What Do You Think is Funny?

In our course we have a subject on writing comedy. Although many of our students never study this, saying that they are not funny enough, others give it a go, just to see what they learn. One of the writing how-to guides that I recommend is The Comic Toolbox by John Vorhaus, because I have used it myself with some of my children's story ideas. There are most definitely tools that we can use to develop a story idea into something funny. But ultimately, I always come back to thinking about that question - what is funny, and why do we differ so much in our answers?

Years ago, I attended a screenwriting conference on sitcoms, and the first question in the very first session was "What is your favourite sitcom?" Of course, everyone had a different answer. Mine was "Cheers". But other people loved "Fawlty Towers". Some loved "Friends". Now I'm sure some would answer "Two and a Half Men" or "The Office". Comedy also shows up great divides, in that those who love one show will loudly scoff at others who love another!

A writer friend of mine attended all three Robert McKee seminars last weekend (I'll post soon on the one I went to), including the comedy day. She told me McKee had said that a comedy writer is someone who hates the world, and writes from that perspective. While you might disagree, I thought about some of the comedy writers I have known, but more than that, a lot of the comedy that I have seen and heard. And I think I agree, for the most part. Not necessarily that a comedy writer hates the world, but that perhaps he or she has a more cynical or pessimistic view than the rest of us, and uses that as a basis.

Because, let's face it, a lot of comedy these days is pretty cruel. In our newspaper, The Age, there was a piece last week about an Australian comedian who is currently popular in the US, but most of his comedy routine is based on being sarcastic/nasty/horribly funny (you choose) about a company in Adelaide that he used to work for. Obviously, his time at this place was not good for him, and he's now paying them back big-time for it. And everyone is falling about laughing at his routine. Although the comments section on the article suggest about 50% of people are not.

And I thought - huh? It's meant this company has suffered quite a lot of backlash, the owner has received hate mail, and so far has been unable to defend himself. Maybe he deserved it - I'm not going to get into that argument! But I'm still wondering what really is funny about this? And when is the comedian going to move on? Or maybe he can't move on? So what is that saying about him?

I think there is a lot of very funny comedy around - I've seen and heard stuff that I thought was hilarious, while understanding that not everyone would agree with me. That's the nature of comedy, as I said earlier. But I'm starting to wonder about "funny" stuff that is basically an excuse for an attack on someone as a way of getting back at them. And then I wonder about comedians whose routines are all about attacks on themselves. Before I get too darned serious altogether, I think I'll go and watch a re-run of "Cheers"!

Me and the MFA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Has Your Bookbuying Changed?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Geoff Goodfellow - Waltzing with Jack Dancer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you think the photos add?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing Competitions - Yay or Nay?

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

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

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

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

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

Have You Been to Booktown?

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

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

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

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

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

Where Are Ebook Sales in Australia?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Does a Board Book Do?

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

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

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

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

Different Jobs, Different Skills

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

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

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

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

Whose Fault Is It If I Don't Understand?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ebooks and Libraries

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

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

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

Need Some Writer's First Aid?

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

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

l. Who is this book aimed at?

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

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

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

3. Why did you write it?

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

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

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

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

To Review or Not to Review?

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

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

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

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

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

How Accurate Do We Have to Be?

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

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

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

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

When the Bestseller Eclipses Your Other Books

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

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

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

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

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

A Writer's Nightmare - Hard Drive Failure

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

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

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

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

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

Back-to-work Blues for Writers - Solutions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Australian Girl (TM) - book trailer!

When a Story Just Won’t Gel

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Matterhorn" by Karl Marlantes

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

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

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

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

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