This Techno World

Wi-fi is wonderful – when it works. And when you can connect properly. And when it doesn’t cost you a week’s worth of coffee for half an hour. These days we kind of expect the internet to be available whenever we want it if we are in a big city. Hong Kong is no exception. Once upon a time we’d send postcards or airmail letters – I can remember being in South Africa in the late 70s and writing my dad a seven or eight page letter every week. He probably nearly had a heart attack every time he got one. Wondering if I would ever make it home safely! Of course, by the time he read my letter, I’d moved on elsewhere and that drama was over.

Now we rely on emails to keep in touch, and I also use Skype. In France it was great to be able to connect easily and talk for free. By the way, the French pronounce it wee-fee, I was told. And when you’re feeling a bit lonely, emails from home can cheer you up and make you feel not so far away. It’s funny how the further away we are, the more simple it is to stay in touch. That’s not globalisation, that’s just technology.

So here I am in HK airport, catching up on emails before I fly home**, and everywhere there are signs saying free wi-fi. Do you think I can stay connected? And once I’m connected, every page takes about five minutes to load. The hotel I was staying at only had wi-fi in the lobby. Nothing like trying to do your emails with your laptop on your knees, slowly burning away layers of skin! And it was expensive too.

But just down the road, there were cafes where it was free to connect, or you could buy a 24 hour card for about AU$4 and get access that way. Everywhere people with laptops were doing their emails while drinking coffee or tea, or maybe catching up on work. Not so good to talk on Skype, however, with twenty other coffee drinkers listening in!

Mobile phones were also so easy – we just bought a pre-paid sim card (at a very cheap price) with a HK phone number and away we went. I read somewhere that the mobile phone business in HK is based on the premise that people buy new phones every three months (keeping up with the latest) whereas in Australia it’s every two years. So while I guess HK phone dealers are making more money out of actual phones, in Australia it seems the companies there are making their $$ out of access. And such poor access it is too. No doubt distance is a big factor, but does it have to be so hard? And do we have to be so far behind?

Technology is great, when you can use it the way you want to for a reasonable cost. When it intrudes in your life or sends you bankrupt (as with teenagers who end up with mobile phone bills of thousands of dollars), it’s not so good. Like most things these days, it’s whether you control it, or it controls you. I’m keen to see how the new arrangement with Google and book scanning/publishing works. I do hope it won’t be another situation where the author is at the bottom of the food chain and ends up losing out.

** Needless to say, my connection dropped in and out a dozen times so this blog post never went anywhere. I'm uploading back in Australia!

The Language of Food

Only two more days in Hong Kong, and I feel like I'm hardly ready to leave. Lots of hard work completed, lots of great students in sessions, and more learning about the different cultures and people of HK. I love the public transport system here - so easy and simple. You buy an Octopus card and use it on everything. Train, bus, tram, ferry. You can also use it in some shops to pay for things. How easy is that? You put more credit on it at the station or the local 7-11. Why our government in Victoria can't simply buy this system is beyond me. Four years on a system that still doesn't work? MyKi is a waste of time and money. Buy Octopus!

As always in HK, we are eating a lot of noodles. At a function on Wednesday night, it was interesting to see that nearly all of the food was Western-style. Baked potatoes, sausages, fish, salads, cheesecake, chocolate etc. Sue and I ate two huge plates of green salad. We both had a craving for fresh greens! But noodles are great too. As are dumplings, her favourite. We have fallen into the habit in restaurants and cafes of perusing the menu and talking about all the things we'd try if we were more adventurous - jellyfish, pig's knuckles, duck gizzards, beef tendons - but we know we won't. We just order either noodles or dumplings!

I have found a couple of places that serve my favourite drink - hot ginger tea. But there are many other flavours, and jasmine tea if you want something refreshing. There are literally hundreds of cafes and restaurants in Wanchai, where we are staying, and people eat out all the time. When a filling meal is AU$4-5, why wouldn't you? And here, sharing food is part of the pleasure. I've even shared tables with complete strangers at busy times. And looked suspiciously at what they're eating!

After a month in France, where I seemed to eat cheese, especially goat's cheese, nearly every day, it's the complete other end of the spectrum to focus on noodles instead. But if you are staying in a new place, why would you stick to steak and potatoes? Or go to McDonalds? Exploring the food of a country is part of the experience, and seeing how other people eat is part of learning more about them. It's the same in stories too - what your characters eat can be an important part of who they are. Now that's food for thought!

Hong Kong Days

I'm back in Hong Kong, teaching writing classes and running professional sessions again for Women in Publishing. This is a city like no other, and it always seems to take me a couple of days to get used to the different atmosphere and pace. Out on the streets, it's always busy - more people around at 11pm than in the middle of the day in Melbourne. I keep forgetting most shops and businesses don't open until 10am so while it's busy here, it doesn't pay to get an early start. You'll be the only one!

I've been reading Craig Harper's posts while I'm away, and one this week about changing your view of "normal" has struck home. I am down the Causeway Bay end of the island, and catch trams everywhere. They are tall and skinny, and there is always one just around the corner, but I tend to know where to get off by the landmarks - buildings, shops, signs. Today I boarded a very full tram and decided to go up to the top so it would be less crowded. The trouble was, everything looked completely different from up there! It took me ages to work out where I was - for a few minutes I thought I was going the wrong way.

