Me and the MFA

Have you ever had something you dreamed about for years, something that you secretly pined for every time you saw an article about it, or perhaps an advertisement? Usually these are things that are more than just another purchase like a big TV – they’re something that calls to you, that you know will expand your imagination, your world and your ability to create.

For me, it’s been an MFA. A Master of Fine Arts degree.

With this has always come huge obstacles. I live in Australia and MFAs are only offered at universities in the USA. They cost a lot of money, more than a Masters degree in Australia, plus I’d have to pay air fares on top of that.

When I first starting thinking seriously about studying again, I looked at the alternatives. Back then, you had to live in the US for two years while you studied, and I couldn’t see how that would be possible. But no university in Australia seemed to be offering a Masters the way I wanted to study it – as a writer, not as an academic who is also writing a novel. And by the time I started getting really serious about this dream, two more things became part of the decision-making.

One was that my writing career had moved very decidedly into writing for children and young adults, and there was very definitely nowhere in Australia where I could pursue this speciality. The other was that many universities in the US had begun to offer low-residency MFAs. Rather than have to live there for two years, I could go for 12 day residencies and do the rest of my study online. More air fares but a lot less in living expenses!

Over the past three years, I’ve felt myself creeping slowly towards the real possibility that I could do an MFA. The final stage was attending the Association of Writing Programs conference in Denver in April 2010. There I was able to talk to faculty at three of the five universities offering a low-residency MFA in writing for children and young adults, and make a decision.

So – in two weeks I am off to Hamline University in Minneapolis-Saint Paul to begin my studies! One of the attractions of Hamline is that I can begin with a one-semester block and if, for some reason (like finances), I can’t continue, that’s OK with them. Another was the friendliness of their faculty member I spoke to, and the great answers she gave me to all my questions.

Some of you who know me will probably be asking – why on earth do I want to study writing when I have been teaching writing for twenty years and have 45 books published? Because I firmly believe that there is always more to learn about writing, and that I still have plenty of room to improve! I’ve felt as though I’ve been on a bit of a writing plateau for the past few years, and I want to get off it.

I’ve found in the past that intensive study always lifts me into new ideas and new ways of writing. The summer school I attended at CSU Fresno in 2002, for example, led me into writing verse novels.

So along the way, as part of this experience, I want to write about and reflect on what I’m learning, and I’m going to post some of those reflections here. I hope you’ll come along for the voyage with me.

How Has Your Bookbuying Changed?

The discussions lately in Australia have not been so much about ebooks, but about how online bookbuying is killing bricks-and-mortar bookstores. Readings has launched into offering their own ebook option for buying. Amazon has been offering Kindle ebooks here for a while (depending on what territory rights have been sold). But the big panic now seems to be about how many people are buying physical books online. Borders and A&R have now gone into full receivership and it looks like all Borders stores and many A&Rs will close. Is online buying the problem?

I had a think about what I buy these days. I am buying less in the bookstore, for sure. Why? Because I have less money! Like many people in the past couple of years, what they call "discretionary spending" (stuff that is not rent or food) has shrunk for me and my husband. Not just because of the GEC but for other reasons, too. Such as my royalties shrinking (I guess that's GEC-related...) and the fact we have less income for other reasons. So I'm using my public library a lot more. Thank goodness for libraries! But I do love my local indie, the Sun Bookshop, and try to support other indies as well.

But when I looked at my online bookbuying pre-2010, not much has changed. What I buy online are mostly the kinds of books I can't get in bookstores here. Here is a list of what I tend to buy, and why:

* Writing books (like Plot vs Character that I bought recently after hearing about it from a friend) - for a while, Borders stocked a lot of these and then stopped.
* Poetry books (most bookstores here, even Borders at its best, had virtually no poetry I was interested in; Collected Works usually would have to order in, but they are the best).
* Old children's classics that I need for study.
* New children's and YA books that I know either won't be published here or will arrive here in about a year's time.
* New Zealand titles - Australian booksellers are terrible at stocking NZ books!

If I want a crime novel - my favourite recreational reading - I'll buy the ones I want to keep from bookstores and borrow the others from the library. The library is also great for trying out new authors. Who knew JD Robb's crime novels were set in 2060? Not me until I picked one off the library shelf. That's how I also discovered PJ Tracy.

But most of my online bookbuying is of books I can't easily buy in a bookstore here (if at all). They're overseas titles, or out of print. These purchases aren't taking anything away from my local booksellers. Yes, I do use bookdepository.co.uk a lot of the time, for the same reason. Australian online booksellers often don't have what I want, either. I go where I can get what I want, quickly, at a reasonable price.

Actually, my current gripe with Australian online booksellers is their freight costs for overseas customers. I've given up recommending any of them (Fishpond, Boomerang, Nile) to friends and interested readers in the USA and UK for Australian books, because they all charge between $20 and $30 postage! Our books are already more expensive than overseas. So a copy of Meet Rose (one of my titles from Our Australian Girl - Penguin) would cost my US friend $48! Can you blame me for buying a copy down the street and posting it to her for $3?

So how has your bookbuying changed? Are you into ebooks yet? Are you buying from overseas sellers, or sticking close to home?

Geoff Goodfellow - Waltzing with Jack Dancer

If you've ever heard Geoff Goodfellow read his poetry, or indeed if you've read any of his books, you know his style - straight, uncompromising, accessible, real. Waltzing With Jack Dancer takes Geoff's work a step further forward, I think. I sat down with it the other day, intending to read a few poems and come back to it later, and ended up reading the whole thing in one sitting.

For many people, cancer is a confronting experience, whether you have it yourself or someone close to you does. It's like the elephant in the room - do you talk about it, or do you pretend it's not happening and put on a cheery face? I could say this is a confronting book, simply because it's about Geoff's cancer (throat) and his road through operations, chemo and radiation therapy, but there's something about it - probably Geoff's gritty, straight take on things - that makes it engaging and enlightening. And not at all sentimental.

As well as the terrific poems (it's a verse novel), there is a strong, moving piece by his daughter, Grace, in the last section. This is Geoff's cancer and treatment from the point of view of close family, and it's equally honest. Randy Larcombe's photos add an often startling visual aspect to the story. Geoff was kind enough to answer some questions for me via email.

Did you start writing the poems for this book when you were diagnosed? Or are they more about remembering and reflecting?

I didn’t start writing the poems when I was first diagnosed, I was too shell-shocked. When I appeared in an operating theatre for a biopsy several weeks later, my surgeon told me he was aware that I was a poet. He recommended that I should be writing about my experience, particularly in respect to the mis-diagnosis and poor treatment that I had encountered to that point. That set me thinking, but it was some weeks later, lying in bed at home recovering from the major neck dissection, that I began to write.

How hard was it to write without being melodramatic or distancing yourself? (I know this is not your style anyway, but this could have been different!)

I like to give a lot of thought to the topic I’m intending to write about before I put a sheet of paper in front of me. I don’t want to be melodramatic – rather, I want to be honest, create some imagery and tell a good story.

The book feels like a verse novel - it tells a story. Were you conscious of that?

Initially I thought I was going to write a novel about my experiences. I lay in bed for some weeks thinking about how I was going to record my story and I was convinced that I should write it as a prose memoir. However, on 3rd May 2008 when I felt ready to write, the words came out as poetry and I knew that I had to follow that path. My first poem was ‘The Seventh Doctor’ and that set the pattern for another book of poetry. I was conscious of the fact that I wanted to structure the book as a verse novel and tell my story in a chronological form. The poems weren’t written in the order of the book but were written randomly and were arranged by my editor.

I love 'The Seventh Doctor' - it feels like an expose of the public health system! Although it's clear how you felt when it was happening, the poem doesn't feel raw and spitting - it's a very crafted piece. Can you describe the writing of this one?

The first draft of ‘The Seventh Doctor’ was written over a five hour block; from 6pm through to 1am, as I lay in bed. I’d given my daughter strict instructions that I wasn’t going to be taking any phone calls or accepting visitors that night. I’d been structuring the poem in my head all day and had the rhythm of the poem ready to go onto the page. The poem then went through a couple of typed drafts before I met with my editor, Graham Rowlands. (We have worked together for my twenty-five year career and I trust his judgement.) We sat around on his back lawn in the winter sun one afternoon and discussed the poem and I went away and re-worked some parts of the poem. They were small but significant changes. I kept playing with the poem too, for another year, making subtle changes, and after six drafts I knew I’d exhausted possibilities for myself.

