Setting the Burke Way

I've almost finished reading James Lee Burke's latest book, The Tin Roof Blowdown, and yet again, am marvelling at his descriptions, the way he evokes Louisiana over and over again with such beautiful language. Yet this is a crime novel. Mind you, crime writers often focus on a sense of place in order to help create the world of their novel in more vivid detail. Stuart MacBride's Aberdeen and Peter Robinson's Yorkshire are two fine examples. MacBride's descriptions of granite and rain are memorable, and add such atmosphere to what's going on in the story.

Some examples from Burke: "The wind had died, and the islands of willows and cypress trees had taken on a gold cast against the sunset. Clouds of insects gathered in the lee of the islands, and you could see bream popping the surface and occasionally the slick, black-green roll of a bass's dorsal fin on the edge of lily pads."
"Tolliver tried to keep his face blank, but when he swallowed he looked like he had a walnut in his throat."
"His elongated, polished head and the vacuous smile painted on his face seem to float like a glistening white balloon above the people around him."

And an example of description moving the reader from one physical head to another's mind. "The cream he used in his hair had started to run and she could smell it on his skin. It smelled like aloe and body grease and candle wax. In her mind, she saw a bullet punch through a black man's throat and, behind him, the skullcap of a teenage boy explode in a bloody spray." When a writer is using detail like this, it adds such extra depth to the story and its characters.

The novel is set during and after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and I got an extremely vivid picture of the devastation, much more so than all the newspaper reports and TV footage. The way that Burke uses the five senses brings the wreck of New Orleans and surrounding areas to life in a way that flat images on a TV screen cannot. "The rice and sugarcane fields were encrusted with saline, the farm machinery buried in mud, the settlements down by the Gulf reduced to twisted pieces of plumbing sticking out of grit that looked like emery paper... Drowned sheep were stacked inside the floodgate of an irrigation lock, like zoo animals crowding against the bars of their cage."

It's probably inevitable that the novel itself is fairly depressing, perhaps a reflection of Burke's deep dismay at the aftermath of Katrina, what people did to survive, how they died, and the depths to which people sank in order to make big money out of the repairs. Dave Robicheaux, the main character, seems destined to always make the wrong decisions, to back the wrong people, refusing to listen to anyone but his own flawed inner voice. Burke's insights into the brutal Clete Purcell failed this time to make me feel any empathy for the character. I was beginning to wish they'd both retire to the Bahamas and become retired fishermen or something.

After so many books about one character, where does a writer take it next? Redemption? Disaster? It seems that Dave R. has had so many disasters and deaths in his life that there is nothing left that could change him in any significant way. He seems locked into a downward slide to destruction - the only question left being, Who will he take with him? Still, if you love Burke's writing, this novel is worth the effort, if only for an inside look at Katrina and what happened to the people who lived there. As a sidebar, in the novel Robicheaux's daughter, Alafair, is writing a crime novel. Burke's daughter, Alafair Burke, recently published her first crime novel. Having found it in the library, it's next on my reading list.

What Planet is That?

Two items in the newspapers recently caught my attention and imagination. One was about a man who was moving a house. He'd separated it into three sections, and wanted to move it to some land near town but to do this, the sections had to be taken across the town bridge. When they were halfway across with the first part of the house, a man coming the other way on the bridge stopped his car and refused to move. The house section was too big to pass, and too big to reverse. The man in his car would not reverse, no matter what. In the end, they had to jack the house section up, on the bridge, so the man could drive underneath it.

The second item was about a man in England who has celebrated Christmas every day since 1993. He has a turkey dinner with mince pies and watches a video of the Queen's Christmas message, and opens presents he's given to himself. Now, another newspaper has declared that this is a hoax, and the guy is only saying he's done it to promote a single he's just released. But imagine if this was true?

We've probably all heard of or met people like this, and you wonder, "What planet are they living on? How could you behave like that?" As writers, we also think - that is too weird to write a story about. No one would believe it. How could I make that character credible? Sometimes it's enough to use them as a minor character in some way, like comic relief. Or as a villain. I knew someone a few years ago who I eventually realised had psychological problems and couldn't see the damage she inflicted on others. Could I use some of that in a character?

It's easy to create characters like us. We take a little of ourselves, little bits of several other people we know, add some oddities and complexities, and we have someone we can write a story or a novel about. But what this can lead to is continually writing about the same kind of character, someone you're familiar with, someone who doesn't light any fires under your story or your imagination, but someone who doesn't make life difficult for you as the creator.

It's a useful character exercise to take someone weird (or who seems weird to you - we all have different ideas of what is "not normal") and write about them. Write a story that shows who they are, why they behave the way they do, and what happens next. Does the man on the bridge hate the man with the house? Does he have a fear of reversing off the bridge because long ago he did it and ended up in the river and nearly drowning? Maybe the Christmas man lost his family on Christmas Day and he's trying to pretend they're still with him. Or his father has disowned him and he's extracting some kind of revenge.

