Books vs What?

Tonight I happened to be watching a bit of a TV show on archaeology, during which they looked at a 16C drawing of a tattooed woman. Someone said, "Why is this the only thing we have? How can we know what other people of this era looked like?" The obvious answer was, "Because they didn't have cameras back then, with people taking a million digital photos of everything that moved or looked mildly interesting." But it is an interesting question, one that historians grapple with, if they're any good. Who records history? Why? Is the history of war, for instance, recorded mostly by the victors? Is our social history recorded by the rich and literate? In that case, where are the stories of the poor and illiterate?

This question has given rise to the oral history, where someone interviews a wide range of people in order to get their experiences of being alive during a certain time. In Australia, Wendy Lowenstein has done this with Weevils in the Flour, and in the US, Studs Terkel is famous for his oral histories. They tell us the realities of poverty, starvation, and women killing themselves with Lysol because they couldn't afford a more expensive poison.

But this led me on to thinking about other issues with recording who we are, as well as what we are creating that reflects our lives. Think about this - any photos that you take right now are almost certainly digital. If you save them on your computer, or on a CD, or on a USB drive, you have absolutely no guarantee that they will survive. Your computer will die (any writer will have had the experience or know of someone who has lost everything through a hard drive failure). CDs, once thought to be the ultimate indestructible storage, are now being shown to fail within five to ten years. I've had a USB drive fail on me recently, and another that is showing signs of dying.

If you print out your photos from your digital source, as I do, they are often printed on cheap paper with cheap inks. How long will they last? Not as long as those old prints your grandparents owned, that's for sure. If you print them on your home printer, probably even less. As for text, again anything on your computer can be gone in an instant. (Computer failure has overtaken "the dog ate my homework" as the prime excuse for late assignments - no, we still don't believe most of them.) When I got married, we asked the celebrant for a copy of the ceremony text, which she printed out on her thermal printer - I don't dare go and look because I know from experience that it will have faded and now be unreadable.

Scrapbooking? How many people are using acid-free products? If not, within time your paper and glue will both cause staining and irreparable damage. A friend of mine spent many years on a family history and has spent the time and money to have it printed on acid-free paper and bound in leather. Gee, just like they did in the old days. Her work will still be around in 500+ years. Not much else that's being produced right now will do the same.

What if we have some kind of nuclear winter (caused by goodness knows what)? What will survive? For a start, anything digitally stored will probably be useless. Remember all those old 8mm home movies? Who still has the old projector setup so they can be watched? And if you transfer them onto digital video, in twenty years time you'll be in the same boat. I may well sound like a total Luddite, but for me, digital technology and storage is incredibly fast and convenient, but I never assume it will last. Books will. And so will language. We are still reading texts produced hundreds of years ago (with a little translation help) because they were recorded on paper and stone and parchment - things that, despite weather and other disasters, have lasted and endured.

I suspect that the paperless office will continue to be a myth, simply because at some level, most people believe digital records are not permanent. As for the ongoing razzamatazz about ebooks and digital books and all that other stuff - yes, our next generation may well discard books as a way to educate themselves and entertain themselves. But if it all disappears, they'll be back begging for a library card in five seconds flat!

Outlines Stage 2

This week I started reading a book on writing called The Anatomy of Story by John Truby. Although Truby usually focuses on screenwriting, this book, he says, covers novels as well, in terms of looking at how to develop a novel-length work. In the beginning, he tells you to put aside your traditional methods of structuring a story (hero's journey or three acts) and approach it from a new perspective. Initially, this means putting character and premise together and looking at how and why your main character changes during the course of the story.

So off I went. I've been working on a new novel, but having trouble with the first few chapters. I had already worked out the plot - what would happen, the climax, etc - but I couldn't work out how to get my characters to that point (one problem was a jump of two weeks with nothing happening). I decided to use Truby's initial planning steps to try to work out what was missing in my story. I answered all the questions, I had the premise and story design, I figured out his seven key steps for story structure (weakness and need, desire, opponent, plan, battle, self-revelation and new equilibrium). It seemed to be kind of working for me.

Then I stopped. I remembered how I had done a similar thing once before for a novel, and in the end it was no help at all. It made the novel into something I had never intended, and something I had a really hard time writing - and getting right. After eight drafts and some major changes, I think this novel is still not working. I tried too hard to "make it right" before I wrote it. That's not the best way for me to work. I got too cerebral about including all those key elements that a story should have, and lost my grip on character and voice.

Character and voice, for me, is what counts most in making a story work. I can always come back later and fix plot holes or add tension or rewrite beginnings and endings. But if I get off the track with the character, if I analyse or diagnose or try to put that character into a straitjacket of shoulds before I tell my story, I kill everything. I start doubting what I'm doing. I lose the voice. And strangely enough, I have a much harder time keeping the plot together.

I think that's one of the things we have to learn as writers - what our happy medium is when it comes to outlining. I mentioned in another post that mostly my outlines are diagrams and lots of scribbled notes. It took me a long time to realise that, messy though it seems, that is what works for me. That, and sometimes a grid of major scenes to back it up. No outline at all makes me extremely nervous, because I need to know where I'm going. Too much planning and setting down what must go into the story freezes me up.

So no more Mr Truby. I'll read him again when I'm much further into this novel, and the character and the momentum are leading me where I need to go. Your happy medium might be starting with one sentence and then writing into the wild blue yonder. Or it might be a 50 page detailed outline of each scene. How-to writing books are great, and often very useful, but you also need to know when to put them down and just write.

Playing with Words

Earlier this week, I created the following as a bit of fun (OK, so I was procrastinating instead of working on my novel!)

THE NOVEL WRITER’S DEDICATION

Write placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be
in a room of your own.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all publishers.
Write your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive writers,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser writers than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your deadlines.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of publishing.
Exercise caution in your business affairs,
especially your book contracts;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what marketing potential there is;
many persons strive for websites and platforms;
and everywhere life is full of shelf hangers.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection for your editor.
Neither be cynical about your rewrites;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
they are as perennial as the grass
and if you don’t improve your novel
you’ll have to rewrite it again.

Take kindly the counsel of your writing group,
gracefully surrendering the things that suck.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you against reviews.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of low sales and deep discounting.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
so many words per day,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a writer of the universe,
no less than the poets and the screenwriters;
you have a right to put words on the page
but not to expect people to appreciate them.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is reading as it should.

Therefore be at peace with your agent,
whatever you conceive him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life
keep peace also with your writer’s soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
the world of books
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
Keep writing.

(yes, inspired by the Desiderata).

Outlines vs Vague Thoughts

One of my big jobs this week was to write outlines for two books (my biggest job was to mark around 40 student assignments, but we won't go there). These two are supposedly going to be Books 2 and 3, featuring the same character. When I wrote the first one, I had no intention of writing any more. It seemed a complete story to me, with a fairly resounding ending. None of this Hollywood doubling back and tricking the reader at the last minute with a new monster being birthed. Then the publisher said the character was so good, how about another story featuring her?

Of course. (Lesson 1 in writing and publishing - never say No way, Jose when a publisher asks you to write a book, unless it's something horrible that would destroy your rep forever. You can always negotiate what the book might be, and get it closer to what you want.) In this case, it had been a while since I'd written the first one, and I also really liked the character. Not sure where she came from, but we get on well together.

Then it became 'We'd like to see outlines for two more books, please'. Hmmm. I don't have any problems with outlines, especially the ones done my way. My way starts with scribbles and circles and arrows all over the page, then it progresses to more diagrams and grids and notes. When I'm happy, I start writing. But that's not what a publisher wants to see. Because they'd never understand my scribbles and diagrams in a million years.

A publisher wants to see it all written out, like a summary or a short version of what the whole thing will be about, who will be in it, what will happen, and what the outcome will be. It's also good to indicate what the outcome will mean to the characters, the result of their journey. For me, this is not a synopsis. A synopsis is when you have written the whole thing and rewritten it, and then you write down everything that happens so an editor or agent reading the first three chapters can see whether you've got a solid grip on the rest of the story.

These outlines are saying what I'm going to write about. What I have planned will happen. There in lies the rub. What if I change my mind? What if a better idea or ending presents itself halfway through the writing? What if I get to Chapter 4 of my planned novel (according to the outline) and I hate it and it's not working how I thought it would, and I want to burn it? That's why outlines freak me out a bit. What if I get it wrong?

The plus side of this, however, is that while I had a good idea for Book 2, Book 3 wasn't even a twinkle in my eye. I had to start from scratch and explore a whole new idea. I came up with something I liked, then I came up with something big and exciting that really made it all come together. And in turn, that showed me where the weakness lay in Book 2. That's what I'm working on right now - how to find that big, exciting extra element that I think Book 2 still needs to pump it up to a top-notch story. It's mostly there, but I want to add one thing more...