Who is the book for? (apart from yourself and Grace) What do you think readers will get from it? Have you had any reactions from those who read the manuscript?

I conceived the book as an aid for anyone wanting to understand what it might be like to receive a diagnosis of cancer. But it’s also for their family members and their friends. People are terrified of cancer, and rightly so. Most cancer patients are socially isolated because people avoid them because they don’t know what to say to them - or they are worried that they will be too confronted by what they see. A lot of people are unfortunately going to get cancer and this book can provide them with a preview of what might be expected. And knowledge is power.

What do you think the photos add?

The photos provide a great visual insight into the treatment and portray me in a vulnerable state in a way in which words might not quite have succeeded. They are revealing photos to accompany revealing poems and prose.

Whose idea was it to include Grace's story? What do you think it adds to the book?

Grace’s story ‘The C Word’ was given to me on Christmas morning 2010 as my present. After opening the story I sat at the kitchen table and wept as I read her account. I had to read her story in bits and pieces throughout the day…and by the time I‘d finished reading it I felt convinced it should accompany my poems and be part of the collection. Once Michael Bollen had read the story, he too believed it should book-end the poetry. Grace’s story adds a great cross-generational emphasis and as my books often appear in classrooms as class sets for senior students, it provides a model for young and aspiring writers to trade off their own experiences and to lay words on the page using innovative formats.

How is your voice now? Performance is such a big part of your poetry - have you changed the way you read?

I’ve had a prosthesis installed, a synthetic voice box, which has been tuned to suit my original voice tone. If I speak in a ‘normal conversational tone’ most people wouldn’t notice my voice to be appreciably different. However, if I try to raise my voice from say a ‘Three’ to an ‘Eight’ my voice will be quite crackly and full of static! My new work is quieter…I’ve structured it that way. But the poems are perhaps even more powerful than the voice of the Geoff Goodfellow from the mid-80s…it’s just that the power is like the new Geoff… it’s more controlled.

Back to me: Waltzing with Jack Dancer is available, of course, at all good bookshops. But there are 200 limited edition hardback copies available through the Wakefield Press site - the site also has an extract of the book and footage from the book launch.

Writing Competitions - Yay or Nay?

At the moment there are several short story competitions being promoted, with large prize money on offer. One of these is run by Australian Book Review - the Elizabeth Jolley Prize which is worth $5000. When you look at the shortlist from last year, you may well wonder if it was worth entering. After all you'd be up against the likes of Cate Kennedy! But the site gives you the opportunity to read last year's stories on the shortlist and there was a Readers' vote award, too. But the thing that will make many newer writers pause is the entry fee - $16. If you're up against such stiff competition, is it worth the money to enter?

It's a good question. In fact, it's a good question to ask about any competition that requires an entry fee. How big is the competition? Is the fee too much? $16 is a lot to many writers, especially students or those on low incomes. The long-running Alan Marshall Short Story Award (closed two weeks ago) had an entry fee of $15. However, many of the smaller competitions have smaller entry fees. Try this site to have a look at what is open at the moment. For example, the Katherine Susanna Pritchard which is for speculative fiction (short stories) has an entry fee of $7 and a first prize of $600. Is it starting to sound a bit like a lottery?

What are the advantages of entering a competition, whether it's fiction or poetry?
* It gives you a deadline to get something written, revised and sent off.
* If the competition has a specific theme, it can provide a good challenge.
* Hey, you might win or get a placing!
* Sometimes a number of the best entries are published in a book (but not often).
* Judges are subjective, even if they deny it. Your story may strike a chord with the judge (but it still needs to be well-written). To me, this is the lottery part of it. You just never know.

What are the downsides?
* It usually costs money to enter (The Age Short Story Award is one of the few that doesn't charge a fee - maybe that's why they get about 1400 entries!).
* The bigger competitions are the ones that the more experienced writers enter so you're up against them.
* Unlike magazines that send you a rejection or acceptance note, you rarely hear from competition organisers unless you have won. It can feel like sending your work off into the never-never.

How do you decide what to do?
If you are a newer writer, start with the smaller competitions. Check the entry conditions very carefully. Not obeying the rules, even if they seem silly or pedantic, can lead to your entry being discarded. Choose a competition that sounds good to you - one where the entry fee is smaller but the prizes are still worthwhile. (Avoid a competition with a $10 fee, for example, and a $200 first prize.) Write something for your entry, give yourself plenty of time to revise and polish it up, and send it off. Keep doing this. And when you don't win (which is likely - it is a lottery!) then polish it again and send it off to a magazine instead.
Or save it for the Age competition!

Have You Been to Booktown?

Today I went to Clunes in country Victoria, where each May they hold a Booktown weekend. Over the past few years, more and more bookshops have opened in this old town, and during Booktown, many more come in and set up and sell (mostly secondhand) books. Kind of like a mini Hay. Clunes Booktown has the perfect venue, as there are many historic buildings that are "unrenovated" and they add to the feel of old books and historic happenings.

What the Booktown organisers have also done is add a variety of writers' events to the weekend, including soirees, master classes and talks. As I'd not been to a writing class of any kind for quite a while, I decided to sign up for the master class with Peter Corris. I've been a fan of his Cliff Hardy crime novels for a long time and was keen to hear what he had to say. I have to confess that I went along with some trepidation. Everyone has a different idea of what a "master class" should be, and we were specifically told NOT to bring manuscripts. Hmmm...

The limit for the class was 10, and in the end there were four of us, plus Peter. We settled in a circle of old armchairs and waited to see what he would say. It turned out to be over an hour of simply talking about the ins and outs of writing crime and historical fiction. Relaxed, informative, insightful and enjoyable! We all got to ask every burning question we had, we got to talk a little about our own trials and tribulations in writing our novels, but mostly we listened to Peter talk about how he does it (and isn't that what we always seek - the experiences of others who've been around longer than us and gone through it all many times?).

Some of the things I can share include: Peter never writes outlines - he starts with Cliff Hardy and a client with a problem, and goes from there. I was interested in how he perceives the PI novel, with a very simple structure I'll share with my class one day! He talked about pacing, how much information and characterisation to put in, and how he thinks the writer firstly charms the reader (with that stuff) and then grabs them with immediate action. He used to write a Hardy novel in about six weeks, and now it takes him 9-10 weeks (and he mentioned Simenon who wrote Maigret novels in 48 hours!).

It's easy to sum up the time with a few quotes, but I came away feeling as though I had received some great insights, and confirmation that really, when it comes down to it, we all have to write our novels in our own way. What counts most is finishing them, seeing your vision through to the end. Peter said he thought that whatever we are writing, it needs to matter to us, and I agree.
(How many books did I buy? Two. Must be a record for me!)

Where Are Ebook Sales in Australia?

Statistics are flying around the net at the moment, quoting large publishers such as Hachette and Random House as saying ebook sales are up to 22%. Of what? Or do they mean by? A Google search revealed nothing. But I suspect these kinds of figures are going to be flung around for the forseeable future until things settle down, and goodness knows when that will be. Every second day I seem to get an email from Barnes & Noble that wants me to buy the new colour Nook. Not much point really, as a lot of the books I might want are not published in Australia, and copyright laws prevent me from downloading them from US sites as an ebook.

Where does this kind of restriction leave us in Australia? Even if you have a Kindle, you still can't download Kindle books that don't comply with the copyright laws. It hardly matters if you want the latest bestsellers, but if you don't, it's easy to find yourself with nothing to buy. Back to "real" books then. I wonder how Australia is going to fare over the next 2-3 years. People are jumping onto ebooks with great speed, there's no doubt about that, wherever you get your statistics. And it's also hardly surprising that ebooks are taking over from hardbacks (traditionally how most books in the US get published first).

We don't do many hardbacks here. So our competition is between trade paperbacks (currently selling at $32-39 each) and ebooks, with ebooks still behind, I'd say. Although the iPad2 might change that. So what is happening here? You can get an "Australian" Kindle, you can buy an iPad2 or 1, there are various cheap ereaders around (that are pretty hopeless). But where do we get our ebooks? Do we download the software from Readings site and go with their platform? I would bet if you asked people what DRM is, hardly anyone would know (it's a formatting thing that supposedly is to stop you "stealing" ebooks).