Strong stories come from great characters who have good and bad sides, light and shadow, deep motivations, backstories that have affected who they are. Characters don't just have likes and dislikes - in fiction, they have obsessions and dreams, hates and loves, and deep, sometimes irrational, fears. In Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster says that one of the reasons we read fiction is to fully understand characters completely in a way we can never do with the people in our lives, even our nearest and dearest. To allow your reader to experience that in your novel, you first have to do it as the writer.

Last Word on Goals

It's now the 5th January so the goals thing is done. You've either worked yours out, or you're not going to bother. Kristi reminded me that setting too many goals is often our downfall. They seem so unattainable and the list so huge that we give up in despair. So my strategy this year is to have two writing goals - two general ones - and then set two-monthly deadlines. What is often left out of all the goal-setting and small steps advice is that most writers need deadlines.

Been meaning to write that short story all year? Nothing like a big competition closing date to get it done. Been thinking about rewriting that novel but never seem to find the time? A conference with a manuscript consultation appointment will move you every time! So I figure if I set small goals every two months - not too many - I will move forward. Small goals are things like rewriting something and submitting it by XX date. A magazine submission. A certain number of chapters revised. An article written and put on my website.

What are my two general goals? One is to develop a new method for myself of revision. I feel as if my revising of stories and novels in the past has been haphazard. Often I'll sit down and start a novel all over again because I can't figure out what needs fixing or how to fix it. Some people would say that's the only way to revise, but I'm not so sure. The revisions I've done of two novels for publication (with the help of editors) in 2007 showed me that, with editorial guidance, I can rewrite to a much higher level, but sometimes I'm not able to do it sufficiently well on my own, i.e. before the manuscript goes to an editor.

A couple of years ago, I felt the same about my plotting - it was a weak area and I made it my goal that year to read and work on that aspect. It paid off. Now I think I can do it with revision. The weird thing is, I can show any student or fellow writer how to rewrite and make their work stronger (comes from ten years of teaching) but it's still hard to do for myself. I've started reading Revision by Kit Reed, and have another book lined up after that.

My other general goal is to write more regularly. My strategy for this is to have several things on the go at once - several different things: a novel, poems, a picture book, an article. If I don't have time to work on the novel, I will be aiming to spend at least 15 minutes or more on a poem or something shorter. Linda Sue Park's two pages every day, no matter what, is the kind of routine that makes writing a habit that's impossible to break, rather than something extra crammed into your life. So my novel projects will continue to move slowly forward, but so will other things.

You Are Writing

You have some time alone at home and you think about writing. There are several things you could be working on, ideas jotted down, stories and a novel started, but you can't quite decide what to choose. You haven't written for a while, just a few days, but then you try to remember the last thing you wrote and you realise it has been several weeks since you picked up a pen, let alone turned on your computer.

Your computer for writing, that is. You've spent plenty of time emailing and net surfing - doing research and networking, you tell yourself - but writing? No. No wonder you feel a little unsettled, a little afraid. What if you sit down to write now and nothing happens? What if those ideas, those stories you started, now look like rubbish, not worth the effort? What if everything you have ever written is a waste of time? You tell yourself that's stupid, you are giving into writer's paranoia. Stop right now or you'll give yourself a good case of writer's block.

Block. Maybe that's why you haven't written for so long. Maybe you're blocked, and you didn't realise it. Except you're realising it now, with horror and dismay. How could this have happened? What about the novel you started? You've written 12,000 words of it. You started it during NaNo and had to stop because you had no time. It's probably awful. Most NaNo novels are. You could just put it aside and start something new. But what?

You feel like crying. You had four hours alone in which to write, and already you've wasted nearly two of them, riffling through papers and old drafts of things, agonising over whether it's worth turning your computer on, wondering how you could possibly call yourself a writer. It'd be easier to go and vacuum the carpet, or clean the bathroom - something useful - and think about writing another day, when you're up to it. When you're not blocked.

You pull a writing book from your shelf and open it at random, hoping for a gem of an idea to inspire you before you give up for today. Instead, you read a paragraph about a famous writer who has to force himself to the desk every day. And another paragraph about how real writers just write, no matter what. Showing up at your desk is all that's necessary. You think - how hard can that be? I should write. Maybe I'll just try to add a paragraph to the novel.

You turn on your computer and open the file. You remember what your novel is about, but you can't remember the last chapter you wrote. It's probably terrible. Should you read it? It might depress you even more. You scan the first part, then find yourself laughing. That bit was good. Aha, now you remember what happens in this chapter. Where did that idea come from? It's better than you remembered. You get to the end. You've left it mid-sentence, like a signal that you had every intention of coming back to it. And here you are.

What happens next? That's right. You finish the sentence and add another. A new idea emerges and you run with it, knowing that it's right, that it fits, that it will surprise the reader (it surprised you) and that it will lead to a new part of the story which will be fun to write. You love this character, and the central idea still excites you. Yes, you can do this!