April is Poetry Month

Actually, it's only Poetry Month in the US. Australia doesn't have a Poetry Month, or even a Poetry Week. I think we have one Poetry Day on 1 September, but my guess is that more Australians know that 17 September is World Talk Like a Pirate Day than know about Poetry Day. Arrrrr!

There are currently lots of websites and blogs promoting poetry for kids, in the classroom and generally. The CCBC Discussion Board is talking about poetry anthologies, and the ongoing issue of why more teachers don't teach or use poetry in the classroom. Mostly it seems to be because they don't know how to teach it. A few people have commented that if a teacher doesn't enjoy poetry and doesn't read it, there's little likelihood they'll include it in their classroom activities.

Some of the other issues are about "killing" a poem by dissecting it to death, using poems in classroom comprehension tests (another way of strangling a poem) and the teacher who reads out loud in a way that condemns a poem to the Boring Bin in a second. People also complain that they don't understand poems, that they're "too hard", and I can sympathise with that. But who said you have to understand every single thing? That is the joy of a poem - when it speaks to you on some other level that you can't pin down, but it makes you feel that you have just experienced something amazing and true. And there are hundreds of great poems that are easily understandable and still offer much to the reader. Accessibility in poetry is not about dumbing down!

When Billy Collins was Poet Laureate, he created a website of 180 poems for teachers (or everyone) to use - poems that weren't obscure or meaningless, poems that would provoke discussion, poems that showed the world in a different way. Even if all you did was read one poem per day out loud (without analysing it), you could create sparks of inspiration and maybe the desire to write a poem or two.

I like the idea of reading lots of poems and simply talking about what one of the poems says to you, then writing something in response. I don't think you can give kids a whole bunch of poem exercises to complete without first surrounding them with word music, imagery, rhythm and language possibilities. I think if a teacher enjoys poetry, they can't help but pass that on to their students (of any age). I like nothing better when I teach poetry writing than sharing my favourites. Here's one by Billy Collins - Introduction to Poetry. And another by Margaret Atwood - You Fit Into Me. Anyone got favourites of their own?

CBCA Shortlist

Around this time of year, some major awards here in Australia announce their shortlist. So we have the Miles Franklin, the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Australian Children's Book Council Awards. If you have a book in the running, it can be a nerve-wracking time. In 2005, my book Farm Kid was shortlisted for the NSW award, which was a huge surprise for me. When it won, I made the most of it and celebrated and went to the awards dinner in Sydney. It was like a huge, excellent, late Christmas gift, something to totally enjoy.

This year Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) has been shortlisted for the CBCA Younger Reader awards. I can't tell you how many fingers and toes I had crossed! I could hardly walk. Although the Newbery Medal in the US doesn't have a shortlist beforehand, the effect on book sales and everything else that goes along with being a children's author is the same. It's mind-boggling, actually (I've talked to others who have been shortlisted and won or had Honour books), and exciting. And sitting around on Tuesday morning waiting for the shortlists to go up on the CBCA site was unbearable. So I went to the movies.

When I was a teenager, one of my favourite movies was Anne of a Thousand Days, so I really wanted to see The Other Boleyn Girl. It was great - lots of strong minor characters to fill out the story with subplots, two very different actors in the main roles, and a different perspective also on Anne. Yes, I did manage to forget about the shortlist announcements until the movie was over. Then I arrived home to a lovely message from my publisher on my answering machine, and the sight of my book on the website. It took a while to sink in, but the champagne helped!

There is now a long gap until the winners are announced - 15 August - which allows for lots of discussion and time for kids to read the books and decide for themselves. This year there will be another Junior Judges happening, where schools can get involved and be part of it. In early May, the CBCA conference takes place here in Melbourne, and I'm going to be leading a session on Sunday on poetry for children (which was organised months ago).

Yes, I am trying very hard here to sound serious and "worthy" - my friends would all laugh and give me a good poke in the ribs, because they know that inside there are a dozen elephants still doing a mad, happy dance! So now I will go off and do some writing, because I have a deadline, and later on I'll let the elephants out and we'll watch the footy and drink nice wine and celebrate some more!

Awards and Rewards

Last night, my writing group went along to the FAW (Fellowship of Australian Writers) Awards night. We had received a Commended in the community writing group section for our group novel. Of course, we thought we would have won if we'd been able to submit the whole book! The rules said only 30,000 words, so we had to cut it off halfway and say it was only Part One. Mind you, as someone in the group said, if we'd been able to put the whole novel in, we would have been struggling to finish it in time! As it is, here we are at the end of March and we're still about 10,000 words away from finishing (we think).

Still, the competition was a great impetus for us to do something different. We have all created characters for the novel that now seem real - we sit around the table, plotting what comes next, and refer to each other by character names. Plotting is such fun, with everyone throwing in ideas about who will do what next. At the function last night, another writer asked me how we did it, and then seemed amazed that we managed to plot and write without huge arguments.

I think the key is ego. None of us want or need our part of the novel to be "the best" or the biggest or the most exciting. We're more interested in enjoying the process and seeing where it will lead us. One of us has developed a very snooty, nasty character and is now loving being able to write in her voice and "let it all hang out". Another writer has created a male character and is practising her skills in terms of voice - making sure he sounds like a male. We intend to self-publish the novel when it's finished, just for ourselves.

The great thing about the Awards night is seeing so many people so excited about winning or receiving acknowledgement that their writing has been judged as darned good. In many ways, our society hates high achievers and likes to cut them down to size. The FAW Awards give prizes and commendeds to more than 100 writers, and it's a celebratory occasion. Some people come from interstate to receive their awards, and it's lovely to share their happiness. The awards also are for younger writers - one young man who won a poetry prize said his English teacher had told him that poetry was obviously not his strong suit, and it was good to have another educated opinion on that! No doubt he'll take great pride in showing her his certificate.

There are always writing awards around. The new Prime Minister has announced two major prizes for fiction and nonfiction writing worth $100,000. Yes, that's nice, but wouldn't it be better to spread it around a bit more? Sometimes you hear people say that there are too many awards, but I think it's great to have many rather than one or two. Judges differ widely in their choices (just look at the State writing awards for children's and YA books compared to the CBCA choices for their awards) and it means more books get promoted and praised.

We writers tend to tuck ourselves away in the back room and write, hoping for publication and recognition, hoping we'll find readers who love what we've created. Prizes and awards, both large and small, help us to feel validated, help us to keep persevering, just as much as actual publication does. Every bit helps. And I can't say enough good things about my writing group (go, girls!) - their encouragement and critiquing skills have kept me going over the years, more than anything else. If you can find fellow writers who understand what you are trying to achieve, and who can offer you (and you, them) that vital support, that's a prize in itself.

Who Made/Wrote This?

While the holidays mean reading lots of books and writing and relaxing, I also try to fit in some movie viewing. Unfortunately, these holidays the cinemas are crowded with not-so-good children's movies (sorry, I have no desire to see Horton Hears a Who although I might give the Spiderwyck Chronicles a go) so I need to look further afield for entertainment. I watched Margot at the Wedding. I give myself four stars for lasting the distance. The movie gets zero. this was one of those movies where you keep watching because you just can't believe - a) it's as bad as you suspect it is, b) you keep hoping it will improve, c) you keep looking for something good in it, and then have to give up.

Who paid all that money to make this movie? I'm a fan of the dysfunctional family story - I loved Little Miss Sunshine. That movie had a great cast of characters and a story with a goal and destination. Margot has two characters - sisters - who spend the whole movie trying to be nice to each other and failing to even be successfully crazy or bitchy or vindictive, or in fact any emotion that might transmit itself to the audience. Nobody in this story (sorry, scratch the word story because there isn't one) has a relationship with anyone else that comes close to interesting. It's a sad day when I realise the only character I kind of liked was the one played by Jack Black (who I don't like).

I checked out some reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to see if it was just me - they were mixed, but most people agreed that there was little plot, a lot of depressing misery and none of the characters sparked enough to carry the movie to any kind of decent ending. I think what I hate are movies where all of the characters are just plain stupid, act in stupid ways, fail to make any kind of decisions that create a possible storyline, and aren't funny even when they are supposed to be.

How hard is it to write a story with tension, action, consequences and empathetic characters? Was Margot nuts? Was she having a breakdown? Who knows? Who cares? And the who cares question is the killer. If we don't care about any of the characters in a story, we aren't going to watch it or read it. This is something we teach our students from Day One. If you are going to create a character who is unlikeable, there had better be other great things going on in the story to hook the reader in. Is it unfair to compare Margot at the Wedding to Little Miss Sunshine? I don't think so. That's what we do as readers and viewers - we pay our money and we get to judge whether it was worth it or not!