At least if you want to self-publish an ebook, it's easy to do. Either on your own or through sites such as Smashwords or Bookbaby. It's the thing to do right now, especially if you think you can generate enough publicity and word-of-mouth to sell several thousand copies. Industry pundits are saying that the rush of self-published ebooks will fade as readers sort out the good from the truly awful. I'm not so sure - a visit to any large bookshop will soon show you how many books are being published the traditional way. How do we find these?

My feeling is that Australia is still way behind on ebooks, and not catching up. I looked up Cate Kennedy's new poetry book today - The Taste of River Water. It's available as a book for $24.95 from both Scribe and the Readings site, but also available as an ebook from Readings (but not Scribe) for $14.99. In fact, most Readings ebooks are around $15. But when I went and looked them up on various publishers' sites, many of the same books are only listed as paperbacks. Or, in the case of Random House Australia, their ebooks are listed as being available from Amazon.

It's all very messy really, and it'll be interesting to see if and how things change over the next year or two. Because if there's one thing you can guarantee, this is an area of huge change at the moment - the question is - change to what? And what will it mean to both readers and authors?

What Does a Board Book Do?

Over the past few years, my extended family has grown to include the next generation of littlies - my grand-niece and -nephew and two step-granddaughters. Naturally, I always want to buy them books! But when they're under two, what do you buy? Board books, usually. Those ones made out of thick, sturdy cardboard pages that can be chewed, dribbled on and thrown around the room. Not to mention read about 200 times. I don't think my niece has ever forgiven me for Moo Baa La La La (by Sandra Boynton). She said she could hear it in her head!

But what makes a good board book? Not just indestructability. I've stood in front of the board book section in bookshops for hours, pulling out one after another and despairing at how banal they are. Maybe I'm expecting too much, but maybe also some publishers are starting to realise they can do more than just present an array of farmyard animals or dogs or numbers. It's why I love Sandra Boynton's board books, and why I have my own copy (not for lending) of But Not the Hippopotamus. It does everything a good picture book does, include a surprise funny ending. That's my kind of board book!

Recently I was sent a board book for review*, and it did have a lot of the features that make it worth reading. Lulu's Lunch is written by Camilla Reid and illustrated by Ailie Busby, which is interesting as I'd say 98% of board books are written by the illustrator. The story is very simple - what Lulu has for lunch - but the extra in this book is the stuff you can touch. I emailed my niece to ask her, "Did your kids like board books that had things to touch on them?" Her answer was yes, so I guess that adds extra points. I wasn't so sure about the spaghetti at the end (wriggly string). I gave it a couple of good tugs but it might not last the distance with a strong toddler. There are also some lift-the-flap pages to add interaction.

It's not a fabulous board book but it is interesting and provides a fair amount of interaction - that's got to be better than more TV, surely?
I suspect there's a real skill to writing board books. They could be harder even than picture books, and as I can't illustrate, it means that most publishers wouldn't be interested in anything I wrote. Have any of you had a board book published? What was your experience?
If you'd like to go in the draw for a copy of Lulu's Lunch, just leave a comment!
(*By Bloomsbury)

Different Jobs, Different Skills

Recently I found myself in a completely new situation - a hospital, to be exact. Among other things, being confined in one place with not much to do and nowhere to go forces you into a lot of quiet thinking time (when people are not poking holes in your arms or machines aren't beeping!). And also quiet observation time. You get to see and hear stories from people that you mightn't otherwise come across, let alone have time to really listen to. And you get to see people hard at work in an entirely different profession.

A remark by my doctor stuck with me for a long time. He said, "In here, everyone has to do things by the book. Whoever comes along after needs to know exactly what came before." He was referring to records kept of medications and treatments, of course. But it started me thinking about how different our jobs are. In the hospital, it's vital that everyone does things exactly the same way. In the writing world, it's the kiss of death. Editors are after something original, the fresh, different new voice. If we all wrote the same way, we'd end up with a pretty boring bunch of books out there.

But the other side is also true. In medicine, sometimes it's a sudden insight or inspiration (maybe even waking up in the middle of the night) that can shed light on what seemed unsolvable. In medical research, no doubt it can be the same. For all the plodding through experiments, a flash of inspiration can provide the breakthrough. And in writing, for all we want to create something original and different, we still have to be proficient at the rules of grammar (so readers can understand us clearly), and we still have to be professional in how we submit and present our work. That way, we are taken seriously.

The key is to know when the rules are helping, and when they are hindering. Free writing with no punctuation or grammar can break through a writing block. Flowery paper and scrolly writing in a submission letter will make you look like an amateur. A deadline can be overwhelming for one writer and stimulating for another. I know with historical fiction that the line between providing a rich background and being over the top with my factual material is a thin one indeed! What rules help you? Which ones hinder you?

Whose Fault Is It If I Don't Understand?

Two writer friends raised the same issue today, and both were talking about poetry. What do we do when we read a poem that we don't understand? Is it our fault, or the poet's? This question often comes up when talking about the poem published in our Saturday newspaper here in Melbourne, The Age. Most readers and writers of poetry that I know just shake their heads each week. What am I supposed to get from this poem? they ask. I don't understand it, no matter how many times I read it. Am I dumb?

I'm teaching poetry again this year, after a long break, and I think it's a good issue to raise. Sometimes in workshopping I've had a student who insisted that if the others didn't understand the poem, that's just too bad. No changes, no compromises. But at the point at which you put a poem out to the world, or even just one reader, isn't what you are hoping for is communication? Surely as soon as you want or ask for a reader, you are trying to show or tell them something.

In class, we've been reading some of Ted Kooser's book, The Poetry Home Repair Manual, and discussing the points he makes. One is: If a poem doesn't make sense to anyone but its author, nobody but its author will care a whit about it. He also says: I favor poems that keep the obstacles between you and that person [your reader] to a minimum. I agree, and I think some poets are deliberately obscure, and deliberately use language that creates obstacles. Does this mean they don't care about their readers?

Kooser suggests that some poets write difficult poems because they think that's the way to be a poet, and that in some circles, writing poems that are accessible is sneered at. But he agrees that many people give up on poetry because they think it's too much like hard work, in the same way that readers stop reading literary fiction because, at the end of a long working day, they don't want to be challenged, they want to escape. A difficult poem will require you to think, to ponder, and to puzzle (and sometimes to look words up). A deliberately obscure poem, however, won't even let you close enough to read it with a basic level of comprehension.

The reason poetry teachers use Kooser's and Billy Collins' poems so often in the classroom is because they are wonderful examples of how to write something that's both accessible on a first reading and also offers deeper levels if you want to dive in. Ultimately, once a poem is out there, whoever reads it will take from it what they want. They will interpret it in their own way, from their own experiences, and create their own meanings.

As a poet, I want to open the door for the reader, not slam it shut in their face. I hope that my verse novels will cause a child to welcome poetry in the future rather than grimace whenever it's mentioned! (I've seen that awful expression many times!) But I also, as a writer, want to challenge myself. I don't want to write poems that are easy for me. I want to experiment and explore, swoop and dive into language and imagery. But still, ultimately, to remember the person on the other side of the door.

Ebooks and Libraries

One snippet of news that skimmed past me recently was about publishers who want libraries to pay more for ebooks. Specifically, pay more money once they've lent the ebook out a certain number of times. I think 26 times was quoted as a figure, but I can't remember which publisher/s (hence the 'skimmed'). This set me thinking about how libraries pay for books, and what publishers receive.

I can see why a publisher might want to make more money this way. After all, the ebook is going to be lent electronically with no damage, whereas a hardcover or paperback tends to start falling apart after 20 or 30 borrowings (especially if a borrower drops it in the bath, for example). So a well-borrowed book might need to be replaced, and in that case, the publisher would get more money. You can kind of see their logic.

But ... that's likely to only happen for the Grishams, Roberts, Pattersons and Meyers, surely. What about all the books a library buys (and they buy lots of hardcovers that most of us can't afford) that don't get borrowed 40 times? That might only go out of the library 10 times and still be in good condition for many years? Doesn't it really even out in the long run? What do you think?

