the book that said he originally wrote the story as a serialisation for a newspaper. It ended up as 48,000 words, and then when he decided to turn it into a book, it gave him the freedom to add stuff and deepen the story.
Sorry, Mr Connolly. Didn't work. Should have left it as a serialisation and then I wouldn't have paid $29.95 for it and felt ripped off.
I went back and checked a couple of his earlier books (because I can get really picky about sentence stuff) - in The Overlook, hardly any sentence has a comma in it. Not necessarily because they are all simple sentences, but because nobody put commas in where there could have been a few. In earlier books, not only are there commas (correctly) but the sentences are more meaty and have more impact on the style. Was this comma-less writing from the author, or the editor?
Will I ever know? (I'll stop being pedantic now, but this stuff impacts on style and substance so much that you can't really ignore it.)
On the other hand, I'm now reading the new Janet Evanovich - Lean, Mean Thirteen - and loving it. Must have laughed out loud six times already. Great winter reading, and lots in the story to warm you up (not the least of which is Ranger).

The Writing Life

Over on Speculating About Fiction, my friend T has been speculating on what a writer's life entails. The full-time job, writing eight hours a day and doing nothing else? Or fitting writing around a life that includes a job, family, hobbies and other commitments?
I posted a comment, then thought I might expand. I've had this conversation before with my friend K, who is a full-time children's writer in Texas. And it came up again with my 7 Day Writing Plan recently. I found it quite difficult to sit in the chair for a solid two hours, seven days in a row! And felt like a writing wuss. You read all the time about writers who go into their office and shut the door at 9am and don't come out until 5pm. I think: If that was me, I'd eventually go nuts. I love being home alone and writing, but not eight straight hours. Apart from anything else, my RSI would kill me.
So I ask, how many 9-5 writers are spending 8 hours pounding the keyboard? Feel free to comment or reply to my question!!
K and I decided that the full-time writer's life is actually a mosaic of reading, research, thinking, planning, diagramming, letting the subconscious help out, daydreaming, and typing. That's what, to me, being able to write full-time does. It gives you total headspace for your book. You live the book. You dream it. You can hold it in your head. You think up new stuff for it, you solve plot problems, your characters grow and become more real, you have time for extra research for setting and atmosphere as well as facts.
Not being a full-time writer means:
1. When work takes over (or family, or whatever that's unavoidable when you have a life to manage), the book moves back. And if you're out there too long, the book moves so far away from you that it takes you quite a bit of time and work to get back inside it again.
2. You can't hold the book in your head. Sometimes you will, for short periods, then you lose your grip on it again. Instead, you learn to make lots of notes. Lots of them.
3. You can only work on one book at a time, in terms of your devotion. I've tried juggling several, and have given up. The books suffer. You have to decide which one matters the most to you, and give it your all. If it happens to be the one that turns out to be not publishable, you feel like you've wasted valuable time.
4. When your time is precious, but you want the book to be publishable, you can fall into the trap of making it too safe. It's a dilemma.
5. But the other side of this can be - if you are earning a living with your job, you are able to write whatever you want. The money doesn't enter into it. It's a juggling act for most people.
6. Being a teacher of creative writing adds to the problem. I am often inspired by my students and my own enthusiasm for what I'm teaching. But reading, commenting, workshopping and grading their writing can kill my writing zest for weeks at a time.
Over the years, I think I've developed my own writing methods that suit my life - I do a lot of thinking and planning (more than I used to), so that when I sit at the keyboard, I can type fast and get it all on the page. If I get stuck, I go for a walk or do something else for a while. Usually when I come back to it, away I go again.
I wrote 21,000 words in the 7 Day Plan I committed to. I couldn't have done that if I hadn't already known probably 60% of what I was going to write (because it was a 7th draft, starting from scratch again). A completely new novel would be half that pace.

Revision

Today was six hours of revision. Minus a quick lunch break, plus a quick trip out into the rain to try to find a window (have to replace the whole window, and of course it's an odd size). I keep telling myself, don't complain about the rain, because our water storages for Melbourne have only just passed 33%. But when you want to get out and do stuff, the rain is a pain (on the plain).
I've recently discovered the blog of Paperback Writer, who puts up a lot of stuff about writing, plotting and revision. She has also put up some interesting links for a heap of other stuff, including using Wikis for plotting, and a site where you can get copyright free photos and images.
I'm feeling pleased, not just because I've put in quite a few hours, but because a new series idea looks like something I'm definitely going to develop (research required, but that's OK). It's true - the more you write, the more ideas you have and the more things become possible.
I'm still reading the new Michael Connelly. And have noticed that hardly any of his sentences have commas in them. Many of them are short, that's true, but even longer ones don't. It doesn't affect clarity. It adds to it. What it does affect is a sense of flow somehow. It also feels a little like I'm reading at a sixth grade level.
What really bothers me is that instead of being engrossed in the characters and story, which I expected, I'm picking on sentence punctuation. Either revision is making me overly anal, or this book is not up to Connelly's usual standard. I am totally resisting doing a sentence comparison with Echo Park, his last book. Until I've finished reading.

Crime stuff

News about our own Peter Temple (crime writer, lives in Ballarat, writes great crime novels):

"Ballarat-based author, Peter Temple, has won the most prestigious award for crime fiction in the world. Held in London, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger comes with a healthy $47 000 cheque, also the world’s largest prize in this category.

"Formerly known as the Golden Dagger, past winners include literary giants John le Carré, Ian Rankin, and Patricia Cornwell. Peter Temple has made a habit of winning praise; the South African-born writer has captured four Ned Kelly awards for best Australian crime fiction.

"Short-listed against well-known writers James Lee Burke, Gillian Flynn, and Giles Blunt, Temple thought his chances of winning were slim. "It’s fairly difficult. You’re up against writers from all around the world, but it’s terrific to win," said the modest prize-winner. "They preserve absolute secrecy on the winner, and I never had any idea I’d win." (from ABC website)

Now this is my bit: "The Broken Shore" is a great read. Complex, deep, and doing what I talked about a day or so ago - it integrates social and racial and small town issues seamlessly into an engrossing story.

Wish I was feeling that positive about the new Michael Connelly, "The Overlook". Started it last night and after four chapters, was feeling an enormous sense of dread. Surely Connelly hasn't fallen victim to the horrible "get another book out as soon as possible even if it's crap" syndrome? "The Overlook" did appear to be a bit slender, with lots of extra leading/white space inside. I do hope not...

(apologies for all the italics - Blogger formatting has gone a bit weird on me)

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.