Review Round-up

Over the past couple of weeks, I've read six or seven books, probably more, mainly due to the dire offerings on TV. I've been known to take myself to bed by 8.30pm with a pile of books, diving into whichever one holds my interest most. Some haven't. After being intrigued with Denise Mina's Sanctum (a clever play on diaries and case notes that leaves you wondering afterward how much was fiction - well, all of it, probably, but she does well to keep you thinking), I tried another one and gave up after twenty pages. The Field of Blood had two things against it for me as a reader - the main character seemed to be too ineffectual and passive to hold any hope of future engagement, and the first pages were so overloaded with a huge cast of characters that I was having trouble following any of it. Yes, harsh and fast judgement, but there were other more enticing books waiting.

I read Boy Toy by Barry Lyga first out of my pile, and am still considering what I think of it, and why it made me uncomfortable. I have decided it was intended to do so. If you haven't heard of this book yet, here's a short summary. Josh is seventeen and about to graduate from high school, but he's not coping. He can't relate to girls his own age, he feels the whole world stares at him and knows who he is, and he doesn't know what to do about baseball and college. The reason? Josh had an affair with his teacher when he was twelve and she went to jail for it. The story moves back and forth in time, so that we alternate between Josh now, struggling to keep his head above water despite help from a therapist and his friend Zik, and Josh at twelve, being seduced by his teacher.

I'm not going to spoil the book for you by telling you what the dark, emotional twist is in the last section, but it does explain why Lyga goes into such excruciating detail about the affair. This book is all about Josh, about how and why he is struggling still at seventeen. Cases like this in real life always make headlines (they certainly have here) and I wonder if one of Lyga's intentions was to show young males exactly what damage this kind of relationship can do to you (rather than assume it would be an exciting and "maturing" experience, which I can imagine a lot of young males doing). This was not Josh's experience at all, and I think perhaps the discomfort I felt in reading this came from the way in which it made me aware that perhaps I had made my own assumptions too. Another reminder of how the media can distort the truth or fail to show more than one side of a story. I highly recommend this book, but be aware of its content.

I like to save up some good crime fiction for holiday weekends, but Killing Fear by Allison Brennan wasn't really it. The sticker said Love this or your money back. Well, I didn't love it. I kind of thought it was passable. Does that qualify me for a refund? Maybe it's because the serial killer genre is getting tired, and I've read too many really good ones to tolerate one that doesn't do anything much fresh and new. Mind you, that might be asking too much. Fresh and new serial murders. Hmmm. I think my biggest gripe with this book is that it was a bit shallow. I never really felt a sense of place, and third person omniscient POV felt too distancing. This might have worked better (for me, anyway) with a closer POV, but as one major character was the villain, I'm not so sure.

Anyway, I went from that to Travel Team by Mike Lupica, and did that book grab me and keep me reading all day! It's middle grade fiction, about a basketball team, and a really short kid who is a terrific player but doesn't get picked for the travel team (the team that travels around to play in the league). The kid, Danny, has a father who was a star basketball player until he crashed his car, and now he's a bit of a no-hoper who decides to start his own team so his son can play. While the story might sound familiar, Lupica's characters bring the book alive with action, humour and hope. Right from the start, Danny is the skeptical one who thinks it's all a waste of time but goes along with it, which adds unexpected conflict from all angles. He's a multi-faceted character who carries the story with depth and emotion, and is honest and direct in a way that continually refreshes the novel.

It's books like Travel Team that help me as a writer. I can re-read it for dialogue, characterisation and the whole show-don't-tell thing, and learn as I go. Books like that go on my closest shelves, so I can use them for class or for my own benefit whenever I need a good example to follow. Have you got any books like that on your shelf? (I mean novels, not how-tos.)

I'm Alert!

The other day I signed up for Google Alerts on two topics, one of which was my book Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!). I'd heard other people talking about how handy the alerts were, so I thought I'd give them a try.
Imagine my surprise when I started getting alerts almost immediately, and it was an even bigger surprise when one of them led me to the Australian Publishers' Association site. The big news is that my book has been shortlisted for the Book Design Awards - twice! Once for the cover and once for the whole book.

Now I can't claim any credit for the design of the book, apart from my first suggestion that perhaps the inside could have kind of doodle-like drawings in it, as if my main character had drawn them herself. From this, the amazing designer, Elissa Christian, went ahead and created a pretty stunning and unusual book. For a start, everything inside is green, including the text, and the cover you can see above is like a colourful doodle too.
Go, Elissa! Hope you win.

With Easter coming up, that means lots of writing time for me. We don't have family obligations (as in visits to in-laws and out-laws) so it's pretty much a time to relax, and for me to write. I'm in revision mode on a novel, and am writing lots of poems, and plotting out a new novel. I'm sticking to quite a few of my 2008 resolutions, amazing for me, which means walking every day, sleeping more, eating well, doing the stretches and exercises for my neck/shoulder problem, and working steadily on two-monthly goals. Thinking about that is a great encouragement in itself. I might have to splurge on some chocolate! Just a little bit.

Dumb Questions

I used to think there was no such thing as a dumb question. When I first took over the "boss" job at work, there was no handover from the previous person and I was pretty much floundering. After my tenth stupid (to me) question of the admin staff, I apologised for asking so many dumb questions. The other person said, "I'd much rather you asked a million dumb questions and then did it right, than guess and have to ask for help to clean up the mess." What a pleasure she was to work with!

Since then, I've worked on that principle a lot of the time, in class as well as out. New writers can't be expected to know everything when they first start (that's why they're in a class - they want to find out) and that's how I learned too. I will never forget the wonderful help Michael Dugan (famous Australian children's writer and poet) gave me when I first started writing and publishing children's books. It made a huge difference to me, and I like to try and pay that forward whenever I can.

Mind you, I do still hear an occasional question that really does indicate the asker needs to rethink their words. Like the person in a seminar last year who said "I have an idea for a story and I want to know how to get it published". The audible intake of breath from everyone said it all. If you haven't even written anything before you start asking about publication, then you're probably better off trying something else.

These days, I am no longer the "boss", thank goodness (they let me escape back to being a teacher), but I still have to deal with a lot of admin as part of my job, and my new pet hate is the burial expert. As in "I didn't know what to do with this so I pretended it didn't exist and buried it on my desk under all the other things I am supposed to be doing". Coming a close second is the duck-shover - "I didn't know what to do with this so I shoved it into someone else's In Tray". When I'm feeling negative about these two, I can't help but think of all the extra hours of work they create for other people, and then I think that in my case, those hours are writing time! Shame on them!

Friday Thoughts

My first thought is where the heck did the week go? My second thought is that I have managed to write three days in a row on two different projects. That's got to be a good week!
My friend Tracey recently posted on writing in the zone, how it feels when the words zing along and everything seems so easy. And how rare that can be. A writer writes no matter what, and waiting for the zone is guaranteed to end up in no writing at all.

I've been reading a new acquisition this week - Creativity for Life by Eric Maisel. I had enjoyed his A Writer's Paris so much that I wanted to read another by him. This one is a lot more complex and deep. So much so that I can only read a few pages at a time, then I have to go away and think about it. But today I was reading about the artist's personality, and the factors which go into it. Under Discipline, he talks about leading all-day workshops for writers who are blocked, and how these people can come and write for a whole day with him when previously they haven't been able to write a word.

What causes the block to disappear? Is it the man up the front giving them permission to write? Or ordering them to write? Maisel asks the question - if the gap between being blocked and writing is so small that it goes in a few moments, why does it seem so insurmountable at other times? I think it often comes back to the title of that section - Discipline. If you discipline yourself to write, you will write. You won't write until you can convince yourself that sitting and doing is all that is necessary. Just sit and write. Anything. And when you are writing and thinking every word is awful, keep writing. It's amazing how persisting for ten more minutes will move you into that writing space that may not be the zone, but will be writing that satisfies you (maybe even because you did not give up).

In the Weekend Australian magazine there were two interesting articles. The first was on Joan Didion, the writer, who said some wonderful things including this: No one ever reads as passionately as a 12-year-old. Critic John Leonard said about her writing: She seems almost Japanese in what she can leave out and still have us know it's there. It's almost poetic. That made me want to read her books.