Need Some Writer's First Aid?

I first met Kristi Holl back in 2004 at the Chatauqua Writers' Workshop, where she was on the faculty and critiqued my novel. Right away, I thought she was someone whose advice I could trust - it was clearly from long experience! I bought a copy of her book, Writer's First Aid, and was impressed - here was a book about the writing life and how to manage it. Lots of what she wrote in WFA stuck with me, especially the stuff on writing better by being a healthy writer.

Now, after four years of thrice-weekly posts on her Writer's First Aid blog (which has 60,000 subscribers!), she's published a new collection - More Writer's First Aid, and I was lucky enough to read an advance copy recently. So then I had to ask her a few questions!

l. Who is this book aimed at?

It may sound presumptuous to say this, but I truly think the book is aimed at all writers, no matter where they are in their career. Maybe because it has surprised me personally, but over the years I’ve realized that some writing issues never change: finding time, dealing with rejection, juggling families and day jobs, and all the other life issues that can derail our writing dreams. Because I write about those subjects, and those things apply to every writer I know, I believe the book is for all writers.

2. What kinds of aspects of writing does it cover?

The 48 articles are grouped under four subject headings: ENJOYING THE WRITING LIFE—EVERY DAY, WRITING HABITS THAT HELP YOU, A WRITER’S EMOTIONS and FAMILY MATTERS. I cover similar kinds of topics to my first writing book, WRITER’S FIRST AID, but in addition, I felt the “family matters” section was important to add. So many writers today are juggling family members along with their writing—from babies to adult children who have moved home. Other writers are dealing with family members who are sick, those newly retired, you name it. And unless we learn how to set boundaries and juggle our writing schedule to meet family demands, we are too likely to give up the writing—or be miserable while doing it. My goal is for writers to enjoy their writing life! Besides family and health issues, I also wanted to cover areas that weren’t an issue when I wrote the first writing book: social media, e-mail and Internet issues, online platforms—and the writing time it can steal from us.

3. Why did you write it?

I have heard so much in recent months about the “e-book revolution” and the future of e-books and how Kindles (and other formats) are outselling paper books online, etc. I wanted to try doing an e-book/Kindle version and see!

4. What do you hope writers will gain from reading it?

We writers are all in this together. You don’t stop having writing issues to deal with just because you get published—or even published a lot. We all deal with disappointment, writer jealousy, emotional and physical pain, procrastination, tiredness… Study after study has shown that the writers who succeed are NOT the writers with the most talent and are NOT the writers who “know someone important in publishing.” They are simply the writers who didn’t give up. I hope readers gain a “don’t give up” attitude from reading MORE WRITERS’S FIRST AID.

So if you want a copy direct from Kristi, click here. And if you want a Kindle version (because of course you have a Kindle!), you'll find it on Amazon. Yes, I know Kristi personally, and yes, I do recommend it!

To Review or Not to Review?

When I first started this blog, it was destined to be my own personal reading record of books I loved and hated, with comments. I read tons of books and when someone would ask me for a recommendation, my mind would go blank! So a blog seemed like a good idea. This was about six years ago, so it really only was just for me. Then I started to add stuff about writing, and teaching writing, and it grew.

Now things are changing again, and I'm having to think very carefully about content and audience, which of course is what most writers do about everything they write! I've been contacted now by several publishers asking me if I'd be interested in reviewing their books. Well, yes. And no. Because previously I had focused on books I either loved (like "Matterhorn") or hated (like "Twilight") - from a writer's point of view.

So today my first two "review" copies arrived. And I have had to think seriously about what I am going to do (I think we can assume I have now declared my "position" as required by US law). If I hate a book, usually my response is to say why, or ignore it. What if I hate everything publishers send me? (It's possible.) I guess I am going to continue being myself - looking at each book from the POV of a writer. What works, what doesn't, and why. That's my "thing".

But there will no doubt be books that I can't say anything about, good or bad. They're just ... books. People complain about bad reviews in newspapers and magazines, while others say any publicity is good publicity. I thought - what if every newspaper or mag had the policy - if we don't like it, we won't review it. But then if your book never got reviewed, you would have to assume they hated it. What a downer! (You can tell I'm still thinking like an author, can't you?)

Regardless of all of that, this is not now a review blog. I include my reviews now and then when I think they will be useful (or I love a book and have to tell you about it). We'll see how we go ...

How Accurate Do We Have to Be?

Last night, against my better judgement, I watched A Current Affair on Channel 9. For those of you not living in Australia, it pretends to be a current affairs show, dealing with "news of the moment" that affects "ordinary people" (my quote marks, not theirs - goodness knows what they think they're doing). I usually avoid this show, and its twin on Channel 7, as they have proven time and again that what they show is either a beat-up or something manufactured out of very little.

I watched because they previewed a guy who is battling with his council over vegetation and trees. I was interested, having had similar experiences. What I got, instead of a decent news story with information and facts, was this:
* people interviewed who were never identified
* the council concerned was never identified, apart from one muffled voice during a film clip that mumbled "Redlands" (I think)
* a camera crew following around police officers and council officers with no real information about what they were doing or why.

Is this supposed to be reporting? Barbara Cartland gave more facts in one of her historical romance novels than this TV show gave in their "news" coverage. As a writer of historical fiction for younger readers, I try really, really hard to get my facts right, and to slip them into my (fictional) narratives. Today, for example, I was looking again at a map of Melbourne in 1900 to make sure the Fitzroy Gardens were called that at the time. Yesterday I spent more than half an hour tracking the history of the Church Street bridge across the Yarra River. Because I didn't want my characters driving their buggy across a bridge that didn't exist back then.

I'm sure all of the Our Australian Girl writers do the same amount of research as me. When I work on my big pirate novel, Pirate X, I try my hardest to make sure the information, which is the very real background, is as accurate as I can get it. It continually astounds me how people put up with the shoddy, inaccurate reporting that our commercial channels dish up as "news". Is turning off the TV enough of a protest? I don't think so. So I emailed them. And silence was the stern reply!

When the Bestseller Eclipses Your Other Books

Today I finished reading Lionel Shriver's novel, So Much for That. I had wanted to read it for a while, simply because I loved We Need to Talk About Kevin (which is about a fictional school massacre, told by the killer's mother in letters). The thing was, I'd read several reviews of So Much For That, and all of them had been quite lukewarm. It's the kind of thing that puts you off buying a book, sadly, and so I got my copy from the library.

Of course, it's not the same story. Kevin is an amazing novel that had me engaged and stunned (in equal parts) from the beginning, not just for the subject matter but also for the insights, the style, the depth and its ability to really, confrontingly, make you think about what it means to be a parent. It was a book that stayed with me long after. But So Much For That has the same depth, the same lingering after-effects. It deals with, among other things, what it's like for a family with a member dying horribly of cancer, and the cost of the US health system and the farce of their health insurance system.

The characters are very real, with many flaws, but never unlikeable. No, this book didn't have the same impact on me that Kevin did, but I still thought it was terrific, and didn't deserve the lukewarm reviews. Is this the legacy of a bestseller?

I thought about different bestsellers that I'd read - Cold Mountain, The Shipping News, Snow Falling on Cedars, The God of Small Things - and what having a major bestseller means to the author's other books. Even if they've sold well before, or there had been other good ones since, somehow they all pale against The Big One. I've read lots of author interviews and what comes through a lot of the time is a weary impatience that this should be so.

It must feel like having several children you love equally but all anyone ever asks you about is the one who won an Olympic gold medal! And if that major bestseller is your first novel, how pressured an author must feel to 'do it again', knowing that it's probably not possible. Still, if nothing else, the bestseller usually sets you up for a great many years of writing without having to worry about how you'll pay the next power bill!

A Writer's Nightmare - Hard Drive Failure

It's been an eventful week here in the computer room. It started on Wednesday with what we thought was a virus. Several long, extensive scans later, nothing major showed up. And then my computer stopped working. It wouldn't start up and kept looping but wouldn't go any further than the motherboard information screen. Without going into boring details, we tried everything but to no avail, so a computer expert was called in. I found a company on the net called Geeks2U who promised to send someone the next day.