So in one tram ride, I was forced to look at the world from a different point of view (literally) and it was interesting, to say the least. It made me think about how that can be applied to so many things. We look at them in a certain way, as a habit, because it's either what we're used to, or it simply doesn't occur to us to try it from a new vantage point. That's happening with the revision I am doing on my novel right now - forcing myself to use a completely different method is helping me to look at my writing in a much more critical way, and leading to the kinds of changes and improvements that somehow I'd never been able to achieve before.

I could apply this to exercise as well. I don't jog. Never have. It probably goes back to school, when I was overweight and under-confident. Now I am giving it a go, and finding I don't look ridiculous (the treadmill has a mirror in front of it that I can't avoid). And instead of watching the screen that tells me how far I have jogged, which was depressing me, now I look at the clock and measure progress by time.

What can you change about the way you write or revise? If you're doing NaNo for the first time, you might already have seen what a new approach can do for you. But we should never assume that the way we write is the only way that works, and the same goes for the way we revise and rewrite. It's like taking your notebook or laptop to a cafe instead of staying home all the time. Maybe ask your writer friends how they approach creating characters, or revision, or plotting, and try their method for a change. As Craig says, step away from "normal" and see what happens.

Writers Everywhere

I'm about to make a serious attempt at packing for Hong Kong. I have all my class materials ready (I'm teaching a range of classes and PD sessions) and am at the point of making a list so I can stop panicking that I'll forget something. I'm the person who, on the way to the airport, is trying desperately not to imagine I have forgotten something crucial. After all, if you have tickets and passport, most other things can be "managed". Still, I've been working on the list for the past 45 minutes and adding something new and vital on a regular basis.

Regardless of my packing paranoia, I know I will have a great time. Susanna and I meet dozens of wonderfully keen writers every time we visit Hong Kong, either at our YWCA classes or with Women in Publishing. We feel a bit like butterflies, touching down and then flying off again, but this time we will be making serious efforts to network more, and find ongoing connections. Last year, we were there during the Australian elections and were quite astonished at the level of enthusiasm. The Kevin 07 brigade were noisy and cheered loudly!

I'm taking my novel, my lecture notes from Margie Lawson, and my highlighters. I'm expecting some focused rewriting time, if only because I can't bear to watch more than two minutes of Fox News or CNN, usually the only TV channels we can get on our hotel TVs. That's a good thing for a writer! I won't have time on this trip for tourist things, but I will have blocks of hours where I have the opportunity to focus on my own work without interruptions. I just have to be firm with myself and stay off the internet.

It might be a good reminder to think about all the people doing NaNo, for a start. But also I will be taking some time to meet up with writers and talk about writing. I've been fortunate to be able to travel quite a bit in the past few years, and the biggest bonus is the writing friends I've made around the world (Hi, Kristi!). The writing community is special - SCBWI members meet up all around the globe, writers of all kinds are happy to chat over a glass of wine or a coffee and just talk about what they're doing. It is a community, one to value and nurture.

What's In a Title?

These days - a lot! It's part of the marketing, and if you can't come up with a snazzy, jazzy title that will just zing your book off the shelf (note the ZZZs) then the publicity department will do it for you. I first got clued in to the whole title thing when I was writing poetry. If you know anything about poems, you know all the things that a title can be: it can act like the first line of the poem; it can act like a label to signal what the poem is about; it can be like a line of the poem that adds more meaning; it can clue the reader into other layers of meaning. In short, a title for a poem is important, and if you call your poem Untitled you are either missing out through ignorance, or you're lazy, or you're trying to be obscure or clever (duh). At least, that's what other poets will think, because we all spend a lot of time on titles. It's important. It's worth the time.

What made me think about this topic? A visit to Borders. I love my independents but when you want to wallow in a huge range of choices and spend ages just looking, Borders is it. And the coffee helps too. But I found myself in front of the New Releases shelves, and in particular, the new Nonfiction section. Which in this part of the store, was 90% memoirs. I don't read a lot of memoirs (although I am reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett right now and loving it) but even so, a scan of the books made me shudder. Because of their titles.

I should have gone back with a piece of paper and written them down, but this is kind of what I saw. Six shelves of display copies, many with pastel covers and foggy photos. And the titles went like this: Shattered, Lost, Beyond Hate, It Wasn't Me, Left Behind, Scarred, Child No More, Not My Child, No Mother For Me, etc etc. I had never seen them all lined up like that before, and it was awful. I am sure that every single person who has written a memoir like that has important, heart-wrenching stories to tell. But I'm not going to be reading them.

A couple of years ago, a critic called them "misery memoirs". Can't you tell by the titles? So I went onto Amazon and did a search on "memoir" and what a much cheerier list I found! Are You There Vodka: It's Me, Chelsea, Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir, When A Crocodile Eats the Sun, Running With Scissors, and Never Have Your Dog Stuffed. How jolly are they?