The second article was on comedians, and whether the best ones are those who have terrible childhoods, are depressive or have personality disorders. The writer, Oliver James, quotes a number of famous comedians with these pathologies to back up his claim. He says the urge to create humour stems from using it as a defence in childhood, and later on, against criticism, abuse and low self-esteem. I've read similar claims about children's writers - that they are somehow caught between being grown-up and being back in a certain period of childhood that was either traumatic or holds great memories. The key can often be to imagine yourself back then, at ten or twelve or fifteen, and be able to recreate it on the page. Food for thought.

What Inspires You?

As writers, we all know how a great book, poem or movie can be inspiring - how something that touches us or stirs us in some way can spark off new inspiration, or just firm up our desire to write and accomplish our dreams.
But there are other things that inspire us that are very personal and unique. Here are some of mine:

* building frames for houses - there is something about seeing a new house, seeing its bones and imagining what it will become, that inspires me

* a great singer (two of my favourites are Tina Arena and George Michael) - the sound of an amazing voice reaching perfect notes is astounding to me, and energises me

* crickets and cicadas - on a hot summer day, cicadas in chorus are ear-splittingly wonderful, and when I go for a walk at dusk and hear crickets in the grass singing at similar ear-splitting levels, and then think about how small they are, that amazes me

* people who simply inspire because they care and want to share their thoughts, and hope that you will gain something good from reading them - Julius Lester and Craig Harper are examples that spring to mind right now

* a terrific football (rugby union) player, Chris Jack, who is fascinating to watch in action because you can literally see him thinking, analysing, acting, moving - he is able to be in the play all the time, and be extremely effective, because of this ability - it's uncanny to watch

* people who don't give up, and who really do understand it's up to them and nobody else - seeing them achieve great things in any walk of life is wonderful (even better when you know them personally)

Those are some of mine, weird though they may seem! What about yours?

Are you a Socio-Economic Writer?

Sounds like a silly or weird question. Let me explain. In the past two days, there's been this synergy thing (I'm using the current buzz word) where several things I've been reading and thinking about have all come together. I have to warn you that I am about to leap up on my soapbox:

1. I've just finished a crime novel called Sanctum by Denise Mina. Mina was recommended by my friend G, and when I went to the bookshop, this was the title I selected. One of the elements of this story (which uses a really interesting diary/truth/lies quandary as its plot) is the point about who receives the most media attention. Is it the most attractive, middle-class victim? Because the lower-class, poor, drug-addicted or prostitute victim often gets short shrift from the media, thus leading to less public interest in their case and less assistance to the police.

2. Today's Melbourne Age newspaper has a large article about exactly this thing - Maddy McCann (the little girl who went missing in Portugal last year) has received a massive amount of media attention, and this has been fed by donations to the search mission by people like Richard Branson and J.K. Rowling. Whereas Shannon Matthews, who went missing (presumed abducted) on 19 February, has had little media attention because she is one of seven kids by five fathers in a very poor family.

3. Apparently critics are currently having another go at Jacqueline Wilson, asking why she has to continually write these depressing stories about kids in single parent, poor families who go through horrible experiences.

4. And me, small voice in a far-flung land (so to speak) is wondering how my editor is going to feel about another story featuring a child from a family that is basically broke and struggling, and who can't afford to give the kids what they want or need.

They are all good questions. I don't know enough about JW to say why she writes about the characters she does, but my guess is that, even if she doesn't come from a background quite so dire herself, she's met a ton of kids who do, who write to her, and who tell her their stories. She's giving them a voice, telling their stories, showing the world what it is really like as a kid to live in that part of the world where lack of money rules your life, where you can't be guaranteed a roof over your head, where you also can't be guaranteed a parent who can care for you.

While I feel deeply for children in the Sudan and Palestine and any other country where kids are suffering because of adults who are more concerned about killing each other than about making sure their kids actually grow up, there are huge numbers of kids in our so-called affluent Western world who are living miserable lives and who deserve to have their stories told too. No, we don't want a bookshelf full of misery stories, but there are kids out there who need to read stories that reflect the realities of their own lives and that give them hope.

Which brings me to the other whinge that critics often regurgitate every so often - that these dreary, doom-filled stories just make the kids' lives more miserable. I have yet to read any children's or YA book (apart from Dear Miffy, which has its own message) that ends so badly that the child or teen reader might come away feeling totally depressed. There is a huge difference between a realistic ending that offers some hope (and kids can tell the difference - they know when you are fudging it or making it happy-happy just for the sake of it) and one which sends you into the depths of despair. I don't know any children's writer who says they deliberately create horrible endings. JW always says her books are full of hope and strength and happy endings (just not endings where you win Lotto).

So I guess I need to go on writing stories that reflect what I know - that despite the media reports, not every child has a computer and Playstation and mobile phone of their own, simply because they can't afford it (there are some sane parents still out there too!!). Not every family can afford meat on the table every night. Not every family has working parents. There are many families where unemployment is the norm, where eating bad food is the norm (because it's cheaper), where single parents are the norm, where parents who can't speak English properly have to use their kids as interpreters (how likely are these parents to indulge in reading books to their kids every night?).

If you want to think further on the realities of life for kids in families below the poverty line, try reading What Came Before He Shot Her by Elizabeth George (article contains spoilers). Then read some Jacqueline Wilson books. Yes, kids love fairy books, and no, they shouldn't be unnecessarily exposed to stories about awful life situations. But pretending to your kids that the world is full of goodness and light is not helping them to understand what it is to live in our world today, and deal with the crap that will inevitably come their way. It is absolutely astounding what kids are capable of when they understand how other kids in the world are suffering. Your kids, too, can learn compassion, understanding and how to help others, simply by reading books about kids less well off.

So if you want to write books like that, books with meaning, books that will help kids cope and help them to become compassionate, caring people, go for it.
And as for you, Mr Rudd, cutting carers' benefits and old age payments - may you grow old and disabled before your time. You'll be getting a letter from me.

The Realities about What it Takes

Don't read on if you're feeling a bit vulnerable or depressed!

1. It takes time. Lots of time. It can take ten years to get to the point where you are writing publishable work, or it can take ten years to come up with an idea that's new and different. The ten years won't have gone to waste, because during that time you'll have written many words, and the way you write will have been improving and growing and deepening. You'll have come to understand what it truly takes, plot- and character-wise, to write a novel with impact, that resonates with lots of readers. You'll have written all of the dull, dead, done-before ideas out of your system and be discovering that, behind the daily clutter in your life lie many new ideas and voices that you are only just learning to explore. Why ten years? I'm not sure, but I know many writers who say their "overnight success" took ten years. Me, too.

2. It takes time. That's time in every day. A regular writing habit of an hour a day will get you a lot further than one day every two weeks. That's because writing becomes the focus of every day, you start to feel like a writer with a strong commitment, your project is constantly in your thoughts and you are constantly coming up with new ideas for it, to make it better. You don't need to spend a couple of hours working your way back in the voice and the story. It's right there, all the time.
Sandy Fussell has three books coming out this year (her first three, one of which is Samurai Kids). I have just read an interview with her where she says she writes from 10pm-1am every night, because that's the only time in her busy day where she can fit it in. For many people, that would be too hard. For many people, any kind of regular writing commitment is too hard. Not for Sandy. So she has three books coming out.

3. You need to read. Reading feeds your writing like nothing else. Poetry feeds the language in my novels. Crime fiction helps me with plotting. Reading great YA fiction teaches me about voice. A writer is always learning, always working on their craft, and reading as a writer takes you a lot further along this path than anything else. You need a reading commitment, just like your writing commitment. You need to see what else is being published, what publishers consider is the best, what is selling well and think about why. Those writers are giving readers what they want. You have to know what that is, and how to create it yourself.

Gee, all of this is taking up lots of your time, isn't it? You might have to give up some TV, or socialising, or even a bit of sleep.

4. You need to understand the publishing industry. It's a business. It's not there to make you feel better about your writing (although occasionally there are rejection letters that could be a tiny bit more encouraging, perhaps ... nah, we just need a thicker skin). Your submission is not the only one that publisher received this week. It was one of maybe a hundred, or several hundred. With so many to choose from, no wonder publishers are hanging out for the one that sings to them, not just one more competent story among many.

What are you doing to make your novel stand out? How many times have you rewritten it? Do you need a few grammar and punctuation lessons? You're supposed to be professional, so you need to understand that you are competing with thousands of new writers. You're also competing with lots of published writers.

Do you spend $2000 on a new bed because it looks nice and the person who owns the bed company needs a better car? No, you'd buy a bed that gave you a great night's sleep and was good for your back as well. So no one is going to spend $20 or $30 on your book in the shop unless you are going to give them a great story.

Editors and publishers love books. Otherwise they'd be doing something else that paid more money. Yes, they have to fight the bean-counters in the company, and convince marketing to come on board with books that are a bit risky, but they wouldn't do it if they didn't love the books. Make yours one that an editor falls in love with!