The verdict was a corrupted hard drive. Which meant a lot of stuff was lost. Including all of my emails. The tech guy got a fair amount back (and we extracted a lot more later with a different program) but basically I was faced with the nightmare that all writers dread - loss of files. I had been using a back-up program but it was set to automatic and if the computer wasn't on at that scheduled time, it didn't happen.

I'm lucky - I had seen several friends lose their computers and everything on them over the past couple of years, so I'd become a bit anal about losing my own stuff - that led to the back-up program and a new external hard drive. I really only lost a few things I'd been working on this week and was able to get new copies without too much trouble (from the editors). But what I may still have lost is all of my emails. I've seen people discussing the email issue online before. For some reason, most email programs are notoriously hard to back up because of where the actual In and Out Boxes and folders are kept (nowhere logical to me).

A couple of people have said I should be using Gmail, where everything is kept on the server for you. But I don't like the Gmail interface (and I hate Outlook too). I'm confessing to being a dinosaur in this area because I still use Eudora! It's simple, it shows me everything I need in the places where I put them, and I'm used to it. Now I need to decide if I'll keep using it. Sigh... With two books with editors waiting for my revisions and a dozen other pressing jobs to do, spending hours sorting out my computer now (or a new one) seems way too hard.

But it's my workhorse, my connection to the cyberworld, a cheap, convenient and fast way to do all the things I need to be able to do as a writer, including blogs and websites. And when all is said and done, at least I've been able to retrieve most of my files, unlike many people in the floods who will have lost the lot.
So have you had a similar disaster? What do you do about backing up? And is anyone else going to admit they still use Eudora? :)

Back-to-work Blues for Writers - Solutions

Yesterday in "The Age" newspaper there was an article on all those people suffering back-to-work blues after being off over Christmas and New Year. It was interesting as the writer compared the "syndrome" with post-natal depression! And said that for some people, the normal feeling of being depressed about going back to work can slide into real depression and be dangerous. But the key thing, of course, is that the people who suffer the most are the ones that hate their jobs.

You would think this was a given - if you hate your job, then it's natural to feel depressed about going back to work after two or three weeks off. But most of the year, we understand that we need an income, we have to work, and we squash down all those feelings about our job because what's the point of moaning? The break, however, gives you time and headspace to realise how bad the job really is, and the thought of returning to it is even worse.

We're lucky in Australia that we have low unemployment at the moment, so if you really hate your job that much, it's a great time to look for a new (better) one. But for writers, there's more at stake - psychologically and logistically. (You knew this was going to be about writing sooner or later, didn't you?) These days, if you have a spouse who is willing to work and support you, and you're making some kind of income from your books, you get to stay home and write. And read. And think a lot. All of these are things that make you a writer, and help you be a better writer.

For those who have to work to pay the bills, I think one of the key problems is not whether you hate your job or not but how much it takes away from your writing. Obviously, it takes time away. 40 hours out of your week, more or less. Throw in sleeping (50-60 hours), eating and all that living stuff (12-20 hours), exercise (0-5 hours), there's not much time left for actual writing. Although there would be a heck of a lot more if you stopped watching TV!

So your holiday break could well have been days and days of slobbing around in your trackies and T-shirt, writing, reading, dreaming, thinking - feeling like a real writer for once! Suddenly, you have to be up early, dress nicely and be at work by a certain time. But more than that, for those 40 hours, your brain is going to be chock-full of work stuff. Paperwork, work emails, phone calls, people complaining, people wanting you to fix their problems, more paperwork ... No wonder some writers prefer to work on a building site or in a factory, where their brain isn't so overloaded with other people's words.

What to do about this? The first thing is probably to get a grip - the sooner you come to terms with the reality of this, the better off you'll be. Because then you will be able to look for ways to solve the problem. Here are some ideas:

* Get up half an hour earlier, don't talk to anyone, or turn on your computer. Read or write. You will be starting the day as a writer, and from there, it will all look much better.

* Take a proper lunch break (I need to work on this one). Get right away from your workplace. Find a quiet cafe or a park. Either write or read. Or edit something in your current project. Breathe. Daydream. Don't talk to anyone. Why would you want to? This is writing time, your time.

* Carve out one hour at night. If you have a family, tell them how much you need it and then make sure you get it. Start your hour with a few minutes of relaxation and breathing - don't just launch madly into trying to write. You've had a day full of eight hours of other people's stuff. Give yourself some time to let it all go. If you're having trouble, journal it away. Then write.

I think one of the things that can hurt us is putting too much pressure on ourselves. By maintaining the reading and thinking and dreaming, as well as the actual writing, you can hopefully keep your job where it belongs - in the job part of your brain, not the imagination and creating part. I'm sure you have other ideas on how to maintain your writer's life after you have to go back to work. Share them with us!

Our Australian Girl (TM) - book trailer!

When a Story Just Won’t Gel

I’m sure it’s happened to everyone at some point – you have a great idea for a story or a novel, and you start work on it. The initial idea is great, you can see how it might pan out, you make notes, develop characters … then for whatever reason, it starts to die on you.

Sometimes it’s because you leave it for too long and the passion fades, or you forget what made you think it was so good, so original, so full of potential. Sometimes it’s because it stops working on the page. You write and write, and it all feels like rubbish, or a waste of time. Or the vision you had for the story has turned into cottonwool or mud.

You leave it for a while, and a while longer, and it becomes harder and harder to get back to. You procrastinate, tell yourself you’re giving it room to breathe, and if you just leave it a bit more, it’ll bloom without you realising. You’ll come back to the beautiful plant you always knew it could be. You hope.

Sometimes you avoid it, revisit it, try to prop it up or inject it with a new idea, and nothing works. What do you do then? Abandon it? Yes, that always has to be an option. Sad but true. Maybe you just left it for too long, or maybe you beat it to death with too many meaningless words and boring characters.

But sometimes, when you least expect it, the original magic returns. You pick up the notes and the draft (what you have of it) one day and sit down with a coffee and suddenly, there it is again! This is what has happened to me over the past two weeks or so. A novel I have been working at for eighteen months, one that I thought had died on me, despite various attempts to re-energise it … I’ve found it again. Whatever “it” is. The characters are talking again, the plot has launched itself into more enticing waters, and I feel excited about it all over again.

Thank goodness! I really didn’t want to let this one go, but I couldn’t see what it needed. I’m still not sure why it came to life again, but I strongly suspect it’s because I’m not teaching and I finally have some truly creative headspace back. Now to make the most of it.

"Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes

Towards the end of the year, when holidays loom and I'm looking for some good books to read, I look through various recommendations on websites and blogs (after discounting all those pontificators who try to tell us they're going to read Evelyn Waugh or Eudora Welty on the beach). This year, it seemed like half the blog world was recommending Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War.

I have a friend who has been writing for some years about the effects of the Vietnam War on the families of vets, so this caught my interest. What would it be like? Gory? Over-inflated? Movie-like? I started reading "Matterhorn" on 27th December. I got 40 pages into it and stopped. Did I really want to read this? Could I bear to? The reasons for my hesitation? Already by Page 40 I could tell this was not going to be an easy read. It would be heavy, long, gruesome and probably really depressing. I wasn't sure if I was ready (sometime you have to be "ready" for certain books). I decided to keep going, mainly because already I had such a strong sense of setting and character, and also a sense that I was about to be taken on an unforgettable journey.

I finished it today around 2pm. I had brushed away tears more than twice, but more than that, I had been angry, astounded, gutted, marveling, head-shaking and shaken. It's only 2nd January and already I think this is going to be my top book of 2011 (anything else will have to be absolutely amazing to go past this book). No, I didn't enjoy this much. It's not light and fluffy. It's eye-opening. It made me wonder how any vet who fought on the front line in Vietnam came back even moderately sane. And it left me feeling despair about the overwhelming futility of war.

What's it about? Basically it follows the story of Bravo Company, most specifically a Lieutenant Mellas (although other viewpoints weave in and out of the story) and a disastrous couple of months in the monsoon season, trying to fight the NVC along a range of mountains near the DMZ. The author, Karl Malantes, apparently was a highly-decorated Marine and fought in the war, and it shows in the level of detail but also in the way he depicts each and every Marine as human and real. Nothing is simple, least of all a war fought behind a sham wall of politics at all levels. Malantes focuses on the Marines in the jungle, the insane missions they are expected to carry out, and the officers safe in their little command posts who have no idea of either the terrain or the conditions.