Sometimes my titles just come out of the blue before I even start the story. The Too-Tight Tutu was one, Tracey Binns Was Trouble was another. As for Sixth Grade Style Queen (Not!) - I couldn't have developed that afterwards - it was another one that popped into my head and wouldn't go away. But i do think that years of writing poems and being aware of what a title can do has made a big difference. My current novel has been without a title for several months. Then someone asked, "Doesn't it have a title yet?" And after a few minutes of serious thought, now it does.

A title is important. A genius title can help to sell a book. It's part of that instant attention/ gratification thing we have going these days. If you're not sure about your book title, there are a few things you can do. Brainstorm ideas, look on Amazon or B&N for books similar to yours and try to come up with something different, look at anthologies of poems and see what poets have achieved, make yourself write down 20 possible titles and test them out, use your thesaurus and your friends and anything you can find to come up with word associations. Imagine seeing your book in a catalogue or in publicity material. How do you want it to sound? Look at other book titles and say them out loud. What appeals to you? Does it convey the tone of your book? Try whatever you can to find a great title - it's worth the effort.

Renovate Your Writing Life

Right now, thousands and thousands of people are having a go at NaNo - writing their hearts out to try and get down 50,000 words in a month. I'm totally into revision mode and my head couldn't come up with a novel-length idea if my life depended on it, so I'm passing this year. But I have plenty to think about as I pull my first draft to pieces, dissect it with pens and coloured markers, and then attempt to rewrite based on notes, new ideas and what I see are gaps or soft spots. This is a slow process. Apart from anything else, it's adding around 20% extra words (I'll be in big trouble if I end up with 50,000 extra words!).

You might be thinking So what? You do that kind of rewriting all the time. Do you? Everyone seems to rewrite in a different way. I'm beginning to think that just fixing what your critique group picks up is maybe not the best way to go. It's the easy, fast way, for sure. There have been times when I have sat down and started a whole novel all over again, from scratch, barely referring to the first draft. While this has got me closer to making the novel work the way it needs to, it hasn't been a "cure all" process. Sometimes all it's done is introduce new problems!
So this process I am learning is exciting, different, intensive and needs a lot of perseverance.

Which brings me to the Renovate Your Life workshop I attended last Sunday. A few people I know read Craig Harper's website articles and email posts regularly, so they have an idea of what his thoughts are on things like goals and motivation. That was one of the interesting aspects for me - the discussion about staying motivated. Basically, he says the feeling of being motivated and enthusiastic never lasts (true), that you might attend a workshop or read something great and feel motivated by it, but that will fade and then what do you do? The people who achieve stuff, who get where they want to go, don't rely on motivation.

I have days when I think my writing is going so well, that it will last for weeks and weeks, and I'll finish my wonderful novel and it will be brilliant. Ha! Within a day or two, doubt sets in. The novel concept is stupid, I can't write, no one will want to read it. Why am I bothering? At times like that, it's very hard to feel motivated. And telling yourself that your goal is publication and won't that be wonderful doesn't help at all. The brain, in its infinite pessimism, just mutters, "Yeah, what about the bad reviews." So Craig is right. When motivation disappears, what is left?

For a start, what Bryce Courtenay calls BIC. Bum in chair. Setting small goals, such as 500 words a day. Bribing yourself. Re-inspiring yourself with writing books. Everyone has their own "tricks". Work out what gets you moving, and use it. Some of the things Craig talked about included:
* we get in our own way - over-think and under-do.
* we shut doors on ourselves, and say things like "that's not me - I couldn't do that".
* we sabotage ourselves, and talk ourselves down, or out of possibilities.
* we don't plan our lives, we just let them happen (he suggested would you just get in a car and let a trip from Perth to Sydney happen? without planning for money, petrol, maps etc?).
* we look at our history and let it stop us from trying new things or changing.
* we play the blame game.
* we look for shortcuts and quick fixes.

There was a lot more than that, of course. Plenty of positive ideas for change and achieving what you want. I think he's planning to release a DVD of the session at some point. But while all of those things are about life in all its aspects, I couldn't help applying them to writing in particular. And a point about hours hit home with quite a few people there - we often use the NO TIME excuse (I know I do). Count up how many hours a week - honestly - that you spend watching TV. Then take four of those hours and write instead. That's a starting point to think about.

Whether you're doing NaNo or not, maybe take some time to consider the whole motivation and perseverance idea. NaNo is excellent motivation for getting that novel down that's been inside you for months or years. But what will keep you going afterwards? If you're not doing NaNo, like me, what is keeping you writing right now? And next week? And next month? On a good writing day, when it's all humming along, is there anything you can capture and nurture, to use on the bad days? What motivates you for the long distance?

Still Learning...

It's been quite a week. I have worked every day on the course, and subsequently my current novel (applying the various bits to the work in progress), and am quite astounded at what I am seeing. There are times when I truly think "Why was I writing like that? It is awful! Why couldn't I see what was missing?"
Ah, grasshopper (as Mr C would say), that's because it is far easier to see what is wrong in front of you than work out what is not there. Obvious mistakes are easy to fix. Gaps, holes, missing links, shallow characters - they're not so easy because in your head, they are there. It's just that you have to learn to see they're not yet on the page.