Two hours later, you've written 2000 words. It's the most you've written for weeks. It felt great. It worked. See? All you had to do was sit down and write. How hard was that? Real writers write. Yeah.

Thoughts on Goal Setting

Today I received an email from someone who said they don't bother with resolutions because they never stick to them. It got me thinking about resolutions vs goals, and how we use them. For New Year, people seem to mostly make resolutions about personal issues - I will stop smoking, I will lose weight, I will spend more time with family, I will not kill my boss/spouse/mother-in-law. But goal setting is more about work, or at least achieving something that is important to you which requires planning and taking small steps.

You might want to try to get your novel published. So you have to write it, rewrite it (however many times), print it out, research suitable publishers, maybe approach agents, then send it out (however many times). One of the key things about goals is breaking them down into bits that don't freak you out, if you just do them one at a time. It's also good to have long-term goals, which could be your biggest dreams, and see how you can take small steps towards them too.

I first did goal-setting many years ago (probably about 18 years, I think) and had the weird experience a while ago of finding that piece of paper. That's what comes of being a hoarder. I do remember that at the time I wrote down things that I never thought would be achievable, such as attend a writing conference in the US and have a collection of poems published. In fact, nearly all of the things I listed have happened, because they were important to me and I really wanted them. You could argue that I was going to achieve them anyway, but I am not so sure. I do think that the simple act of writing them down makes them real, and helps you to believe they are possible.

I've been reading some articles about goals and planning lately, and they said that only 5 people in 100 do goal-setting, and only 1 in 5 follow through with their steps and achieve what they want. That's 1 in 100 who get there. Now you could think that shows that goal-setting is a waste of time, so why bother? To me, it says that anyone can be that one person, if you want it enough. If you're prepared to plan, set goals, work out the steps, take them one at a time. And imagine if you are that one person - wow, you're way ahead of 99 other people!

OK, I'll stop sounding like a goals evangelist now. Because I have to admit, even though I do goal-setting every year with my writers' group, I usually them put mine away and don't refer to them until December, when we all sit around and cheer those who achieved some of theirs. I do personal strategies instead, month by month, and follow those. So it has occurred to me that I should combine them and make them both more useful.

And if you're thinking about your own writer's goals for the year, you might like to visit J.A. Konrath's blog here. Some great food for thought.
(And the photo is there because I like it. It was taken at Lake Eildon a couple of years ago.)

Odds and Ends

Low tide, when all the rocks are showing. You can make that as deep and meaningful as you want! Or metaphorical. Often when we walk along this beach, several of the rocks have shags perched on them. As a kid, I used to think when Dad said 'like a shag on a rock' that he was talking about some mystical creature. And that the creature was alone and lonely. But down here, there's always more than one, with pelicans and black swans nearby.

2007 has ended, but I have to mention that one of my favourite books was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie. I discovered his short stories through some collections I have, plus another anthology that Meg Files recommended which has three stories from each writer in it. (Wish this was available and affordable in Australia for our students.) I've been reading another collection of stories by Alexie that I had to put down as they were a bit depressing - but that's more likely to be my reading mood at the time - I will go back to them. This book, which has won major awards, is fabulous. If you want a great example of YA voice, one that is real and startling and true, this is it. It was a brilliant reminder of what a writer can do in terms of original voice, story and theme by writing what they are passionate about. Is this novel autobiographical in any way? Does it matter? That's always a semi-interesting question but not very relevant to me.

I'm still looking for quotes that will entertain and inspire me in 2008. So far I like this from A Writer's Paris - The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. (Marcel Proust)
And from the author himself, Eric Maisel: It is never someone else's fault that we aren't writing.

Do I have goals yet for 2008? No. Don't rush me! They're hovering around the back of my brain like beautiful butterflies, waiting to land. If I make a grab for them, I'll be left with dust and broken wings. Yes, metaphorical to the end...

The Artist's Life

What a way to end the year. Last night we went along to Hamer Hall to a Tina Arena concert. Those familiar with her would remember her start way back in about 1975 with Young Talent Time. Even then, she had an amazing voice, and you would have thought instant, enduring stardom was on the cards. Not so. The music business chews up and spits out the gifted just like any other business that is about using talent to make money. Like many artists, she has had to work long and hard to "stay around" - she is one of Australia's top-selling singers yet for many people she's definitely not a household name.

The concert was fabulous, and went for over two hours. Her voice is absolutely amazing, and it was great to hear some older songs as well as plenty off her new album (above). I remember in high school that any time we had some kind of talent concert/contest, at least two girls would have a go at a wobbly, out-of-tune version of To Sir, With Love. Tina Arena revives it with her beautiful voice, as with several other classics.

In between songs, she chatted a bit, which was nice, and one of the things she talked about was being at school and singing professionally at the same time. Her mother wouldn't allow her to work in Years 11 and 12, but at the school's last assembly, her friends persuaded her to sing To Sir, With Love - I can imagine what that must have been like! She also talked about teachers who had nurtured and supported her, which made me think about my own high school teachers.