Like the Marines in the story, I wanted to grab those officers and strangle them, and it made me wonder if troops feel the same way in every war (like Afghanistan and Iraq). It apparently took Malantes 30 years to write this book. It shows, in that you feel all the way through that this is the work of his whole heart and soul, let alone those 30 years of writing and revision.
Yes, not an easy read at all. Every night I kept having dreams about it! But if you're up to it, you'll probably be like me and want to recommend it to everyone you meet.

The Advantages of Journaling

I know there will be many of you who already journal and don't need to be convinced, but at the end of a long year, it has been lovely to rediscover the power of journaling and what it can provide. My friend, Kristi, journals regularly and uses the method as a way of sorting out her thoughts and ideas. Lots of writers do. Journaling is not about writing a first draft. It can be used for many things, including planning and goal setting, as well as just sorting out what's flying around inside your head.

I often suggest to students that they keep a writer's journal, where they can collect ideas and explore them. They look at me as if I'm crazy! With all the writing and assignments they have to do for the course, why would they want to do more? But it's up to you how you choose to use a journal, and what for.
Here are some ways you can make use of it:

1. Write in your journal every morning to clear your head of "life" and get ready for the writing day ahead.

2. Explore ideas for stories and novels - explore why the idea interests you, where it could go, what it means to you. Expand it without pressure - experiment.

3. Journal about your dreams and goals, and how you are going to achieve them. Explore possibilities, let your imagination roam. Often putting this stuff down on paper helps you to make it more real, and gives you a starting point for planning and action.

4. Use your journal to get rid of negative emotions and experiences that stop you from writing. Pour it out on the page and it won't interfere with your real writing.

5. Journal about aspects of your life other than writing. If you have a problem (like a job you hate but need), journal about ways you might get out of it. The more ideas you have, the more likely you are to find one that will work. Writing it all down is also a call to action.

6. Use your journal as a place to come up with new ideas. You can be more focused with this - look for writing prompts like this one at Writing World.

7. Use your journal as a way to record stories from your life. Include photos and mementoes as prompts for yourself. The pieces you like can form the basis of something to leave your family.

You may like to buy a book to get you started. A Year in the Life: Journaling for Self-Discovery by Sheila Bender is one (I haven't read this but her book on personal essay writing is great).

Do you journal? What do you use your journaling for?

Which Blogs Do You Read?

Writer friends and I often discuss which blogs we read regularly, and why. As a teacher of creative writing (with a strong publishing industry focus), I read a lot of blogs by agents and editors. They're useful because they give an inside view on what's going on. An agent like Miss Snark (sadly no longer blogging but the archive is still there, and immensely valuable) can give new writers a very clear insight into what agents think, what they want, and what they don't want.

Some agent bloggers also provide lots of helpful information. Kristin Nelson has several 101 series of articles attached to her blog for writers. I'm sad to see that Editorial Anonymous, a children's editor, seems to have stopped blogging. Not sure why - hope she hasn't been laid off!! Publishing companies tend to have blogs that just promote their books, but other smaller ones provide great bonuses. The Monthly, which is a magazine here in Australia, has a section called Slow TV which is interviews and recordings of authors.

This year, for the first time, I've had to cut back on the blogs I read. It's been a time issue, as in "many deadlines, no time". I was quite surprised in early December when I realised how many blogs I'd stopped reading! Did this mean they were all useless and I was better off without them? Not at all. There were some that I'd signed up to (like Craig Harper and Seth Godin) whose blog posts came to me as email. A quick read and I was caught up, and often enlightened. Otherwise I would've cancelled them.

It's been nice to have time to do some catching up, and also to re-think which blogs I want to read regularly. The same with newsletters. This week I unsubscribed from three email newsletters, and might do the same with a couple of others. Basically, my needs have changed and those newsletters were no longer of interest.

What I'm interested in with you is this: how many blogs do you read regularly? Do you read everything you subscribe to? Which are the most useful ones to you? As we go into some nice down-time over the holidays, please share your favourites!

Writing Time in the Holidays

Holidays are wonderful! While other people dream of beaches and sunshine and frozen daiquiries at all hours of the day and night, I check my pile of saved-up books and can't wait for the time when I can start on them. My brain is free of work stuff, and I'm able to finally focus and tackle books that at other times of the year seem "too hard". I'm planning to read, among other things, Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel and Freedom by Jonathan Frantzen. I've got Matterhorn by Karl Malantes on order at the library, and Mockingbird by Katherine Erskine on order from an online bookseller (ready for when it's available in paperback).

I've also been stockpiling a few good crime novels, including some new Swedish writers, and the third Ranger's Apprentice book by John Flanagan. As I'm teaching Poetry 2 next year, I'm also reading poetry and delving into anthologies for gems to use in class. But with all this reading lined up, am I going to write as well?

The thing is that reading great books inspires me to write more than anything. I love to soak up all of those words and then go write lots of my own. I have two major editing and/or revisions to work on, so reading reminds me about sentences and language. But I also want to work on something new, and seeing books that other writers have written and rewritten (because none of them are going to be first drafts!) reminds me that putting my backside on the seat and writing is the only way I'm going to get a finished manuscript, too.

Funnily enough, even though holiday times are when we believe we have the most time to write, I can't tell you how many people admit to me that they ended up doing no writing at all! It's easily done - there are parties to go to, sleep to catch up on, family commitments, time with the kids, TV and movies to veg out in front of, video games, Facebook ... While telling yourself you really need that time off and you really need to do some family stuff etc etc, you can end up spending your whole time doing everything but writing.

Not trying to make you feel guilty, mind you. Just saying....

What Would You Tell a Reluctant Reader?

Those of us who love books and love reading almost can't imagine a kid who doesn't like reading. "What?" we say. "What's wrong with you? How can you not love books?" Or if we don't say it, I know we're thinking it. I do, and I see kids all the time in schools who are just ho-hum about having a visiting writer, and shove the books aside while making out books are just dumb.

Because who wants to admit they feel dumb? You know how many kids actually aren't very good at reading? When everyone else is doing it just fine, how would you feel if you were the one the teacher had to hassle about books, about how little you read, about how far behind you'll get if you don't read more? As reading adults, we wonder how on earth these kids could possibly not be able to read (apart from the ones who have dyslexia or eye problems, perhaps).

We're doing that adult-arrogant thing again. Sigh. Assuming everyone else should just go with the flow. Forgetting totally what it's like to be small and not good at something. How you'll do anything to cover up, including insisting you hate reading. The teachers and librarians who said Harry Potter books were great, simply because they got kids reading who hadn't read before - they were right! Very often, once a certain level of ability and confidence is achieved, what a kid needs to get them into reading is ... a book they fall in love with.

Not a "required reading" book or one the teacher insists on. No, one they discover themselves, either by accident or because some keen adult decided to give them a certain book and it is just the right one!! So ... if you had a reluctant reader in front of you, what would you tell them? What book/s would you recommend? What would you buy them as a gift this year?

My first pick would be the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. I recently read the second in the series and think it's great for 10-14 year olds (yes, even girls who want a bit of action!). I've had Diary of a Wimpy Kid on my reading pile for ages now and never got around to reading it (soon, soon) but it's very popular and with the cartoons in it, might hit the spot for a 10-14 year old boy.

For girls (especially if you want to get away from the endless awful fairy books), try the Billie B Brown books by Sally Rippin. They're active and exciting and good for readers 6-9 years. I also always recommend Aussie Bites and Nibbles, because the two series have lots of different authors and a wide range of stories accessible to kids from six through to nine or ten.

Now, if you've got kids (or if you're a keen reader of kid's books), what would you recommend for that reluctant reader? And why?

Books I'd Recommend for Christmas Gifts 2

This post is about poetry, and more novels for adults. This year I discovered Chase Twichell's poetry, via the journal from the Association of Writing Programs - the article quoted lots of bits from her poems, and I liked so many of them, I bought the book. I'm savouring a few poems each day, which I think is the best way to do it.
The title is Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been (Copper Canyon Press, 2010).
I always recommend Billy Collins and I'm currently on my third re-reading of Sailing Alone Around the Room and am very excited to see a new collection, The Trouble With Poetry, is being released. The title poem is one I use in my poetry classes all the time!