After 20 years of writing, you'd think I'd know that. And I do. But I had got out of the habit of being able to pick it up. Not sure why. Something more to think about. But I am now on Chapter 3 of my current novel - the coloured markers have been getting a thorough workout, and I can see every day how the words on the page are getting stronger. After the mark-up, I then have to rewrite.

As for Mr C - better known as Craig Harper - today was the day for the Renovate Your Life workshop. It's going to take me a few days to digest it all. I will come back when I've got it all sorted through in the mental intake and filing system. Suffice to say, when I came home, I ate, and then I got stuck into the study and marking up of my novel. The painting of my door frames didn't happen. Priorities, grasshopper, priorities.

Learning and Learners

I'm working hard on my course right now, and learning heaps. There's nothing like being able to take a chapter of your novel and apply all the exercises and coloured markers as you go, then return to the manuscript and rewrite. What comes out can be a revelation. For a start, I've ended up with an extra 500 words, a 15% increase. That's because the course is about developing character emotions and depth, and if you've done any work on showing-not-telling stuff, you'll know that at high points in the story, showing works so much better, but takes more words.

So ... I'm still working through it all (the course is called Empowering Character Emotions by Margie Lawson), and realising that I will need to go back and re-read and re-do the exercises several times. Is it because my brain is getting old? I don't think so - I think it's more a case of I've settled into certain patterns of learning (skimming and taking what I think I need), and I'm having to deliberately slow down and concentrate and go over things to get top value.

All this has got me thinking about ways of learning, or not learning, that I've seen over many years of teaching writing. You may not have taught, but I bet you've seen one or two of these in a class you've attended:

* I already know everything. I'm a fantastic writer, I'm brilliant, but undiscovered. You are here to acknowledge my brilliance. And that means that boring stuff like grammar and punctuation is irrelevant in my case. Besides, the editor will fix that.

* I'm here to learn but you're wrong. Never mind that I've paid good money and am spending valuable writing hours in this room, and just because you are the teacher and you're widely published doesn't mean you know anything about what I write. Because I'm special.

* I don't want to show anyone my writing. Yes, this is a workshop and that's what you do, but someone might steal my ideas. No, I can't send my workshopping by email, because people steal stuff on the net too.

* I only want to write what I want to write. Why are we doing these stupid exercises in class? How will an exercise on writing dialogue help me write better dialogue? Why do I have to listen to what other people have written? After they've listened to me, I'll have a snooze, thanks.

* What do you mean - I need to rewrite this? Everything I write comes out perfect first time. I put a lot of thought into it. So it's fine as it is. OK, I'll fix the apostrophes. And the bit where the character with one eye is looking through binoculars. That was meant to be funny. Didn't you get it? It works for me.

* I was up really late last night. Not writing. At a party. So I'll just put my head on the desk and have a quiet nap. I'm not disturbing anyone. What's your problem?

* What do you mean, my novel sounds like a re-run of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I think I've been really original. No, I don't read horror or vampire novels. Or any other novels, really. I watch TV though. Yes, I've seen every episode of Buffy. How did you know?

* Yes, this is science fiction (or romance, or horror, or middle grade). No, I don't read that genre. But look how much money you can make from it.

Thankfully, these students and writers are very few and far between. Over the years, I have had the great pleasure of working with/teaching hundreds of keen, enthusiastic people who really do want to soak up every single thing they can, and improve their writing as much as possible. That's why I'm still doing it. And I love being a student, too. Better get back to my homework.

Back to "School"

In Saturday's Age newspaper, there was an article about US novelist, Francine Prose, who says she believes writing can't be taught. Now, for someone like her who has been teaching writing on and off for twenty years, I find this an odd thing to say. Does she mean that in twenty years, she has never seen a writer grow and improve, and finally get published? Hmmm, she is either a bad teacher or she has no interest in her students outside the classroom (and they haven't bothered to tell her of their successes).

In the past six months, I've received wonderful news about my former students who have had novels and stories accepted, including one who was shortlisted this year for the Vogel Award (hi, Demet!). These are all writers who we have seen take huge steps forward while studying our course. I'm sure you could argue that they would have made those improvements anyway, if they had just kept writing and reading, but I'd disagree with you. To me, being a writer is always about learning and improving, and working on your craft. Do we hear this said about artists who go to art school? Or musicians who go to the Conservatory of Music or similar schools? No. Why on earth people have to continue to "service" the myth that the only true writers are those with some kind of magical, special talent is beyond me.

Yes, talent helps. I've also seen people that want to write who put words on the page which are unreadable. Either they are unable to get a grip on language and sentence construction (and are often unwilling to learn) or in the translation from brain to page, something falls flat. Those people may never write something publishable. I've also seen talented writers who don't want to put in the hard yards. They don't actually love the act of writing enough to stick at it for years and years. So perseverance is a key factor.

But so is the utter willingness to learn and grow, and the determination to improve. When it comes right down to it, if you feel that every story or every poem or every book you write needs to be better than the one before, or every draft must be better than the one before, you're on the right track. A writing course helps enormously. Suddenly you are surrounded by other writers, thousands of ideas, hours and hours of advice and information, deadlines, workshopping - it's an experience that, if you fully engage, can't help but make you a better writer. So as well as being taught, you are also learning to teach yourself. Courses don't last forever.