5. Whingeing doesn't help. Yes, this is a tough thing to do. Crazy even. Pour your heart and soul into a book and then not be able to get it published. But complaining and blaming other people only makes you feel better for about five minutes, then you feel worse again. Put that energy into writing and reading, into finding out about the industry, into finding other writers for a critique group (if that's what'll help you, and it probably will).
And think about this - any published writer will happily tell you that getting published does not solve all of your problems - they just become different problems!

6. Love the writing. Love the feeling of having written. Love having completed that tricky Chapter 11, even though you were scared you'd stuff it up. Love rewriting and making your words better. Love talking to other writers and encouraging each other. Love reading and discovering new writers. Love creating new voices. Love the writing, and the rest will follow.

What Does It Take? the Myths

It's a good question. What does it take to become a published author? Or if you want more than that, what does it take to become a published, famous, well-paid (dare I say rich?) author? Let's look at the myths first.

1. It takes amazing talent. Hmmm, yes. If I had a dollar for every talented writer I've seen who gave up after a few months or a year, I could retire. It does take some talent, true. People who can't write anything that engages even the most sympathetic reader are plentiful, but sometimes that's not a matter of talent, that's just a matter of learning how to make the words work better for you (and that is possible). But the hard truth is - some people, no matter how badly they want to tell a story, can't write. I can't play the violin (I've tried), I can't play golf (I've tried), I could never be a fireworks expert (I'm scared of big noises) - so I have given up these things, even though I would kind of enjoy being the new Tiger Woods. Some people need to give up the idea of publishing their writing. Sorry, but it's true. Or they should at least give up submitting to publishers until they have worked really hard and reached a better standard of writing. (OK, you can throw things at me now. I'll duck - my talent there comes from ducking errant golf balls I, myself, hit.)

But if you have a bit of talent (we usually spot it in your voice, believe it or not), but not much technique - you can learn technique and you can improve - in leaps and bounds!

2. You need to know someone important in publishing. How do you know them? Are you memorable because you stalked that publisher into the ladies' room and harrassed her as she washed her hands? Or because you got drunk and confronted him about your latest rejection? If you Google the many blogs and websites maintained by editors and agents, you will see one thing that absolutely shines above anything else in terms of getting published - it's the writing that counts. Think about it.
Yes, some people get lucky and meet the right editor at the right time at a conference, but if the writing didn't sing, they would be one more writer in the queue.

3. You need lots of inspiration. How many writers sit down at the computer or blank page every day and feel inspired? Very, very few. When you've been writing for a while, you start to realise that inspiration is sporadic. Lack of faith in yourself as a writer is more prevalent. The only thing that will get you through, keep you going, keep you writing to the end of your project (no matter what it is) is showing up at your desk and writing no matter what.
This seems so obvious that I wonder why I'm saying it!! But the truth is that there are many writers who believe that the only time they can write anything "good" is when they are inspired. Rubbish!!! You have to write no matter what. That's what a writer does. And you would be amazed at the number of writers who say they can't tell the difference, later, between what they wrote when they "felt like it" and what they wrote when they struggled and persisted, despite the doubts.

Some realities coming soon.

SCBWI Conference photos

Bruce Whately (illustrator), Lisa Berryman (HarperCollins) and Jackie French - the Diary of a Wombat "team".
Ellen Hopkins, guest writer from the U.S. - her verse novels for YA make the NY Times best-seller lists.
Meredith Costain, speaking at the launch of her lovely Nibble, Rosie and the Bunyip.

SCBWI Conference in Sydney (2)

Here are some session summaries and high points:
Julie Romeis (Chronicle) - Trends in the US Market
While Gossip Girls and books like the Lightning Thief are hugely popular right now, in two years time it will be different. Write what you want to write and be a trend-setter, not a trend-follower. There are more novels being published now but there will inevitably be a move back to picture books. The huge funding cuts for schools and libraries have meant that publishers have had to pull back from publishing aimed at those markets, and look more at books that will sell in stores and places like WalMart (big retail).
There are more licenced characters and more "books with bling" (sparkles and glow stuff) - these are the covers that make kids take them off the shelves, and there are more fun books being produced rather than educational. There is also a big shift to graphic novels for as young as 5-6 year olds (Baby Mouse early readers). US publishers are interested in international authors but they still need to be writing something unique or different.

There was a session on picture books that I wrote the SCBWI report for - it will be up on the Australian SCBWI site next week, I believe, along with my report on educational publishing.

What are they publishing?
Linsey Knight (Random House) - everything from picture books to YA, and they are also doing a lot of series and mass market stuff. They buy in from overseas as well as local authors.
They are always looking for people who can tell great stories, are interested in chicklit for YA but it needs to be a fresh voice.
Anna McFarlane (Pan Macmillan) - are doing 41 books this year, of which 8 are new writers. She talked about the first-time authors and how their manuscripts were accepted - 4 from the slush pile, 4 from agents.
Leonie Tyle (Random House) - Leonie has recently joined RH and has her own imprint. She is looking for literary, high quality books, and plans to publish 12 books per year. She said the 9-13 age group are very savvy readers and consumers, and publishers are actively targeting them right now. She will be more interested in novels than picture books, but is putting illustrations in novels (this was an obvious trend - it came up several times).

New Voices
Sarah Foster from Walker Books talked about new voices in their program this year, including The Stone Crown by Malcolm Walker - this book needed a lot of work but the author's voice was strong and he had great characters, plus he was willing to do a lot of rewriting and work hard with the editor. Walker are also publishing a new series called Lightning Strikes, 10,000 words, aimed at upper primary (10-12) - pacey, funny stories.

Julie Romeis (Chronicle) talked about a book she had published while at Bloomsbury - Ophelia. She was attracted to the book idea first, but always she knows if she's going to love a book by the first page. The writing and voice leaps out at you.

Lisa Berryman (HarperCollins) sees that it's her job to recognise potential - voice is everything in a book to her, and it determines your response to it. She talked about Alexandra Adornetto and that her submission was perfect, as well as the book and writing were great. (If you haven't heard of AA, she wrote her first book at 13, and her second is about to be published.)

Steve Mooser (president of SCBWI International) was at the conference and did a useful presentation on writing funny books. I might post about that at another time.

Overall, the sessions provided a wealth of information for those who want to pursue publication. The main points that I came away with (and they were mentioned many times) are:
* That you need a great voice working in your story, and you need a story that has a different or unique perspective. Publishers look at thousands of manuscripts every year, and that first page has to be working in terms of voice and action to capture their interest.
* Publishers are constantly looking at marketing and how a book is placed out there - what will make someone buy it. Covers are important, but so are efforts by authors - websites and school visits in particular. Word of mouth will still sell more books than advertising.
* Series are popular but there are drawbacks - booksellers don't always like the idea of having to fill shelves with them. But kids like them, and they become collectables.

Thanks to all the publishers who attended the conference and were so approachable and patient.

SCBWI conference, Sydney (1)

Have just returned from Sydney and our bi-annual conference. Straight into teaching on Monday morning, but luckily I resisted the late-night gabfests (tempting though they were) and got some sleep while I was there. The Hughenden Hotel, where the conference took place, was also where many of us stayed. It's very old and historical, with a dungeon and lots of little rooms and things like ceiling roses and embossed tiles. Sydney was hot and muggy to us Melbournites, but probably just nice for the northern writers!

Guest US editor was Julie Romeis from Chronicle Books, with publishers from HarperCollins, Walker Books, Penguin, Random House, plus Leonie Tyle who is establishing a new imprint of her own at RH. Rick Raftos was the guest agent. They were all very generous with their information and advice, and I saw quite a few writers who were glowing after their manuscript assessments. We all ate far more delicious food than was good for us!! I went for a walk around the circuit in Centennial Park on Sunday morning, which helped me feel better about all those cakes.

I'll post more about individual sessions shortly, but I wanted to mention the pitch session on Sunday afternoon. This was interesting as, instead of participants having to write a pitch (like the paragraph in your query letter) and have it critiqued, they had to actually stand up and do a two minute presentation. Quite normal in the screenwriting world, but pretty scary for children's writers who've never done it before.

The publishers' panel was fairly brutal and honest, but they needed to be. I guess they were showing us (verbalising) what goes through their brains when they read someone's query letter and/or submission. It was a bit like Miss Snark in action. It soon became apparent who had a grip on what their story was about, and who was still talking in abstracts. Some people chose to read a bit of their story, which didn't always work. Others presented story outlines that really captured the audience's imagination.