Black Inc has released its end-of-year collections, The Best Australian ... Poems, Stories, Essays. (OK, I confess that I'm in the Stories collection!) These are excellent gifts for readers of each form, and always provide a wide range of voices and subjects. Also released are the American versions, and I buy the Best American Short Stories as soon as it's available here. I like it because the stories are so different, a mix of experienced (such as Alice Munro) and new. I often end up using one or two of these stories in class. This year's is edited by Richard Russo. If you want something different, try Best American Science and Nature Writing - marvellous.

You may have missed Nam Le's The Boat, but it would have been hard to do as it won so many awards. It's great to see short fiction writing coming back into favour at last. Check out the short fiction section at your independent bookshop! I'd also recommend Cate Kennedy's Dark Roots - it's been out for a while but is a wonderful collection of stories.

My other fiction recommendation to finish with for now is Caroline Overington's I Came to Say Goodbye. I was sent this ages ago as a galley copy to read for review, but never got around to commenting on it as it took ages to actually be released! But I loved it. If you'd told me it was a book narrated mostly in flashback by a 60+ year old man, and dealt with child abuse and poverty and a host of other social issues, I would've maybe said 'no thanks'. But Overington's narrator is so engaging and convincing, and his story is so real, that I couldn't put it down. I wasn't surprised to read later that the author was a journalist who reported on these issues extensively - it shows in her commitment to creating a story that strikes at your heart without preaching. An excellent accomplishment!

Books I'd Recommend for Christmas Gifts

Every year, the literary pages in our newspapers here publish big double page spreads where well-known Australian writers give their recommendations of what to read (or give) for the holiday season. And every year I look at their lists and wonder if they are serious. They nearly always list the most literary or obscure books possible, which makes me wonder if they're being honest or just trying to sound intelligent! Occasionally, someone (often a crime writer) will list books that actually sound both readable and enjoyable.

My big thing this year is to try and encourage as many people as possible to give books as gifts, instead of lawn mowers or scented candles or plastic toys. So I thought I'd better give my recommendations, which I have simply picked off my pile of books I've read this year and enjoyed. And if you aren't sure what a person might like, try giving them a book voucher/card instead. If you want to buy online, fine, but maybe also try to buy at least one book from an independent bookseller.

Crime/mystery - A Beautiful Place to Die - Malla Nunn - set in South Africa in the 1950s, it is a great portrayal of life there at that time as well as being a good mystery
61 Hours - Lee Child
Blood Moon - Garry Disher (set on the Mornington Peninsula near Melbourne)
The Broken Shore - Peter Temple (I know Truth won all the awards but I liked The Broken Shore better)
Blood Sunset - Jarad Henry (also set in Melbourne but with bushfires as a backdrop)
Bleed For Me - Michael Robotham
Much as I would like to, I can't recommend the latest Val McDermid, Trick of the Dark. Waaay too slow.

Fantasy - I discovered Joe Abercrombie's books a while ago - I guess they're fantasy but they feel historical - great warrior action scenes and fascinating characters.

Historical - if you love details and descriptions totally based in great research, Conn Iggulden's books about Genghis Khan are terrific. The first in the series is Wolf of the Plains.
I'm also halfway through Bernard Cornwell's Azincourt but the detail and descriptions overpower the characterisation a bit too much for me. Others will disagree.

This year I have also fallen in love with Kate Atkinson's novels. I read Case Histories because it was labelled 'crime' at the library, but it's so much more than that. The recurring character, Jackson Brodie, appears in all four books, but shares the stage with a wonderful range of other characters. The plots weave in and out, and I'm never disappointed. Now I'm heading for her other novels.

YA fiction - If you want something really unsettling and creepy, Mice by Gordon Reece just blew me away. One book I could not put down.
With the ongoing, neverending hype about Meyer's vampires, I was very hesitant about Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater, but it completely won me over and even made me cry. Leaves Liar by Justine Larbalestier for dead.

That's enough for now. I'll consult my book pile and add more another day!

Writing in Hong Kong and Shanghai

Where you go in Shanghai if you want a novel!
Wen Chang, the Chinese god of Literature (this is from the Temple of the City God in Shanghai).
The ultimate window display - a pair of shoes that should come with the warning - Do Not Drink and Attempt to Walk.

Yes, I've been away. Mostly in Hong Kong, but also in China, where I discovered that I couldn't log in to either FB or Blogger. So I had to spend my time going out and visiting some amazing places instead (I'm trying to be apologetic...).
But while I was away, I did manage to finally get to the 50 big ones in NaNoWriMo. It did mean not watching TV the whole time I was in Hong Kong, but as 99% of the channels were in Chinese, I guess it wasn't so hard!
All right, I lie. It nearly did me in, but it's the first time I've finished as a winner and even thought I know I have to throw this novel away and start it again, I've learned a huge amount about what not to put in the story!

Hong Kong 1

This is Day 8 in Hong Kong and I feel like I have been here for several weeks! It's been incredibly busy but excellent in so many ways, starting with all the great schools I have been to. Very often I do author talks, which are a lot of fun as you never know what the kids are going to ask you. One day I'll make a list of the most unusual questions.

But this time I am doing mostly writing workshops, many of which are poetry. It's been so good to see them all (even the ones who have never, ever written a poem) tackle the exercises I've been giving them, and coming out with some great poems. I've also been doing story writing with a wide range of students from Grade 5 up to Year 12. The photo above is a class of Grade 5s at the Canadian International School, all busy on their story beginnings.

Schools here in Hong Kong are multi-storey - I don't think I have been to one that is all on one level, like most Australian schools. Neither are there expansive playing fields, gardens, huge gyms, etc. There isn't room. (Above is the view from the classroom door at a school I visited last week.) One school I've been to here spanned about 15 floors down the side of the hill (lots of hills and mountains in Hong Kong), and most are at least 6-8 floors, with basketball courts on top of car parks or school buildings. But the kids adapt - one day I kept interrupting a very serious game of 'What's the time, Mr Wolf' and got frowned at!

All of my classes have wowed me with their willingness to write whatever I set them, whether it was an ususual poetry exercise or the beginning of a story. And lots of them were brave enough to read their work out, too! I hope they all keep writing and having fun with it.

NaNo - Writing in the Cracks

I've surprised myself. I'm up to 21,000 words and still going with NaNoWriMo. I'm not even sure how! Maybe because this is a book that has been in my head for 2 years, and I'd already had one disastrous attempt at it in another form. I can sense that, as I write, I am padding enormously. Putting in heaps of description and character stuff - thoughts, dialogue, emotional reactions - that might well come out later or be trimmed. But isn't that the whole point of NaNo?

It is for me. It's the chance to break new ground, to get stuck into a whole new project or even (although I know it's kind of cheating) to finish that book-of-the-heart that you've never been able to before. About three years ago I used NaNo to rewrite a novel I've been working on for about 9 years. I didn't look at the old draft at all. I sat down and started it as if it was completely new. Lots of stuff came out that ultimately was really useful. That book is now on its way to being published. No, it's not a NaNo book as such, but NaNo helped me get a whole new perspective on what it could be.

I'm about to head off to Hong Kong. I have (by my calculations) about five days in which to write as many words as I can. After that, teaching and consultations take over and I am so brain-dead that writing is almost impossible. But I will keep trying. If I can get past 35,000 by Monday night next week, I might have a hope of snatching time and head space to finish the big 50.

Often that is what NaNo becomes - a frantic search for the cracks in your life. The 15 minutes or half an hour in which you can madly type (like I did in my lunch hour the other day), or that hour before bed when you firmly turn off the TV and write. If nothing else, I think NaNo teaches you that you can write anywhere, any time, if you really want to!

The NaNoWriMo Race

I spent most of October trying to decide if I was going to do NaNo again this year (all right, not most, just a few moments every now and then!). That's the thing with NaNo - it's easy to build it up into this huge thing when the whole idea of it is to simply write. And write. And write. For the past five years, November for me has meant Hong Kong. I go there for two weeks or so, teach lots of writing classes, run training seminars and do school visits. It's pretty full-on, and although I try to write, by the end of the first week, I'm kind of short on headspace for writing.