This week, I am going back to school. Totally self-imposed, but at my own pace. A while ago, I paid for Margie Lawson's course (lecture notes) on Empowering Characters' Emotions. I must've read the first two lectures about four times, but to be honest, I wasn't in the right place to undertake it seriously. Now I am. Now I have two novels that need major revision, and that revision, in both cases, has to focus on character. So before I start either revision, I'm going to sit down and work my way through the course. I already know what's in it, I know what I want to get out of it, and I'm ready. Is that the school bell ringing?

The Littlest Pirate Sails On

Way back in 1998 or so, I was writing a large historical novel about pirates. I'd done hours and hours of research and I was halfway through what would eventually be 120,000 words. I needed a break. So I decided to put the novel aside and write something completely different. Maybe fairies or animals or something ... What came out was a story called The Littlest Pirate. Originally I thought it was a picture book, but Penguin accepted it and published it as an Aussie Nibble (after I added some more words).

Three more stories about the Littlest Pirate have followed - The Littlest Pirate and the Hammerheads, The Littlest Pirate in a Pickle, and now The Littlest Pirate and the Treasure Map (out next year). All are chapter books in the Aussie Nibbles series. Along the way, the books have gone to the UK (published there by Happy Cat Books) and a couple to the US (Running Press). Then one was picked up by a Spanish publisher, and another by a Serbian publisher. The little guy was sailing far and wide!

Now, ironically, The Littlest Pirate has just been published here in Australia as - you guessed it - a picture book (cover above). The editor and I trimmed and tidied, and the illustrator, Tom Jellett, created Nicholas Nosh's story in full colour. It looks fantastic! Dare I say - it's on sale now, perfect for Christmas gifts. $19.95.
The one thing I have learned from Nicholas's voyages around the world is this - you just never know where a book might go, or what might happen to it. Next time you want to sign a contract for your new (or first) book without carefully considering the terms or getting advice, think again. Like I said, you just never know...

Editor/Publishing Insight

Quick post to direct you to this interview with Chuck Adams - one of the most insightful interviews I've read in a long time about what it's like to be an editor with both a large and small publisher, and some inside thoughts about the publishing industry.

Are Readers Fickle or Set in their Ways?

My cats drive me crazy. One day they'll eat only fresh meat, the next they turn their noses up at it. I try one brand of canned food that they like - a week later they refuse to eat the same thing. I end up feeding cat food to our chickens every now and then (and boy, they don't complain!). But I feel like I'm locked into this expensive guessing game about what they'll eat this week and what they won't. And yes, I've tried the kid's version - Either eat this or go without. They go without. And then reproach me with ribs showing. (Actually, they're probably sucking up to the neighbours...)

Are book buyers the same? We have this series craze going on in Australian children's books at the moment. If you don't have a hot series idea, you're kind of on the outer. Not because you can't write, but because the perception is that kids buy more series books and the stand-alone novels are only bought by "serious" people like librarians and teachers. Series have become a kind of collectible. My daughter was doing the series thing 18 years ago, but back then it was a case of "find a book I like and I want another one". Series still buy into that notion, but there's more to it now.

There's the TV show, for instance. Saddle Club. Old Tom. Spongebob Squarepants (I still don't get that one!). And the trilogy that morphs into more and more books, as long as there's a demand. There's also the Magic Treehouse, the Aussie Bites and Nibbles, the Go Girls - the collectibles. How many have you got? Which is your favourite? More and more, it seems like novels that are shining little beacons of originality, without any brothers or sisters to make them into a series, are struggling. Maybe that's the way the marketplace works right now, but it's a great pity if series are all we are left with.

But to answer the subject question - personally, that is - I'm in the middle somewhere. I love series where the main character is engaging and the voice is strong. A good example is Michael Connolly's latest - The Brass Verdict. His viewpoint character featured in The Lincoln Lawyer, but Connolly also includes, as a major character, Harry Bosch who has been the MC in many other books. We get another, diffferent look at Harry, which is fascinating in itself. But at the same time, I also love a novel which is about ideas and language and story, like The Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Houses in New England. I wanted to slap the main character, and I don't want to read about him again, but the rest of the novel was great.

I think, as good readers, we all like variety. I can go from a literary novel to a crime novel to an in-depth feature article to some history and enjoy all of it, for different reasons. If I didn't read widely, I'd be bored. Everything informs everything else. I read Kate Mosse's book Labyrinth (and then saw many of the places that feature in the book) but I actually like the factual history books better. That's not usual for me, but so what?

I think what bothers me a little about the mass market series books for kids is the idea that they might stop there and never discover what else is out in the wide world of books for them. That's where librarians come in. Public and school. We're fighting the battle here to keep school librarians, and not winning. It shows, in our levels of literacy and engagement with reading. On the news two nights ago, they talked about the new curriculums for schools. One news service actually mentioned that part of the new approach is to encourage teachers to read books out loud to their students.