If you haven't heard her sing before, this is a link to a YouTube video of My Heart Will Go On
and another to Sorrento Moon. Anyone in France reading this will be very familiar with her - she is famous there and has released an album in French, although she now lives in London because she said in Paris she can't even go to the supermarket without being recognised. She is now 40 and, she says, has finally got to the point where she doesn't care what anyone thinks anymore. The new album is all her own - she decided what would go on it and how it would sound. She sounded more pleased about that than anything!

Thinking back to seeing her in YTT, and of her career since then, I feel that she epitomises the artist's life, whether it's in music, writing, art, acting, composition - you're in it for the long haul. There's a joke about how overnight success usually takes at least ten years, but it's true. I've been reading recently about writers who achieve success early and how many of them burn out or just fade away. They haven't done the "hard yards" that most people do, being rejected for years but persevering nonetheless, moving one step forward and being shoved back three, developing the thick skin you need to survive things like bad reviews. So here's to perseverance, to finding your place in the writing world and sticking to your dreams, no matter what.

Too Much Information

The trouble with people being on holidays, and not having work or study to consume their brainpower, is that they seem to feel the need to enlighten me on things I have no interest in, or that I actually know more about. Thus I have been lectured on locusts in Australia versus locusts in India and Africa. I have also been lectured on security measures when travelling to the US (by someone who has never been), among other things. No wonder I escape into fiction!

My reading, however, has been slowed down by a stick, specifically a bamboo stick that took it upon itself to poke me in the eye. OK, so I was holding it at the time, but I'm sure it had a mind of its own and decided to "get" me. Maybe someone slipped some paranoia into my drink over Christmas. Needless to say, I didn't let it stop me too much and finished reading one of my presents, A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. It's a YA novel, described as Gothic, but it's historical crossed with magic stuff. I did like it more than Twilight but that's probably because the main character had a bit more "gumption" and there were no vampires in it!

After sticking to one of my goals for 2007 (which was to only work on one project at a time), I've now decided that that is not working well for me - I feel like too many things are left unrevised or incomplete. So for 2008, I'm going to try to manage my writing projects better, and use my writing time more effectively. Sometimes I feel like half an hour is not enough to work on my novel project so I end up doing nothing. Now I'm going to try to use those smaller bites of time to work on poems or picture books. The forms are different enough that I can keep them separate in my mind.

Other goals are still in the mulling stage. There's no point setting a goal like "Get my novel published" as this is out of my control - it's someone else's decision. But I can say "Send my novel out to X publishers" instead. Mostly I think I want to manage my time more effectively. It seems to just dribble away. Having two new subjects to teach in 08 won't make it easy, but becoming more organised is probably the sensible thing to do.

Recent Reading Highlights

At this time of the year, I tend to read so much that I go cross-eyed, but I didn't want to end 2007 without commenting on some of the best of the past few weeks. A big cross-section, starting with Louise Rennison's latest, Luuurve is a Many-Trousered Thing. The cover above is the US one - do they think the American readers won't understand Luuurve? But it is a nicer cover than my plain purple one, I must admit. Although Angus looks very benign. Needless to say, this new addition to the Georgia Nicholson diaries made me laugh out loud. Five stars for readers under 14 (and me).

I also loved Val McDermid's new book featuring Tony Hill, and since I've commented on this before, I won't do so again. It's strange, but Sue Grafton's new one, T is for Trespass, had me yawning for the first four chapters, then I got into the swing of it. She has quite determinedly kept Kinsey, her detective, back in the 80s, so no mobile phones or GPS units or anything very technological. Just plain old detective work. When you read a lot of crime fiction, it's a jolt to discard the CSI expectations and move back in time!

While I loved Meg Rosoff's first book, How I Live Now, I thought the second, Just In Case, had such an annoying main character that I almost didn't finish it. With the third, What I Was, I was blown away by the wonderful writing, and the way in which the quiet plot unfolded. Another main character on the outside, but this time he had enough complexity and self-awareness to create an empathy that grew as I read on. Highly recommended.

I've just finished Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce. He wrote one of my favourite kid's books, Millions, and I was sorry that so many of the character and story bits that made it stand out for me were lost in the movie. Framed is similar, in that there is a narrator/main character who is totally convincing in his naivety and view of the world. Like the character in Millions, Dylan has his own passions and obsessions even though he is only about eleven, and these very subtly drive most of the story.

Anything disappointing? Well, yes. The Alibi Man by Tami Hoag. I guess I never really warmed to the main character, the mystery seemed a bit flat and predictable, and I'll no doubt study this one again to see what it was that didn't work for me, and try to work out why. On my pile or being read now I have The Writer's Book of Hope by Ralph Keyes (am reading a couple of chapters a day) and the latest issue of Blue Dog, which is one of Australia's best poetry mags right now. I'm also dipping into a collection of short stories by Nancy Kincaid, and the Lonely Planet guide to France. And looking forward to reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld - nabbed it in a book sale. Will it live up to its hype?