One of the highlights for me was Ellen Hopkins, whose verse novels I greatly admire, not only for their stark subject matter but also for her poetry and the way she uses words on the page. Her session was moving and educational, and I also got to talk to her about verse novels the next day. And she showed us all that Nevada is not just Las Vegas, and there are some beautiful mountains and scenery up north.

Confidence Tricks

I have to admit that I have got sucked in to the current series of The Biggest Loser. I'm not sure why, but I think it's the people! While I enjoy transformation stories (can't stand novels or films where the main character never learns anything and stays the same), this has become more than just the potential of each person to achieve weight loss. Every time one of them opens their mouth, I'm watching their face and listening to the tone of their voice to work out what they are really saying. There's a fair bit of fibbing going on, I think! When the young guy came out and said a few snarky things last night and then laughed, I laughed too, just because he was being genuine.

Also, in last night's episode, the Blue team was given a really hard time by the Commando, leading to one person suddenly losing all their confidence and growing self-respect. Yet, another in the team came out of the really tough session overjoyed that she had won through and survived. Two completely different reactions to the same thing! I keep making mental notes about how I can use all of this in my fiction writing, because of course no two characters will, or should, react in the same way to the same thing.

How much self-confidence a character has says a lot about how they view themselves, how they see the world, how they will react to events and disasters, how they will tackle problems. In today's society, weight has become a huge issue - it's as if it overshadows everything about who a person really is. Even being too slim is liable to get you criticised. Your body weight starts to define you - if you let it. But it's so hard not to. You're battling the whole world, it feels like.

One of my favourite things about The Big Loser is that when someone is voted out, the producers follow up a couple of months later to see how they're going. The two so far have both come out vowing to keep up what they've gained - not so much the weight loss but the feeling of a healthy body and the knowledge that they can exercise and they can achieve what they want. On their own.

Is your character that tough? Probably not at the beginning of the story. In class yesterday, we talked a little bit about the middle of a story. After you've got off to a roaring start, and you know more or less what your ending might be, you are facing the middle - the place where your story might sag. Yet if what is happening in the middle is that your character is gaining what they need to win through, that's fertile ground to cover. What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger. It's a familiar saying, but in your story, that's what your character is doing. Gaining confidence, growing, learning new skills, gaining strength (inner and outer), overcoming many obstacles. You just have to make sure you're really testing them, really making them grow, rather than letting them off too easy!

Books and More Books

The last week has been total, full-on, brain-burning teaching stuff. Of all sorts. I'm teaching two online classes this semester, and although I've done it before, the five wonderful students who climbed on board with me for Poetry 2 a couple of years ago knew they were guinea pigs and we worked through a lot of material. This time, the students are expecting a top-notch learning experience, and I've been working hard to get everything ready. Of course, as with any institution, the problems that arise tend to be bureaucratic, and it can be stressful to work your way through each length of red tape without losing your temper. I hope our students beginning their classes tomorrow, via the internet, will view me as a calm, serene duck, and not see the madly paddling feet underneath!

On-campus classes also start tomorrow, and I have mostly dispelled my panic through careful planning and thinking through everything that needs to be ready, and using lots of lists. Once classes begin, everything gradually moves into a routine and settles down. It's the "beforehand" stuff that drives us to the brink. However, I'm looking forward to all of my classes, which is a good sign.

Since the brain has been sending out smoke signals (saying, "Give me a break, will ya?"), I've done little writing this week. There are some times when enough is too much, and although I wanted to write, I needed to sleep more. That hasn't stopped me thinking about the novel I'm working on. And deciding that the slippery feeling I'd been getting while rewriting the last 4000 words or so was a sign that I need to print out everything so far and have a critical read-through. When you're writing a scene and you can't work out what's supposed to happen next or why (and the original version is right next to you and it doesn't make sense anymore), that's the time to spend more brain power on that scene, and what comes before it, and less finger power on the keyboard. For me, anyway.

In a quick reading roundup, it has occurred to me that I've been reading quite a few middle grade and YA novels recently with a lot of violence in them. I had to read Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams, if only to make sure my novel wasn't in any way similar. It wasn't (a relief, especially after an agent expressed concern about this despite not having read Tunnels). There was a huge amount of action and violence in the second half of this book, much of which kept up the tension and excitement level quite well. But there were also huge amounts of description, too much, so that I had trouble visualising what was going on, and where. I do think some of this could've been trimmed for a better story.

I also read The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks. Brooks never holds back in his novels (I still remember one that starts with the father dead in the lounge room) but this one is very scary. He does a great job of description, and the setting is the dark and lonely moors in England. Tiny village with horrible characters, and two brothers who want to find out who murdered their sister. Then, for a complete change of pace, I read The Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge. I loved this, not just because it's set in Tucson (and I love Tucson) but because of the voice and the characters. Each character has their own story, each character evolves and changes, not just the main character. The dialogue is snappy and moves the story along, with added touches of humour. Two very different books, but I recommend both.

The Big 10

Earlier this week, StatCounter told me my blog had reached the milestone of 10,000 reader visits. Sounds like a lot, but that's over a couple of years! Still, it made me happy to know that a fair few people had dropped in to read stuff, and some of them have even left comments. I actually started this blog in 2004, firstly to record short reviews or comments on books I had read. It was like a personal reminder of what I liked and what I didn't (us writers are always on the look out for recommendations of good books to read). Then I went to New York and the Chatauqua Writers' Workshop, and wanted to keep some kind of diary that friends and family could read if they wanted. Four years later, I'm still here, and still enjoying it. It's a different kind of writing, and it's fun.

The photo above is from the "something old, something new" line of thinking. This is my old something. Apologies for the not-so-good photo but it's very hard to get away from reflections! Anyway, this is (obviously) a cup and saucer. It's from a very old porcelain tea set that we think belonged to our great-grandmother. It has been handed down and now what is left of it belongs to my sister and me. For my birthday, she had one of the last remaining cup-and-saucer sets mounted in a box frame for me. I never understand people who throw stuff out when someone dies - once it's gone, it's gone forever. (And I freely admit I am a hoarder.)

The "something new" is not out yet. It's not even on the UQP website, but I have seen the final cover for my new book Tracey Binns Is Trouble. It's out in May. I'll post a cover when I have permission.
Something borrowed? I promise to return the Estleman book on popular fiction to you really soon, T! And if you want to see blue things, you can look at the bluebells and pincushions on my Bush Notes blog.

Same Old, Same Old

Once again, the Weekend Australian Review has trotted out an article on creative writing courses. It seems as if I've read this kind of thing several times in the past couple of years. It starts as a whine about how creative writing degree courses are taking over from traditional literature courses, and continues in that vein. Tony Birch from Melbourne Uni complains that new students come to the course "naive" about how difficult it is to get published. Er, they're just out of high school, mate. How much do you expect them to know? Isn't that what you're there for, amongst other things?

Another point is made about universities sucking up massive fees from students wanting to do creative writing, but not giving the "product" the respect it deserves. Ultimately, isn't it up to the publishing world to publish a book? Since when does a High Distinction guarantee that a student novel will be published and sell lots of copies? Um, never. Everyone pays HECS fees at our universities now, no matter what they want to study. I quote from the article: "There are numerous mature-age students willing to pay universities $100-plus an hour to sit in a postgraduate writing class."

I have a solution for them! Come and study creative writing at TAFE with us! There, it will cost you $1.37 an hour and you'll learn just as much. In fact, you'll probably learn more, especially if you're looking for hands-on writing, workshopping and industry knowledge. OK, OK, promotional spruiking is over. Seriously, what really annoyed me about this article (apart from the fact that TAFE courses were not mentioned at all) was that nobody bothered to ask the students about why they were choosing to study creative writing and not literature or history or engineering.

There were various academics who talked about and around the subject; some even acknowledged that a uni teaching gig was good to have, and helped to pay the bills. They talked about how important reading is for a writer, and how students have to be made to read more. I hate to tell them this, but most people who want to be writers have to be encouraged to read more. It's one of those weird anomalies. But the article writer, Rosemary Neill, never once asked any students - why are you doing it? Why are you studying writing, and not just sitting at home (for free) and doing it?

Maybe that's a whole other article, one that would be five times as long. Because we do ask that question of our students, and we get a dozen different answers. Everything from career change or following their passion to job skills (we are a professional writing and editing course) and wanting to learn something specific like researching and interviewing. Believe it or not, we actually ask this question in the selection interview, before they even get into the course! It's an important question. You might be surprised how many people don't give "getting published" as their first answer. It's usually in there somewhere, but most people are aware that their skills need improvement, and they want to learn the craft. It's a great start.