Whoo-hoooo! If there has been anything that I have heard from teachers in the US, complaining about No Child Left Behind, is that this school draconian testing system has killed reading to the kids. And teachers everywhere over there have seen the terrible consequences of a program where all that matters is tests. At least here it looks like the testing over the past couple of years has shown that we have an awful lot of kids who can't read and write very well. Fingers crossed that the new approach might start to produce confident, enthusiastic readers at last. And really, I guess, does it matter what they start with?

Word Counts

You may not have heard of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) which is in November every year. It really should be International NoWriMo, as thousands of people all over the world now join in. The idea is that you write 50,000 words in the month of November, which means around 1666 words per day, plus a couple of extra (your title?). On the NaNo site, you can join up for free, and you get your own page where you can log in, record the number of words you've written and watch the graph rise.

I haven't done it for a couple of years, mainly because November is our major time of year for marking and providing feedback on student work, and writing creatively just doesn't work in the available brainspace left (which is usually zero). I would love to attempt it this year, except for one thing - I don't have anything of 50,000 words to write. I'm working on something at the moment, and am about 28,000 words into it, but as it's a children's novel, I'm thinking it'll be finished by another 8,000 words or so. I could revise something else, but the idea of NaNo is that it's new work.

Mind you, the requirement that it be a new novel is not supposed to stop you. You're supposed to just write and write and write, and see what comes out. It's why there is a companion book called No Plot? No Problem. But I don't really work like that anymore. I've stuffed up too many novels by not working out first what they are going to be about. All the same, it's tempting...

NaNo or not, word count tallies are useful at any time. Although I bribe myself to write by saying "Just one page", I'm disappointed if I end up with less than 1,000 words. It's a mental target that makes me feel good when I reach it. 2,000 words makes me feel brilliant! When you're in the middle of a novel and starting to flag, wondering if you'll ever finish, and what on earth were you thinking anyway, looking at your word count can make you feel so much better. Wow, have I written that much?

Setting a word count target per week can be useful too. Some days we just can't get to the computer when life butts in, but if we can catch up the next day, and head for that word count, we don't feel so bad. The trick is to find the right target for you. 10,000 words a week may well be too many. 500 is way too few (you knew that, right?). I aim for 4,000. It's realistic, it's an amount that will get me many steps closer to a finished draft, and it's also a number that I know I can exceed, all going well.

Do you have word targets? Or do you count hours? Or pages? Are you doing NaNo this year? Why? Share some thoughts with us.

I'll Deal with my Procrastination Tomorrow

Over on Kristi Holl's blog this week, she's been talking about procrastination, and what's known as writer's block. Mostly they are the same thing, I think. And although there are many reasons why we procrastinate about writing, I'd say the biggest one is fear. Fear that what we are putting our hours and heart and energy into will be criticised or rejected. Fear that when we sit down to write, nothing will happen and we'll never write again. Fear that we are just not good enough - for anything. Fear that something or someone will give us a big fat F on our story.

I know of many people who stopped writing (or drawing) in school because of a snooty or critical teacher's comments. Often these were people whose work didn't conform; they didn't colour inside the lines, so they were told they were no good. It can take forty years to get over something like that, and find the courage to start again. That's why so many people in their 50s rediscover their art - they finally realise it's up to them.

This photo above is not a book (it'd have to be a pretty grubby book!). It's a large slab of concrete. Intended to be the foundation of a house. And it will, maybe not as soon as I want it to be, but I hope I'll get there one day. But I have found that the process of trying to get this house built has filled me with as much fear, and caused as much procrastination as any book I have ever written - probably more. Mainly because of all the people (read: bureaucrats) who have tried to stop me or put huge obstacles in my way. They've all contributed to that horrible gut-churning feeling of "Why am I doing this? How can I continue against the odds?"

The bureaucratic nightmare has mostly consisted of either changing the rules without telling me (and then saying No, you can't do that now), or being unreasonably slow and obstinate about petty things, or literally going back on previous agreements. But I haven't given up yet, although I've used many words in private that I wouldn't use in public!

But it reminds me in so many ways of writing - that is, writing for publication. I'm all for writing because you love it and it enriches you. Writing for publication is different. It brings out all those fears we have about "are we good enough?" No matter how often we tell ourselves, "It is the work that is being rejected, not me", it still cuts to the bone. And it can cause that procrastination bug. If you don't write, nobody can criticise or reject you. While one part of you is saying "I want to write, no matter what", a secret - or not so secret - voice is saying "But it won't be good enough and someone might tell you so".

All I can say is: Do it. Sit down and do it. Just like every now and then over the past three years (and probably more years to come) I have had to tell myself, "Make that phone call, write that letter, complete that paperwork - make it happen". I have a big piece of concrete now. It's lovely and smooth, and I like to run my hand over its surface and marvel at it. Just like I love to see a pile of manuscript pages grow, and the word count on a piece of notepaper next to my computer grow too. This week, along with developing my plot and deepening my characters, I'm getting my bricks delivered. What about you?

What's Different About This Story?

I won't go into all the gushing descriptions again about the hot chocolate I had at the Cafe Francais in Place de Bastille in Paris. Suffice to say, I doubt Angeline's could've done much better. This lovely cup of chocolate above, although it looks amazing (and the inside of the glass was coated in chocolate that melted as I drank it), still came third in my list of great chocolate in France. Second was in a small cafe/bar in Gruissan.