Christmas Get-togethers

Even the birds down at the beach are doing it. The pelicans looked like ministers delivering sermons! There's been the usual talk this year about not saying Merry Christmas because more than half the world is not Christian so it's not appropriate, etc etc. It was good to see this morning's paper showing lots of people from all kinds of backgrounds, getting together and having a tree and decorations and presents, just because, whether you're religious or not, it's great to make time to talk and share and celebrate life in general.

Over on Kristi Holl's new blog, Writer's First Aid, she's been talking about fitting writing into a busy life - how do you manage it when you aren't a full-time writer? How do writers with jobs and kids and family find time to write? I've been reading The Writer's Book of Hope by Ralph Keyes this week, and he devotes several pages to this. What's interesting is the number of writers who say they wrote their first novel by finding half an hour or an hour here and there, and sticking at it until it was finished. When you really want to do something, you'll do it. What was even more interesting was how many of those writers said that now they're writing full-time, they're not getting any more words on the page.

Keyes says, "In addition to having to schedule time effectively, writers with day jobs have access to a rich, ongoing source of material." He also suggests that when you are driven to write and don't have time to squander on too much worrying about what you're writing, you write from the heart, giving it all you've got, and you stop thinking about the censors. By censors, he means all the people who would rather you didn't write, or want you to write something "nice".

It's true that when I'm not working (i.e. on holiday), I probably don't write a huge amount more than when I am. But what happens is my brain frees up for other things, like coming up with new ideas and new ways of tackling revision. It also allows me headspace for revision - because true revision means seeing the work in a new way that includes those brilliant flashes on how to fix or change things and make them better. Sometimes I get frustrated and feel like I'm writing the same old thing, and having several weeks free often means that suddenly I discover new story ideas.

The free time also means I can read with more effect - a strange thing to say, but I mean that if I'm reading writing books, the information sinks in better. If I'm reading fiction, I'm more aware of reading it as a writer. Somehow, even if it's only for two or three weeks, writing full-time makes me feel more like a writer. I'm making the most of it!

Favourite Quotes

In today's Sunday Age, Angela Pippos mentioned that she'd given all of her female friends a fridge magnet that said: Well Behaved Women Don't Make History. Snap. I have that on my fridge already, along with a few other gems. I love quotes that say something to me, even if it's dark or silly, but especially when they make me laugh. So my favourite on the fridge is I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow is not looking good either. I retyped that one and put it above my desk at work.

A friend has given me Don't annoy me. I'm running out of places to hide the bodies. And my other fun one is If you can't be a good example you'll have to be a terrible warning.
For a couple of years, I've had a quote from Clint Eastwood stuck on the front of my work diary: I tried being reasonable. I didn't like it. And another near my desk from Eudora Welty: I'm often asked if universities stifle writers. I don't think they stifle enough of them.

Another favourite was a car sticker: My only domestic quality is that I live in a house. Someone stole that one off my car! And I still have one in my home office that says: It's always darkest just before it goes totally black.

I have to admit I can see a theme here, and no doubt budding psychologists would have a field day with most people's choice of quotes and homilies. But for 2007, this is what I've had stuck on the front of my diary: Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "Press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. (Calvin Coolidge)

I haven't decided what will go on my diary for 2008, but I'm on the look-out for something both funny and inspiring. All suggestions gratefully received!

Agent Article

After being a speaker at the Pima Writers' Workshop in May this year, and meeting and listening to two great agents - Emmanuelle Alspaugh and Stephen Barbara - I put together all my notes and information and wrote an article called Tips on Getting an Agent. It's just been published in the AbsoluteWrite newsletter.

Writers' Retreats

Over on my other blog, Bush Notes, I have been posting more photos from the bush at Lancefield, but this beauty doesn't belong there because I saw it in Hong Kong. It was almost as big as my hand and obligingly sat still long enough for me to photograph it. On this particular day, I was in Stanley on my own, wandering around and enjoying some quiet hours.

At this time of the year, the desire for silence and solitude is almost overwhelming for me, especially after such a busy year. I planned three days alone - reading, walking, sleeping, daydreaming, meditating. No writing unless I felt like it. No work. No appointments, not even social ones. Except for a trip to Borders first thing where I bought a wonderful book (more on this in a moment). By 2pm yesterday afternoon, I was fully into my little retreat, relaxed and contemplating a massage at my local Chinese massage place. Then my daughter arrived unexpectedly, with her usual dramas going on, and my retreat disappeared.