It's All Useful

Years ago, I attended a screenwriting course. It was over three or four Saturdays (can't remember exactly now) and although we did watch a movie or two, mostly the lecturer talked and gave us handouts and homework. At the time, I thought I might try my hand at writing screenplays. I'd written a play (a teen rock musical with a composer), a bad movie script, and dabbled a bit, but I knew I needed to know a lot more before I could have a serious try at it. So I went along to this course.

I couldn't tell you now (without going back to my folder of notes, because I never throw anything out) what I learned about screenwriting in terms of formatting and opportunities and stuff like that, but I have never forgotten the work we did in that class on character psychology. It was the first time I'd ever worked hard on character motivations in terms of who they were inside their head and why. Abandonment, fear of intimacy, abusive parents, alcoholic parents, power plays, control freaks - I think I learned more in that class than I've learned anywhere since.

Have I written a screenplay since? No. But every piece of fiction I've written has included, in some shape or form, psychological backstory and motivation. I now research my characters in terms of psychology and what makes them tick. I know that I need to make sure that how they are behaving right now is consistent with past events and the effects of those events. Today I was researching the effects on a male character of consistent physical beatings as a child and teenager. Something in my story wasn't adding up when I wrote about this character, and I realised it was because I didn't really understand where he'd come from, and what the long-term effects of that abuse might be.

I say might because if you read any psychology articles or texts, the first thing they'll say is that no one can predict the outcome of a particular experience. There are a number of factors that influence what might happen later. But it's very easy as a writer to say, "Oh yes, this happened and so later on he does this, and is like that" without actually verifying that a drug addiction (for example) is a possible/probable outcome later on. The character could have become a hitman! Or committed suicide. Or suffered anxiety attacks and withdrawn from the world. But you need to know what the range of possibilities are.

So this screenwriting course introduced me to how to create psychological depth in characters. Great stuff! Writing short stories for adults over the years has taught me how to write tightly plotted, pacy chapter books for kids. Writing poetry has taught me heaps about imagery and metaphor, and using the best words in the best way. Writing radio plays taught me lots about strong dialogue. Studying a unit at university years ago on performance, that was mostly about how actors fill up the space on the stage, taught me a huge amount about action, dialogue and pacing.

I think if you want to write novels, don't limit yourself to just learning about how to write novels. Learning how to structure a screenplay will teach you lots about plot and cause/effect. Not to mention dialogue. Watching movies will teach you about showing and telling. How is that actor showing distress? Puzzlement? Embarrassment? Go and write some poems. Write lots of poems. Read lots of poems. Discover what language is capable of, if you use it effectively. And yeah, don't forget the grammar and punctuation stuff. That'll teach you how to write a sentence that says what you want it to, create the effect you want for the reader, without being obscure, overblown or confusing.

Where Did the Time Go?

I guess you have about the same number of hours in the day as I do - 24. Doesn't seem enough, most days, does it? I often wish for 28 or 30. But it's not going to happen anytime soon, and while I have had short periods of time over the past 6-7 weeks where I have been able to stay home and write (as opposed to going to work to earn money and NOT write), I've been thinking a lot about what happens to me when I do go to work. And do my 7 hours or so.

With all good intentions to come home and have a cup of tea and then buckle down to writing, what has happened is I come home and collapse into a comfy chair and my brain shuts down. I think the 6-7 weeks of some weeks at work and some weeks off (making up for the fact that I had to start back on 1 January while others were still cavorting, or camping, or chilling out) has given me a really good picture of my writing life. Or non-writing life.

I'm as clever as the next writer in coming up with excuses why I'm not writing. I was digging a ditch. I haven't been sleeping well. I had to clean the fridge. But all excuses aside, what I have seen in the past weeks is that when I have spent 7 hours at work, I don't write when I come home. Partly this is because I do spend 7 hours working. I have a part-time job, with a lot of things that have to get done, so we don't have lunch hours, for example. We have lunchtime meetings while we eat. Bad work practice, I know, but we are all part-timers and our department gets more done than most others with full-time staff. It helps that we love what we do, and we want to do it really well.

But it does mean that when I get home after a full day, I am stuffed. Maybe I'm getting old. Whatever. That's the reality. My brain says NO.
But right now, I am working on a revision of a novel that is important to me. It's working, it's developing, it's deepening. I can't afford to let the ball drop right now. I don't want to lose the momentum and the sense of being right inside this story and the characters. But I head back to work tomorrow, with no more time off in sight.

So, after some thought, I have decided that on the days I work (three of them each week, on average) I will have to get up very early and spend at least an hour on my revision before I go to work. I don't function exceptionally well before 7am, but it will be a lot better than being brain-dead at 5pm. It helps that my husband has just had his work hours changed and he'll be up at the same time (we'll fight for the shower first - something has to wake me up!). I may not last. I'm not a good morning person. But this is what has to happen for me to keep this revision humming along. Stay posted. I may, as my mother used to say, end up running off screaming into the bush.

Mailbox Problem

It doesn't really matter what's coming in today's mail - acceptances or rejection letters - when this is in there waiting. I did try to coax him out, but to no avail. He's obviously waiting for some important letter. I could spray him with insect killer but somehow I don't have the heart. So my husband can get him out for me. (You thought I was going to put my hand anywhere near that?)

Writers' Conferences

One of the best experiences for a writer is a writers' conference. It doesn't matter if you're new or more advanced, published or not, being among other writers who share your passion is inspiring. No more strange looks (you're writing about what?), no more sneers (so where did you say I can buy your books? nowhere yet?), no more guilt trips (what do you mean - you can't come to the beach/mall/playground with us, you're writing?), no more questions from family like "When are you going to get a real job?"

At a good writers' conference you'll get the following things:
1. You'll meet lots of other writers who feel just like you. You'll share experiences, the lows and highs, pass on good advice, re-inspire each other and make life-long friends. I know because that's happened to me!

2. You'll listen to other well-published writers speak and realise their paths to publication were long and tough, and what got them there was perseverance and hard work, not some magical, mystical talent. You'll realise that a little bit of talent goes a long way if you're prepared to listen, learn and practise, practise, practise. They'll inspire you too. I still remember Linda Sue Park and her two pages a day, no matter what. They'll also remind you that part of being a writer is to read, read, read.

3. You'll hear editors and publishers talking about what they might be looking for, what makes a manuscript stand out, what fads and trends are passing or passed, what their house publishes. They'll add to your market research (that you're already doing - right?) and put a human face on the rejection letters. They'll remind you that competent and pretty good doesn't cut it in the world today, and that you need to work hard to find your own story and tell it as only you can. They'll also remind you that they love books as much as you do, and they really are looking for new voices.

4. You'll also hear agents, hopefully two or three, talking about their business, how they work, what they're looking for. It'll sound a lot like editors, only more so.

5. You'll find new ideas springing into your mind, from things people say, things you see, things that pop into your dreams each night as you sleep after a long day of talking about writing and books. You'll take lots of notes, write down every idea that occurs to you, buy books that appeal to you, make a list of others to borrow from your library.

6. At a lot of conferences, you'll have a manuscript consultation option. If you've been working on a project and it's not ready, you may pass on the consult. But if you decide to take it up, you'll prepare the best submission you can, and think about what you want from the consult. No editor or agent will give you a contract on the spot, based on ten pages! But they might ask you to send the whole novel. They might ask you to talk about it more. They might ask you questions, about the novel and about you. Be ready. Make the most of it.

It's a good idea to "take stock" before a conference. What do you want from it? What can it give you? Why are you paying this money? Where do you sit in the row of writers that spans "complete newbie" to "well published". What advantages does that seat give you? What is going to be most useful to you in terms of sessions and talks? If you are published, is there a professional stream for you? (otherwise you are going to be bored by sessions that tell you what you already know). Are there agents and editors there you are interested in?

It's also a good idea to make a list of the things you are NOT going to do. 1. Drink too much and make a fool of yourself. You can almost guarantee that when you do, an important editor or agent will be in the audience. 2. Pitch yourself to agents and editors in their down-time when all they want is a drink and some peace and quiet. 3. Whine. It doesn't help, and it makes you look like a total amateur. 4. Show off, even when you have something to show. Say no more.

We have our second international SCBWI conference coming up in February in Sydney, and the program looks terrific. I love conferences, I love getting together with other writers, and I love coming home inspired all over again.

The Healthy Writer

We sit at our desks for long periods of time. We drink lots of coffee, maybe smoke, when we take a break (or even as we write). We eat chocolate or chips, or get fast food for dinner because we've got no time to shop and cook. We stay up late, night after night, or drag ourselves out of bed at dawn to write, because that's the only time we have in a busy family/work life.