My point is: isn't chocolate just chocolate? Aren't they all made from the same ingredients? True, but to me chocolate becomes a metaphor for stories. Aren't all stories the same? Aren't there all these writing books that say there are only seven/twenty/thirty-six plots, and every story uses the same ones? The obvious answer is that chocolate (in a cup or in a packet) does differ enormously, depending on the quality of ingredients and their mix, just like the quality of a story differs depending on the skills of the writer.

I would take it one step further. It's also about how the writer sees their story and their characters, and how aware they are of the possibilities, as well as what has already been done. Does the chef at Cafe Francais know about Angeline's chocolate? How could s/he not, given the publicity and word-of-mouth it gets? Did the chef set out to better Angeline's? And having very likely succeeded perhaps (especially on price), why aren't they publicising theirs more widely? Perhaps the chef went to Angeline's and said "I can do better". Perhaps not.

As writers, one of our key "jobs" is to read - we need to know what has already been done (and done to death) in our genre or area. We need to read with an eye to working out how that story worked and why it was different. And then we need to come up with a story and characters that stand out from the crowd. Yes, there are many similar stories, but it's how you approach it that counts. And if you do so armed with the knowledge of what to avoid, you'll be better off.

Which brings me to Simon Beckett. I love discovering a new writer - as my friend K says, then you hope they've already written twenty books so you can have a wonderful time reading them all. Beckett only has two to his credit so far but they are great. His main character is a forensic anthropologist. Sound familiar? Like Kathy Reichs? Ah yes, but Beckett has done something different with the FA genre, mainly with character and great setting. I recommend both of his books - The Chemistry of Death and Written in Bone.

The Next Book

This is a topic that doesn't come up very often in general writing conversation, and it has several different aspects to it. Often, it's published writers who talk about it, and unpublished writers don't want to hear that after your first book is accepted, printed and out there, it doesn't all magically fall into place and become easy. I've heard it said many times: Getting published doesn't solve all of your problems, it just gives you a new set of problems!

I was reminded of this when reading Cynthia Leitich-Smith's blog today. As she is celebrating ten years of her website, she has been asking writers the question - Over the past decade, what are the most important lessons you've learned about your craft, the writing/artistic life, and/or publishing, and why?

Today's answer was from Nancy Garden, and among other wise and helpful things, she said: I think the most important lesson I've learned about my craft--or at least about myself as a writer--over the past decade is to slow down!
By that I don't necessarily mean to write less, and I certainly don't mean to take more time off (what's that?), but what I do mean is to be sure to give each new book or story all the time it needs before sending it off to one's editor or one's agent.

This is one of those aspects of 'the next book' - the feeling that, once you have one run on the board, you have to keep producing those books at a good rate, and not let a time gap open up. After all, you're building a reputation, a publishing track record, and if you take too long, publishers will forget who you are. But as Nancy says, handing over an under-cooked book won't do you any favours either. You have be sure every book is the best you can possibly make it. I always feel my next book has to be better than my last one. Maybe not always possible, but good to aim for. And it does take time.

Another aspect of this is genuine pressure from the publisher when your next book is part of a series or trilogy. I heard a fantasy writer say once that her first book took ten years. No one was waiting for it, and she could re-work it to her heart's content with no one looking over her shoulder. When it was accepted, suddenly the second one had to be finished within a year, and when she looked at her draft of it, she realised nearly everything had to be thrown out. To get it in on deadline, she spent many, many nights and weekends on it, always conscious that it was "expected" by someone. Sometimes that kind of pressure can cause major writer's block!

Series are similar, but different. Because you are faced with not just one more book, but maybe four or six or ten. What happens if you get to Book 4 and decide you now hate your main character? Or that the original series concept bores you to death? Sometimes a publisher will put impossible deadlines on you, in order to get the series established in the market. How would you feel about writing four books in eight months? What if you make your name with a series but desperately want to write 'the book of your heart' and the publisher says No?

There is an up-side to this, of course. Expectation of the next book can fill you with confidence, while the first book filled you with the fear that no one would ever want it. A contract does wonders for making you feel justified (especially to scoffing family) about all that time and energy you spend on writing. A solid series concept can make you feel more secure about writing the next one and the next one, because you've done all the hard groundwork and you know what you want to do with it. However, these days the next book is never 100% guaranteed to be published, so at least make sure you get some money up front!

Literacy in the Workplace

The Age featured a large article this weekend on literacy in tertiary institutions and the workplace, citing Monash University as one uni that has come out and complained about having to teach their first year students grammar and punctuation, saying this is the kind of stuff they should have learned at high school. How true. But how to fix it? Or more to the point, how to get the students to care about it, so they also want to fix it?

The grammar stuff can be pretty boring, I admit. I used to teach it in my course. But we have two great editing teachers now who do their best to make the classes interesting and engaging, along with trying to instill the basics into people (young and older) who didn't get it at school. I have my own personal theory, based on some linguistics stuff I've read about, that the years from about 11-14 are the ones where this kind of basic knowledge best sinks in. Research has shown that children who have been isolated from language (the extremes are the ones kept locked up in cellars and attics) can recover and learn correct sentence construction and grammar if they start before about 14. After that, something in the brain, presumably to do with maturity, stops "taking it in".