However, today I am back on it again, daughter dispatched to the outside world, while I take the phone off the hook and retrieve my reading books, preparing to settle down into the silence again. The book I am reading is called A Writer's Paris by Eric Maisel, and I was immediately taken into it when I read about the art of flânerie - strolling. "The flâneur is an observer who wanders the streets of a great city on a mission to notice with childlike enjoyment the smallest events and the obscurist sights he encounters." He calls flânerie "delicious, dreamy strolling" but he also calls it ambling, which is what I love to do in Hong Kong.

In fact, as a writer, I love to do it in any place that intrigues me. I am planning a personal three-week writer's retreat in France next year, and I intend to spend as much time as possible on strolling/ambling and simply being there. Writing will no doubt happen, but I am beginning to feel that a retreat needs to have a different purpose. I am used to having time off work and cramming in as much writing as possible before deadlines descend. This is not a writing retreat. This is a writing frenzy. A retreat restores the imagination, silences the everyday babble in the brain and allows ideas and dreams to emerge.

I haven't yet formulated any goals for 2008. But if you're a writer and feeling out of touch with your writing, maybe you can put a retreat on your list of goals. It may mean you rent a hotel room on the coast for a weekend, or borrow someone's house in the bush. It may mean you send the family away and you stay home with the phone off the hook. The key to a retreat is solitude, and allowing yourself to indulge in it. I'm planning for my next one already.

Book Reviews as Blood Sport

Somewhere on my desk (don't ask - it's been my goal all year to have a clear desk and tidy office) there is a quote that equates book reviewing to fox hunting and other blood sports. I was reminded of this by some reviews in this weekend's Weekend Australian Review. Glyn Parry used to be a YA writer, a writer who told it as he saw it, warts and all. And got roundly slammed for it by various reviewers and librarians, to the extent that at a Children's Book Council conference he kind of told them all to get stuffed.

So it was no surprise to me to see he'd written his first adult novel, Ocean Road. If you want to write realistic, hard-hitting stuff, you may well turn to adult fiction if the gatekeepers in YA have given you a hard time. However, Parry might well have listened to Garry Disher, who writes adult and children's/YA fiction, who once said that the world of children's/YA publishing was much kinder and supportive, and he preferred it.

In a review of Ocean Road, Richard King has seen fit to make comments such as "The problem with the book is the lack of an interesting voice at its core." This after quite a few nice comments. And "the narrator's internal life seems to be almost non-existent". Somehow, I can't imagine Parry, whose original YA voice got him into such trouble, writing an adult novel that has apparently been deemed dull. I'll have to go and have a look for myself.

In other sections of the Review, Graeme Blundell manages to spend nearly all of his meagre eight column inches rabbiting on about a series of male crime writers' new books, and gives Sue Grafton 16 words. Hello, GB, try having a look on the latest crime writers' display of books in any bookstore and it'll be at least 50/50 male/female. Wake up, lad. I read Val McDermid's latest while in HK (I love Tony Hill - how could you not when VM finally starts to give us some wonderful, intriguing backstory), Grafton's T for Trespass was good but not brilliant, while Tess Gerritsen never gets a mention. Shame!

But the Review did give us a piece on Kathryn Fox, Australia's latest answer (so they say) to Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs. Fox talks about starting her first novel and taking herself off to writers' workshops (presumably to find out more about writing???) where she was "amazed at the outright amateurishness of many would-be novelists, their lack of appreciation of the industry's fundamental conventions." Sorry, Ms Fox, but I take issue with your scorn. Everyone has to start somewhere, just like you, and it's not as if the publishing industry puts out a guide for amateurs.

In fact, the course I teach in takes pride in educating new writers into how the industry works, how to be professional, how to rewrite, take editorial advice, workshop, edit, negotiate, etc. It's part of the learning curve. Expecting beginner writers to understand how it all works from Day One is like expecting aspiring professional tennis players to understand what it's like to play at Wimbledon. You have to learn as you go, work your way up to it, take on board every bit of help and guidance you can as you go along.

The writers that make me cringe are the ones who have been around for a long time and refuse to understand it's a business. They are pining to be discovered, and blame everyone else for the fact that they are not published and famous. Ms Fox may well have come across some of these in her own quest to write and be published. Get used to it! It happens in every industry, and most particularly in the arts. Don't disparage other people's dreams. Get on with your own.

Writing Over Christmas

In a discussion loop I'm in, the topic this week is writing over the holiday break (Christmas-New Year). I was surprised at how many people seemed to be locked into writing in order to meet deadlines, or editing to meet deadlines. Why? The editors are unlikely to be in their offices, waiting with bated breath for said manuscripts to turn up. And this time of year, most people are in a state of chaos in their everyday lives, trying to fulfill family obligations, deal with kids off school, buying gifts, cooking etc. Who needs to be writing/editing? Who could guarantee to do a great job of it?

I wonder all of these things because I have no deadline, other than some I set for myself. For the first time in many years, we have no plans for Christmas Day (other than maybe finding somewhere to feed us and then do the dishes, i.e. a restaurant). There are places we could go, places we have been invited, but we might possibly stay home, take the phone off the hook and veg out. I might write. Read. Sleep.