The result of all of this is obvious. We are overweight, unfit and tired. Just like most of the population. We make resolutions to go to the gym, walk regularly, eat more fruit and veges, but it doesn't happen. Oh well, we sigh, just like everyone else.

Except we aren't like everyone else. When everyone else collapses on the weekend, or after dinner, and watches TV or naps, or goes out and parties, the serious writer is writing. Other people's R&R time is usually our writing time, especially if we have to work in a regular job to pay the bills. A writer who wants to write, and complete projects like novels and short story collections and film scripts, is writing when everyone else is chilling out.

The problem that arises from this is simply a physical and mental tiredness that stops you from writing at your best, and may often stop you from writing at all. I've blogged here before about how that tiredness influences everything about our writing, not just getting the words down on the page but also how you feel about them. If you are feeling bright and healthy and energetic, revision is a pleasure, not a pain. Rejections sting for a few minutes then you can shrug them off and move on. Words zing onto the page because you feel zingy!

What is the solution? Unfortunately, there is no magic wand for this stuff, but here are my thoughts on what makes me write better:

1. Sleep. I am an 8-9 hour a night person, and if I don't get good sleep, I fall in a heap very quickly. So I watch very little TV and go to bed early. Boring, huh? It works for me. I know there are people who insist they can survive well on 5 hours a night, but all the sleep studies now (and there are lots of them because scientists have realised what lack of sleep can do to us) show that it affects alertness, ability to process thoughts, ability to respond, moodiness, irritation, concentration, etc etc. It's actually quite scary what the effects are. Maybe they could add writer's block to the list.

2. Walking, or some form of exercise. It gets me off the chair, it lets my brain think more freely as I walk, it wakes me up, it gets me out in the world. I actually like walking in the rain (with an umbrella) better than anything. But I do have to force myself to do it some days, even though I know it will make me feel good.

3. Less coffee and alcohol. I limit coffee to one a day now, but it has to be a decent one. Not instant. And if I have it in a cafe while I'm writing or thinking about writing, even better. Alcohol - I'm always trying to do better there!

4. Where I write - making sure my computer use is not going to make my neck and shoulder condition worse, which was caused by that in the first place. So the chair and the desk and the keyboard and the monitor all need to be working for me, not against me.

5. Eating better. Skipping breakfast is silly. I've come to believe that breakfast sets you up for the whole morning. I hate lunch - it's the most boring meal of the day to me, but I try to have something with protein in it because of my iron and energy levels. Dinner is up to you! I hate sitting around after dinner feeling like a lump of lead is lying in my stomach, so if we've eaten something heavy, I'll go for a walk afterwards. That helps me sleep.

If I feel good physically, I feel great mentally. I want to write, my brain is full of ideas and words, I can tackle anything with energy and concentration. My biggest struggle is work - it exhausts me mentally and physically - but I can cope if I stay healthy. It's one of my big goals for this year, and I hope it feeds into my writing every day.

The Art of Revision

I've been doing more reading on revision this week, not just for myself but also for use in class. In trying to distill what you need to revise successfully, I came up with some pointers:

1. You have to read critically - that means read other published work. Books and stories in your genre or form, books outside your genre, any book that might give you a great or bad example of writing. Any book that does a good job of something you struggle with (at the moment, I'm working on deepening character - how to do this with a character who has a very hard outer shell). Read to see how accomplished writers work with words, with character, with plot, with theme. Stop reading just to put yourself to sleep at night and start reading as a writer. Learn from it. If you can't see what makes a great novel great, you'd better study it some more.

2. Find out how you can put distance between you and your writing. That might mean putting your story or novel away for a week, a month, a year, until you can look at it with a critical eye, and not fall in love with your own words again. It might mean reading it out loud to yourself, or onto a tape. It might mean psyching yourself into another mental realm and pretending that the novel wasn't written by you. Whatever works for you, whatever leads to you being able to cut ruthlessly or see where there are gaps and shallowness.

3. Learn to separate the stages of revision. Understand that there is structural revision (the big picture stuff) and revision on a paragraph by paragraph basis. And then there is line editing, on a word by word basis. That's where most people trim and tighten. Understand the difference between re-visioning and revision. Re-visioning means re-imagining your novel, seeing it in a new light, seeing other possibilities for it. That's where distance helps. It's also where mental space helps - it's almost a re-dreaming of your story, and that's not going to happen in half an hour, crammed into the end of the day.

4. Acknowledge to yourself, no matter how hard it might be, that fiddling around the edges and changing a few things here and there is not rewriting. True rewriting is retyping the whole thing from scratch, writing it as a new piece of work. You may refer to the original - some people don't even do that.

5. Only give it to a trusted reader or critique partner/group when you are sure you have done everything you possibly can, or are capable of at this point, to make it the best you can. Don't ask people to critique something that you know you can still work on, or something that is OK for plot but you haven't done the line editing. Why should they spend their time on your punctuation and grammar? Think about what you want or need from the critique. If you want to know if the voice works, say so. Ditto for plot, character, pacing. Make the best use of your critique person's time and energy.

6. Take your critiques seriously. Don't say, "Oh, they weren't good readers, they just didn't get what I was trying to do." If that's the case, that's your fault, not theirs. Take heed of all comments, consider them seriously. Some may be of no use to you. Most should at least raise the question of "Did I do that well enough? Why has that comment been made?" Don't take any critique personally. It's not about you, it's about the story.

7. If you have revised and revised and revised, learn to see when enough is enough. Do you want to revise again because you're too scared to send it out? Or do you really think another revision will help? If you are up to Draft 15, ask yourself what you are doing. Have you really done 15 drafts, or 15 "picking at the edges"? If the story isn't working after 15 drafts, you need to work out why not. You may have to abandon the story. It has still taught you an immense amount along the way. If you have to, let it go. Don't hang everything on one manuscript. Write more. That's what writers do.

8. If you revised a bit, sent it out and have 20 rejections, you have to make a decision. It's probably not publishable in its present state, but maybe only 100 rejections will convince you - how honest are you being about it? Is it fabulous? Is it a manuscript that sings? Or is it competent? Does it need another big revision? Suck it up. Do it. Or start something new.

Note: If it's a story that just won't leave you alone, you should keep working on it until it's fabulous. Otherwise it'll give you nightmares, interrupt your daydreams and intrude on your other writing.

The Wednesday Wars

I'm impatient. I hear about a great book and I can't wait weeks and weeks (months and months) for my local Borders to decide whether they're going to get it in from the US or not. So I order it on Amazon and then try to forget about it until the doorbell rings. I had heard a lot about The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt on the CCBC discussion list, and stopped reading the posts in the end when people started picking it to bits and giving away the story (I hate that - I always stop when they give spoiler warnings).

Last week, the Newbery Medal was given to a poetry book (yaaayyy!), Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! that hardly anyone had heard of. That's the nature of awards. The Wednesday Wars was an Honour Book. I started reading it and finished it in two days. I would've finished it in one day but I wanted to think about it and savour what was happening in the story. And now that I've finished, I'm still thinking about it. This morning, I was explaining to my friend G what it was about, what happens, what the characters' journeys are, and I realised that by doing this, I was seeing even more things in the book than I had on my own (I guess this is why some people join book groups, not just for the wine and socialising!).

To sum it up, I loved this book. Its most successful element, I think, is the narrator's perspective - how the writer has created a character who really does see the world as a seventh grade boy would. He believes the teacher hates him, he doesn't see that his father is a selfish, bigoted man, he doesn't understand his own abilities and capacity for learning about life, he can't see the point of reading Shakespeare. Yet, on his journey through the story, he gradually comes to understand all of these things, and more. He comes to see the possibilities of his place in the world, that he doesn't have to be what others want to force him to be.

That is a pretty amazing accomplishment in any novel. To slowly but surely unravel a character and depict him learning how to sort out what and who he is ... I'm not going to say that this is amazing for a middle grade novel, because I have read lots of middle grade and YA novels that accomplish this in such depth and subtlety that they leave many adult novels for dead. It is simply a wonderful novel. For a reader of any age.

I have also realised that what I don't like in children's fiction is a writer who feels they need to spell everything out. Kids are not dumb. There have been posts from teachers and librarians who have kids who love The Wednesday Wars. The same way they love The Dark is Rising, Northern Lights, Bridge to Terabithia, in fact any novel that invites them into the story by giving them room to imagine, speculate, wonder and work stuff out for themselves. That's why those novels last and the mass market series that are churned out, two or four a month, don't. There are some series that will endure (look at Little House on the Prairie) because the writers were passionate about the stories they were telling, and the themes continue to resonate. But I doubt any series that is written to a set formula will last beyond five or ten years. I guess that's the nature of the marketplace at any time, isn't it?