Our course is about writing and editing, in all its various forms and genres, from business writing to picture books and poetry. We have a simple grammar and punctuation test for applicants that very quickly sorts out who has a grasp of the basics and who hasn't. Someone who has no idea where to put a fullstop in a sentence (never mind a comma) may well fail Editing 1, a core compulsory subject. It makes a big difference to us how an applicant performs in this test (there are other selection criteria as well) as we don't want to accept people knowing they are likely to fail.

However, the other big component in this is how much they want to learn. It constantly amazes me how often students will say things like, "That's the editor's job to fix my grammar after they've accepted my story." Not. Poor grammar and punctuation in a piece of writing means automatic rejection 99% of the time, and very few people write brilliantly enough for this to be overlooked. Many older students, who felt they didn't learn the basics at school, and understand how important they are, put in 120% in Editing 1, and get there by sheer hard work.

But a lot of younger students find they know even less than they thought, and also find they can no longer get away with Spellcheck and guessing. When they discover that the only way forward is to work really hard and learn it all properly, they can't be bothered. A 51% Pass in Editing 1 means you are still getting 49% of your grammar wrong!

In The Age article, they also quoted a number of employers who said they can tell just from letters of application for jobs who is OK with grammar and who isn't. One said that errors in a letter tell him that the applicant didn't care enough to make sure it's correct. It's all about first impressions, and if the first impression you give is that you don't know how to spell or write a decent sentence, that doesn't bode well for you getting the job. That's a big bonus for students who complete our course successfully - they may never write a best-selling novel, but they are going to be way ahead of many other job applicants in terms of their language ability.

Last Days in France

I only had one day in Toulouse, but found two museums of interest (and lots of nice shops). The first museum focused on very early Toulouse, with a lot of Roman remains and history. It's interesting to see how a city can be built on a city that was built on a city, etc. Many of the artifacts in this museum were discovered when they were digging out a new underground metro station. Romans settled and lived and built in Toulouse from about 100BC to 450AD, when the Visigoths and Vandals invaded.

Given that the Visigoths and Vandals were on the move from the Germanic areas, pushed out by other invaders, I thought it was quite astonishing that the Romans were overcome, given that they were solid fighters and had built virtual fortresses. But maybe complacency had crept in? The other astonishing fact I learned at this museum, thanks to a helpful guide, was that the Romans invented concrete. The other thing I saw was the Via Domitia, the original Roman road - in a big square in Toulouse, part of the original road is exposed underneath. I expected it to be smooth (for horses and carriages) but it was pretty rough and rocky.
Of course, on my last day in Paris, I had to make up for missing Notre Dame, thanks to the Pope. My mountain climbing in Languedoc, to look at Cathar castles, was good training for the 387 steps right to the top of the North Tower. The bell started ringing on the way up - some people behind me seemed to think it was their death knell as they struggled ever upwards! I must have about 20 photos of gargoyles from different cathedrals and churches around France, but this one on the top of Notre Dame has to win the prize for being the most gross.

Inside the cathedral, the morning mass was taking place. Several hundred people sat in the middle section and tried to listen, while many hundreds more wandered in and out, took photos, talked, took more photos... They must be used to it, I guess.
And finally, I have to agree with the various websites that rate airports. Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris is truly terrible. And airlines like BA that provide eight staff to help people do e-check ins, and two at the bag drop make it more abysmal.
But I am home again, feeling like I could sleep for a week, and sorting through my 561 photos.

Photos from Land of the Cathars

I took around a hundred photos! These are just a sample.

In the Land of the Cathars

Carcassone on Sunday - a walled city on the hill above the modern city. Walls, moats, wells, turrets, chateau, and lots of souvenir shops and cafes. For some reason, entrance to everything was free, which was a bonus. We spent about 5 hours there, wandering through the winding streets, and we also went through the chateau from top to bottom. Imagined being up the top, firing arrows at the people below, and living in the stone rooms. Cool in the summer but no doubt freezing in the winter. Much of the old city has been restored, but there are still original elements everywhere.

I loved Carcassonne - until I spent the whole day yesterday climbing mountains (literally) to see three Cathar chateaux (castles). Queribus, Peyerpeteuse and Puilaurens. All the stairs I climbed in Paris and Menton in no way prepared me for the rock clambering up to each of these 12th century fortresses. But each one was worth it. As I drove along the valley below and looked up, they appeared on the ridges just as they would have hundreds of years ago. Stunning. And seemingly impenetrable, unless you laid seige to them, I guess.

Peyerpeteuse is probably in the best condition (all are just remains now) but in each one there is enough of the original walls and rooms and stairways to imagine how it would have been to live there. I loved every minute of it (OK, I didn't love the last thirty metres or so of each climb, when I thought my heart was going to fall out of my chest and lie gasping on the rocks). I've taken a million photos, but can post none of them yet as the internet cafe doesn't have the capacity to upload stuff. Will put some up next week.

As for research for my novel, you can't beat it. All I have to do is close my eyes and I am back at the castles, wind whistling past my ears, as I gaze down across the valley...