Nothing at the Library

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

Lunching and Present Tense

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

Rocks and Writing

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

Blogging about writing

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

More on Books about Writing

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

Books about writing

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

Writing Time

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

Beginnings

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

Too Much Information

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

More (Unintentional) Research

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

Truth in Fiction

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

Research

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

First Chapter, Next Book

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

Libraries - You've Gotta Love Them

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

It Has Rained

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

Book Designs

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

Drought and Bushfire

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

Giving It Away Too Soon

I'm writing. And plotting. And agonising. I stopped writing for five days because I had come to a crucial point in the story - do I give the reader and main character this information now? Or hold it back for a bit longer?
I gave it. And came to a grinding halt.
Why? Because a large part of the mystery had been tied into what was in the box. Once I revealed this, that story question was resolved - there was nowhere else to go with it. Do I have any new story questions? Well ... yes ... but none that are big and exciting and tension-filled enough to keep the stakes growing higher and higher as I work towards the conclusion. Can I go back and take that information out? No. It does feel as though it needed to come out at that point.
In the meantime my main character is dithering, thinking through her next decisions (which has taken up about 500 words and will have to be cut later, but for now, it keeps the words and ideas simmering). I'll have to get out my plot diagrams and do some doodling and "what iffing" and some detailed notes. Then the next part will emerge, I hope.
At the moment, I'm reading an old Nancy Kress novel involving genocide via deliberately infected mosquitos. It's not very riveting, but my next visit to the library is a few days away so I'm digging into old boxes of books that I've never got around to reading.
I'm beginning to think my sister's clothing credo (if you haven't worn it for more than a year, throw it out!) might also apply to books. If you haven't read it and it's been sitting there for more than two years (books last better than clothes, usually, unless you drop them in the bath), give it away.
My goal of cleaning out my office (thank you, Randy Ingermanson and Alison Bottke for showing me how to do this so it's not quite as painful) proceeds at a slow pace. I am doing it properly, and using files and archive boxes as well as the rubbish bin. Today I found my old passport, so of course everyone got to have a good laugh at the photo. Mostly, I am astounded at how much I have kept "just in case".
I thought that maybe when it's all done, and my ten-year-old computer that is no longer used has been sent to computer heaven, I might buy a new one. Then Windows Vista came out, and I don't want it. I can just imagine the arguement with the computer guy, trying to persuade him to load on XP instead.
OK, enough procrastinating here on the blog - back to the writing and plotting.

The Info Dump

There are millions of people in the world who read Linda Fairstein's books and love them. Fairstein's main character is Alexandra Cooper, a prosecutor in NY, and she has two sidekicks who are policemen. I hadn't read any for a while so the library provided me with the most recent - "Bad Blood".
It begins with Cooper prosecuting a case against a guy who has killed his wife, probably using a hitman. Said hitman was never caught, so husband is on trial. I couldn't quite see how the evidence could ever prove him guilty, but ... I read on. And stopped around page 90.
Why? Two things (and they're both subjective, which goes to show that you will always have readers who just don't like the way you do things as a writer). One was I didn't find the sidekick's constant putdowns of Cooper funny. He calls her blondie, Coop, the princess and kid, all within about five pages. And likes to make cracks about her looks and makeup. OK, that's her problem, if she wants to put up with it (or the author wants to make her). But the thing that really made me put the book down was a severe case of "let's tell the reader a whole heap of information about New York's water supply system going back 300+ years and let's do it with about 10 pages of dialogue with some guy called Teddy". A couple of summary paragraphs would have done me, thanks, and then get on with the story.
Then I picked up another library choice, a writer I'd never heard of before - that's the joy of the library. The book was "Cold Granite" by Stuart Macbride. It's set in cold, miserable Aberdeen where it never stops raining, and has a main character called Logan McRae who's just back from a year off after being nearly stabbed to death by a killer. Yes, it's a serial killer story, but with lots of twists and turns (not all the deaths of the children are caused by the one person) and stuff-ups by the police. It's Macbride's first novel, and I'll be looking out now for the next one which was due out last year.
And I know lots about Aberdeen and its horrible weather now, and I don't think I noticed one info dump. Just a lot of characters being rained on and frozen!
It's a hard call when you're writing, especially when you are trying to evoke a world or a city or a village most of your readers will be unfamiliar with - how much is an info dump? How else can you provide information about the setting that's important to the story without going overboard?
We're told "show don't tell" so many times, and certainly dialogue is one way of getting across info for the reader, but even then, it can be overdone and obvious. Michael Connelly talks about "the telling detail" and how one truly evocative, short description can do the work of a paragraph. But a short summary can sometimes work too. It's knowing how to use it effectively and concisely. And keep the story moving at the same time.
It's another one of those things you start to see by simply reading with a writer's eye.
By the way, Amazon.com, where's my copy of "Reading Like a Writer"? Surely it's not still on that slow boat from China?

Book of the Week

I read two books on Sunday - and no writing, but I needed a short break after 3000 words on Saturday.
One book was a YA romance (I'm teaching Writing for YA this year) that I skimmed, then I picked up a book I'd bought last week. And read it almost in one sitting.
The blurb starts: "I buy one pig a month. I can't afford any more. I've no idea whether this is enough, but it keeps the Beast alive. He's grown so big. I'm going crazy with worry that someone will discover him." That and the first two pages were enough to convince me to buy it. And I wasn't sorry. It's not just that you don't find out what the Beast is until halfway through - that's only part of the suspense - or that right up to the end you have no idea how he is going to solve the growing problem. It's more the the author has created a flawed main character, a 17-year-old boy who's got a terrible family and has been in foster homes for years, and who is the kind of boy to whom bad things happen without him having any control over them. Then when things go wrong, he is always the first accused, and he fights back as best he can.
But the Beast is a whole different kind of problem. Enough of the commendations from me! It's called "Beast" by Ally Kennen (Marion Lloyd Books).
BTW, Marion Lloyd was one of the publishers who came out to the Sydney Writers' Festival in 2005, along with Sharyn November and David Fickling. A great bunch of publishers, who all said very interesting things about the books they wanted to publish.