So the question for me is: how many words could I write in two weeks? Can I get such a good head start on NaNo that I could coast the last two weeks? If you've ever done NaNo, you know the answer to that is nearly always NO. So I know from the outset that I'm unlikely to reach the 50,000 words. That would be enough to put off a lot of writers I know (the ones who stay up all night on the 29th to get to their 50 big ones).

But I see NaNo as an opportunity to launch into a whole new project. To obsess about it for at least 15 days, to get a huge amount of words written that I otherwise wouldn't manage. It's the focus of NaNo that works for me. When you have to write every single day, and write as much as you possibly can (no measured 1667 words a day for me), the story fills your head. You go to sleep thinking about it. You wake up thinking about it. This morning I woke up and thought about my story and realised I'd left out a crucial element in my first chapter. So today my first job is to go back and weave it in (that'll give me another 300 words or so!).

Are you doing NaNo this year? How are you going? Did you get off to a roaring start? Share your thoughts!

The Littlest Pirate on YouTube

Finally managed to get the Littlest Pirate book trailer finished!

Do You Lend Your Books?

Once upon a time, my books were my books. Even ones I wasn't particularly fond of were still mine - that meant I would never lend them to anyone. Ever. Why not? I think I just had a thing about owning books (no, I didn't have lots of my own books as a child). Perhaps because I'd been a librarian, lending out thousands of books every week to everyone, and seeing the state they came back in - if they came back at all - maybe that made me paranoid!

But gradually I met up with lots of writers who felt the same as me, and cautiously I entered into an agreement whereby we would very occasionally lend to each other and return the books as soon as we could. Anal, I know. But not unusual, from what I've heard. When I started buying writing how-to books, which were often very expensive, I "teamed up" with my friend T, a writer and teacher like me, and we decided we'd try not to duplicate books and build a joint library, and lend to each other. This has worked really well, and if we borrow one that we end up loving, we can then buy our own copy.

But I was still loathe to lend my other books, the ones I'd enjoyed and planned to read again one day. Because lots of people forget to return books, and unless you keep a list (anal again) how can you remember who has what? Then the prices of books starting rising, and rising, and rising. Currently, a new trade paperback is around $36 (yes, if you live in the USA you can start hyperventilating now). A mass market paperback is around $22-25. Don't even ask what a hardback sells for - all right, it's between $45-50.

I have cut down the number of books I buy simply because of cost. I am going to the library a lot more. But at the end of the tax year this year, when I added up my receipts, I had spent around the same amount as in previous years - but I knew I'd bought fewer books. One of the results of all of this, strangely enough, is that I've started lending! Somehow, I've come to the conclusion that if a book is going to cost me that amount of money, I want to make better use of it. So rather than stick it on my shelf and let it collect dust, I'm lending.

When it comes to ebooks, I think this might be the crucial make-or-break factor - whether you can lend your ebooks to friends. I see that Amazon are already looking at a scheme where you can lend your Kindle book to a friend for two weeks (and then I think they rip it back off you - which I think is a very weird strategy and will backfire on them).

So what about you? Do you lend? Who to? Do you keep lists? Do you borrow? Are you a chronic non-returner?! Or are you a hoarder/non-lender?

Creating Original Characters

This morning I was reading the Sunday newspaper and various magazines that come with it, and found an article on sweet food. Everything from the cake shops Melbourne is famous for to city walks that take in gourmet food shops. Maybe it was because I'd just had breakfast but somehow the cupcakes and chocolate fountains looked very unappetising. Why would you eat a cupcake just for the super-thick icing? Why would you walk around the city just to eat yourself silly on chocolate or cream cakes? Before you throw something at me, I realise that most people wouldn't have a problem with either of those things!

Then I got to thinking about characters - one who couldn't stop eating cupcakes and chocolate, and one like me who couldn't be bothered. The big question is Why. If I was a fictional character, I could tell you (if it was part of the story) that I grew up on a farm, hence my aversion to cream. And that a long time ago, to earn extra money, I spent three weeks making hand-crafted chocolates and it took me five years before I could face chocolate again. Just the smell made me feel ill. And even now, chocolate and sweet stuff are not my things.

Why can't that other character stop eating chocolate and cupcakes? Is she compensating for something she's missing? Is she lonely? Is she addicted to sugar? (I know a couple of people like this.) If she was my character, I'd need to know all of that, and more. I'd want to know how she feels about the people who stare at her, how her mother treats her, if she's married. Was she a fat kid? (Been there.) As for my anti-sweets character - is she anorexic? Is she diabetic? Was she a fat kid? Was she Weight Watcher of the Year a while ago?

I confess I think about this stuff a lot, especially while watching TV. Nothing annoys me more than characters in TV shows who have no depth, who are just walking through the story like a cardboard cut-out. (OK, one thing annoys me more - my husband walking in halfway through a show and saying a character is stupid because he hasn't seen the set-up!!) British shows seem to do a great job of complex characters, ones with flaws and inner conflict. That's how we get more than just the plot - we get character arcs, and characters we empathise with.

At the moment, there is a new show on the ABC called Luther. He's been in trouble before the show starts, and things don't improve for him at all, but he is good at his job - police detective. He's the kind of guy who observes others very closely and can work them out, but can't work himself out. He's an uncomfortable character to watch, but you persevere in the hope he'll change and grow, just like you do with characters in a novel.

I also watched the last episode of The Bill (I haven't been a regular watcher, but it was the last). And marvelled at the way each character, in quite a large cast, was an individual. I had no idea of their names - it wasn't that important, really. It was more about how each one reacted to a horrific crime, and what they did next. It reminded me of another key element about characters - their need or lack. I often talk to students about "what your character really needs or wants" and forget about the other half of the equation - what is the lack inside your character? I'll return to my current work-in-progress with that question to answer.

Resistance to Reading

Last week I requested a book from my local library - a historical novel - that was set in an era close to one that I'm researching. I was curious as to how the author had gone about weaving the historical detail into the story. It's something all historical novelists wonder about, I think - how others do it! But I'm struggling with this novel. I've read about 50 pages so far, and I feel like nothing has happened. There has been plenty of detail (that I examined with my writer's eye!) but the main character and the story are just not grabbing me.

When I get to this point with a book, I ask "Is it me?" Am I just not in the mood for it right now? Usually I know. I put aside The God of Small Things for nearly a year because I knew I wasn't in the mood for it - it was going to be a book that would require concentration that I just didn't have. When I did finally read it, I loved it. So it's a question worth asking. I've been reading a wide range of stuff lately, so I know it's not that I'm wanting more crime fiction (I can get on a roll with that and read ten in a row).

I think the problem with this particular novel is that it isn't offering me anything substantial. I have a writing book on my shelf that talks about how "a story is a promise". While we hear things like hooks and story questions talked about - in terms of that first chapter - what we really want in a novel is the promise of a great story and interesting characters, and I think this one (so far) is letting me down on both counts.

The main character is passive and her secret passion feels boring and derivative, and the story promised in the blurb is still a long way away from me, even after 50 pages. Maybe I'm too impatient, but I'm about to give up on it. I'm resisting any more pages because I don't want more of the same. But ... this got me thinking about how kids read. How does a child feel when they are expected to read a book, expected to enjoy reading, and yet find it a total chore?

Imagine everyone around you kind of watching you read. Teachers, parents, maybe siblings or friends. You're probably not too good at reading, but you know you're expected to do it, and do it well. But when you try, nothing interests or excites you. The grownups keep telling you that you just have to find a book you like. You think, How hard is that? But every book you take off the shelf is boring or stupid or has a lot of big words that you don't understand.

So you pretend to read and hope one day it'll happen for you. And maybe it will, or maybe it won't. There are lots of kids in your classroom and the teacher leaves you alone if you're pretending to read really well. As an adult, I have the option of throwing a book across the room if it bores me. As a kid, you have to read whether you like it or not. At this point, I think is it any wonder Andy Griffith's books sell so well? If you're resistant to reading, and suddenly there's a book that's rude and funny and makes you laugh out loud, and makes reading something you can do and something you WANT to do, wouldn't you want more of them?
(And no, I'm not going to say which book is going straight back to the library because it probably is me!)