The urge to write is always there, but I recognise when the brain is out of action. And that's now. Instead, I am reading, planning to watch some movies, walk, relax, maybe get a massage for that troublesome neck problem my poor computer use created. I know the time will come when I'll have to write because I can't not write any longer. Sometimes it's good to just stop pushing the words out and wait for them to want to emerge on their own. In the meantime, I'm thinking about my two current projects - both novels - and allowing myself to ponder over some new ideas for them.

Poetrix Launch

One of the things I do is help to produce a magazine called Poetrix. We publish it twice a year, and have done so for nearly fifteen years. This is a long time in the world of small mags, especially when you consider that we put it together by hand (because the binding would cost us at least an extra $1 per copy). For each issue, we receive and read between 500 and 600 poems, and the editorial group all read everything. Then we have a big meeting where we make final selections.

Earlier this year, the FAW (Fellowship of Australian Writers) asked if we would be interested in reading at Federation Square sometime, so we thought December was a great opportunity to launch Issue 29 of Poetrix. We invited all the contributors who lived in Victoria to be guest readers (and eight of them came along, which was terrific) and several of us read poems by interstate poets.

The venue is quite inspirational, in the Atrium in the area above the BMW Edge theatre. They had a great sound system there that meant outside noise became irrelevant, and people wandered in and out of the space (some even stayed to listen). The photo above is of one of our readers, Helen Cerne, and part of the audience, with the background of the glass walls and ceiling. This triangular web is characteristic of Fed Square, and is also on the walls outside. Thanks to everyone who was involved - it was a very enjoyable afternoon, and ended with an even more enjoyable Western Women Writers' dinner! It's going to be hard to top this with our celebrations for Issue 30.

What I Learned From Reading Fiction

When I was a teenager, I learned an awful lot of British history from reading Mary Renault, Jean Plaidy, Victoria Holt and Catherine Gaskin. I also learned about shipping dynasties and Cornwall mining from Winston Graham. I started reading fantasy based on the Arthurian story when I discovered Mary Stewart, and who wasn't introduced to dragons via Anne McCaffrey? Of course, my passion for crime writing started early too. I had a teacher at high school who offloaded her old books onto me (thanks forever, Kay) and my early reading included Mickey Spillane, Ed McBain and Raymond Chandler. If you still like reading those books and want more, the Goldfields Library has a great page of "If you like this writer, other writers like this are..."

These days, we are often expected to read nonfiction if we want "reliable" information, yet I know many fiction writers who research their material just as deeply as nonfiction writers do. I commented recently on a book by William Dietrich about Attilla the Hun. While I was away, I read a crime novel by Barry Maitland - Silvermeadow. It told me a huge amount about modern shopping centres or malls, how and why they are constructed (leading to demise of the high street shops) and the theory behind them.

Silvermeadow is a fictional shopping centre that could be any huge centre near you. There is quite a bit of information about the Gruen transfer theory, and the following is from Wikipedia:

In shopping mall design, the Gruen transfer refers to the moment when consumers respond to "scripted disorientation" cues in the environment. It is named for Austrian architect Victor Gruen (who disavowed such manipulative techniques) and lately popularized by Douglas Rushkoff.
The consumer's decision-making consciousness subsides and he or she is more likely to make an impulse purchase because of unconscious influences of lighting, ambient sound and music, spatial choices, visual detail, mirrored and polished surfaces, climate control, and the sequence and order of interior storefronts, etc.
The effect is marked by a slower walking pace and glazed eyes.

Being a crime novel, of course there is a murder and a body found in the rubbish compactor at the back of the centre, but the information in there about how huge shopping centres are designed to be like little cities, with everything planned to lull people into a sense of wellbeing so that they give in to impulse buying ... well, it sure made me think twice about what I do when I go into one! This is the kind of thing that fiction does so well. By creating characters you care about, you also become interested in the information they discover along the way.

As writers, we have to avoid info dumps and shovelling in huge dollops of the factual material we slaved so hard to discover in order to make our stories "real". But by giving the info through the character, having a character who needs to find out this stuff, it makes the job easier.

Unlikeable Main Characters

This was a question that came up several times during my classes in Hong Kong - even in those I did with school kids. What happens when you create a main character who's not very likeable? Does it matter? Isn't it interesting to the reader to find out why he/she is unlikeable? Wouldn't the fact that the character changes and becomes OK by the end of the story make the reader keep reading?

Mostly, no. There are always exceptions, and the one that everyone tends to quote is the guy in American Psycho. Because lots of people read that book, or said they did. But did they read it to find out what happened to the main character, whether he came good? Or because it was so violent and disgusting that they were waiting for him to get his come-uppance? Some people read it because it was cool to say you had. I've never heard of anyone, even reviewers, who said they liked it, and liked the main character.

Like is probably a misleading word. What we usually talk about is empathy - we feel something for the mc, perhaps pity or some kind of identification, and we grow to care about them. But that usually only happens if the writer gives us something in the first few pages to latch onto. Something hopeful. Something that suggests this character has another side that we might like if we're let into it a bit more. We keep reading because we hope the character will redeem him/herself, show they aren't so bad, show they can change, show that they will come to understand the world and themselves a little more. (OK, my him/her and them is a bit mixed - please ignore it.)

The most common reaction to an unlikeable main character is to stop reading. Who cares if he/she dies? Wins through? Changes on Page 299? If we're up to Page 20 and the character is awful or stupid or apathetic or depressing, we stop. Plenty more books out there.

The villain, of course, is a different animal altogether that I've talked about here before. This issue came up because of a book I've just read. The Watchman by Robert Crais. If you're a Crais fan, you'll know that his detective is Elvis Cole, whose sidekick is Joe Pike. Inscrutable, iron-faced, unfeeling Pike. Now Pike gets a book all of his own, with Cole as the back-up. If you want to read something where the main character is unemotional, cold-blooded, and acts like a machine, and then see how the writer gradually unpeels him, little by little, to reveal his vulnerable side, this is the book for you.

Crais never overdoes it. All the way through, Pike remains the consummate soldier of fortune, able to kill without compunction when required. Yet every so often, we see a little crack of light, and even though most readers probably won't finish the book "liking" Pike, I think they'll understand him better and feel that empathy I mentioned.

A Writer's Health

Day Two after returning from Hong Kong and I've gone down in a heap. Exhausted. Yet there is a pile of mail to open and respond to, bills to pay (how come they don't stop while you're away?), paperwork to fix, and then there's work tomorrow. Yet the topic of writing and health has come up several times with friends, in different ways.

My friend K has said many good things to me about being overtired, unwell and not eating properly, all of which are sound and excellent reminders. The great thing about HK was eating lots of fresh food and walking miles every day. I have come back feeling physically good, and want to continue. Hence regular drinking of Chinese tea, walking, and buying fresh fruit etc for eating. But the mental tiredness is a big issue. December is a good time to evaluate the year.

I have written around 110,000 new words, rewritten about 50,000, and edited probably another 100,000. For my teaching, both in Melbourne and in HK, I've put in about 100 hours of writing on class materials, manuals and online modules. I've helped to produce two issues of Poetrix magazine, reading around 1000 poems and then proofreading. I can't even begin to calculate how much student writing I've read and graded and given feedback on - probably 80-100,000 words.

Good gracious - no wonder I feel so stuffed!! And no wonder some recent rejections (of various writing kinds, not just manuscripts) have depressed me more than they usually would. A writer has to develop a thick skin to survive, and an ability to say, "OK, how can I make this better?" When you're really deep-down tired, it's much harder to get up off the ground and fight back.

It's also harder to write new words. My friend T, who managed her 50,000 words for NaNo by way of writing 15,000 of them in the last two days, said on her blog that there were times when she was so tired that she was writing absolute nonsense, not even connected with the story. As writers, we tend to think that because we sit all day, we don't need to look after ourselves as well as someone who does labouring work, or who plays top-level sport. That's not true at all. It's the lack of sleep, bad eating habits, coffee/alcohol/ciggies (pick your poison) and lack of exercise that affects our writing more than we realise.

There was an article in the Weekend Australian yesterday about the effect of less sleep on kids - one hour less a night can mean a sixth grader learning at the rate of a fourth grader (just one example). Sleep is vital to writers too - it's where we restore our imagination and creativity, either by dreaming or simply giving our poor brains a rest.
There's a great recipe for better writing - sleep more! I'll be in that.

Memo: Writing Zen

After my day at St Catharine's School (where I talked to over 1000 students, plus did writing stuff with about 300 more), my friend A took me to a nunnery to calm down! Actually it was the garden next to the nunnery, with wonderful rocks and trees and a huge pond with fish and a waterfall. Just the best thing for zoning out for a while.
However, there was one thing that struck me as something to remember as a writer - the gold temple above is called the Temple of Absolute Perfection. Never a state I'm likely to achieve in my writing, so no point stressing about it. We always just write the best story we can, and maybe perfection is over-rated! We finished our visit with a cup of tea in a restaurant behind a waterfall.
This is my memo to myself about concentration and focus. This man paints pictures on bottles and domes - but he is painting on the inside. He uses a long, thin paintbrush and does it very, very carefully. Again, however hard I work on my writing, he puts my level of concentration to shame, but maybe it's something to aspire to.

In the last few days of my Hong Kong trip, I read the latest Louise Rennison/Georgia Nicholson book Luuurve is a many-trousered thing... and, true to form, she made me laugh. All of the books in this series look deceptively simple to write, yet she manages to create the point of view of a self-obsessed teenage girl while being funny and portraying really effectively what it's like. There's not much around in YA that's humorous so I'm not surprised these are so popular with both teens and their mums!