Meditation and Writing

One of the hardest things for a writer is to get into the "writing zone" when you first sit down. In fact, the idea of writing can be like a wall, one that's too high and too hard to climb. There are various techniques to help you overcome this: leaving the previous day's writing with a sentence unfinished; making notes as you finish the day before to remind you what comes next; creating an outline that will lead you into the next bit; re-reading the last chapter to get back into the world of the story.

When I was at Hamline in January, one of my workshop leaders, Marilyn Nelson, suggested we start each workshop with a 5 minute meditation. I've been meditating on and off (more off than on, I admit!) for many years, and it suddenly hit me - why hadn't I been using this as a way into the writing zone? It may sound strange to do something that is supposed to empty your mind at a time when you want to fill it with your novel or work-in-progress, but it's actually more about emptying your mind of all the day-to-day trivia, and letting the writing take over.

Also there are many different ways to meditate. You may need to relax and drop the daily trivia, you may need to overcome fear and/or writer's block, you may want to do some focused daydreaming about your writing. Meditation actually needs a bit of practice. The more you do it, the better you get, like most things. You can start with relaxation and move onto to something that leads you into writing.

There are plenty of aids, as well. Guided meditations (someone talking you through it) are popular, although I find someone else's voice distracting. There's a heap of music tracks, as well as sound effects such as waves, birdsong, etc. Meditation Australia has lots of free stuff but you can also join up and get access to more. A friend of mine recommends Glenn Harrold - most of his CDs and DVDs cost money but he also has apps for iPhones and Android, so you can take it with you as an mp3.

All you need to do is Google for free meditation music (or something similar) and have a look at what is available. Try some out, and when you find a resource that you like, keep at it. It might be the very thing you need to glide into writing every day.

The Art of Concentration

Concentration is a big thing for writers - if you can't concentrate on your novel (or whatever you're writing), you either can't write at all or what you write feels slight or forced. There are two types of concentration, as well - one is the total focus on the characters and storyline as you write, and the other is the general thinking/dreaming/imagining you do every day to develop the story and characters and "nut out" what it's all about and where it's going.

Often we think of concentrating on our writing as just the first option - I must find time to write, I must sit down and totally focus, I must write 1000 words, etc. It's a little different for everyone. Some full-time writers spend all day writing, and I always think that inside that day must come both the physical writing and the imagining and dreaming. But for most of us, we have a limited time, maybe an hour or three, and what we struggle with is concentrating 100% for that span.

Some days it will be no problem at all, and the hours will fly. But on many days, it will be a struggle. If we haven't written for a while, we have to read and think our way back into the story. Then we have to have a sense of what might come next (or if we have an outline, we know but still need to make it happen). And then we have to write. If you've ever spent two hours trying to squeeze out one page, you'll know that feeling of frustration and despair.

For me, half-hour bursts work best. Knowing I have 30 minutes, I am able to focus totally and get a lot done. Then in a short break, I can stretch, make coffee, and return for the next 30 minutes ready to go. Part of it is, I think, a mental attitude and you can train yourself into working this way in a very short time.

But the other kind of concentration is harder. This is where I do envy full-time writers, not for the amount of physical writing time, but for the dreaming and imagining. It's as if a part of your brain is always focused on your novel, and as you get more and more ideas and learn more about your characters, you can create a denser, deeper, more intense story. Without the daily grind of a job, your brain is free to concentrate in a different way.

I know some part-time writers who are able to work this way, regardless of their day job. They are so fully immersed in their stories and characters that the outside world always takes second place! But for most of us, we have to juggle the two kinds of writer's concentration and still endeavour to make our novels emerge the way we envisage them.
How do you balance concentration and the outside world?

Reasons to Avoid Writing Rhyming Picture Books

This semester is mostly about picture books for me. Reading them, reading about them, thinking about them, writing essays about them, and attempting to write some new ones of my own. Oh, and rewriting them a million times. It's what I have chosen to focus on for this semester of my MFA. I've written two verse picture books in the past but neither use rhyme. They are both a series of poems that use sound, repetition, language and imagery. I admit it - I avoid rhyme. Why? Because I know how hard it is to do well.

I've been writing poetry for nearly 30 years, and in that time have written sonnets, villanelles, pantoums, sestinas and triolets. All of these use rhyme, except sestinas which have particular rules about how to use end words. These are forms that require a lot of patience and hard work, and they can easily go wrong. But you're dealing with poems that might only be 8 or 14 lines long. Short enough not to send you around the bend.
Unlike a rhyming picture book.

In order to use rhyme and rhythm effectively, I think firstly you need to be able to scan - to work out the stresses and/or beats in a line of poetry, and see or hear which stresses are heavy and which are light. You need to hear the rhythm and, more importantly, hear when it's wrong or clunky or missing something. It's not just about syllables, it's about which syllable in a word has the heavy stress. Important - the stress is on por. Icecream - the stress is on ice. It's easy to fool yourself if you're not practiced at it.

Some people can hear this naturally - they're able to easily and fluently use rhyme and rhythm to great effect. Most people have to work at it over a period of time before they get good at it. Secondly, you need to know lots of words. You can use a rhyming dictionary, but that can lead to some strange word choices, and it's easy to just find a word that fits the required rhyme when you should be choosing the best word you can. It's also easy to fall into the trap of inverting words to make a rhyme work. Walking across the paddock green. We don't talk like this anymore, and so it doesn't work in poetry today.

Rhyming restricts word choice. It's a huge challenge to write a good poem that rhymes and also uses great language in ways that add to the poem instead of detracting from it. Rhythm creates its own problems - again, it can be so easy to end up with a rhyming poem that has a da-da rhythm guaranteed to bore anyone to sleep. Put bad rhyme together with the da-da rhythm and you have doggerel.

When it comes to rhyming picture books, add all of those challenges on top of the crucial demands of writing a great story with engaging characters, a strong plot and less than 600 words ... it can become an impossible feat to achieve. So when I came up with an idea for a picture book story two weeks ago, and the first lines insisted on coming out on the page in rhyme, my heart sank. (See, now I'm using cliches as well!) I persevered, hoping that the rhyme would disappear and the story would emerge shining and new and without the rhythm that kept running through my head. Some hope.

I now have four messy versions of this picture book, four lots of different verses - and in every single version, the verses have a different pattern of beats/stresses. I can't even pick out the best and put them together because none of them match! The only thing that is saving me from running out into the street and screaming at the moment is that despite the rhyming curse that has struck me, I've managed to get a plot worked out - independently of the verses.

Now, this might not be you. You might either be really good at this (like Julia Donaldson of Gruffalo fame, or Lynley Dodd who writes Hairy Maclary stories), or a general rhyming whizz. You might be sitting there thinking what an idiot I am, and what is so hard about rhyme, for goodness sake. But if you, too, have tried to write a rhyming picture book and been driven around the bend, then you know exactly what I mean. Let's stop it right now, shall we? Or maybe I'll go back and have one more go at it...
(P.S. And of course now I discover Julia Donaldson has also written a picture book called The Rhyming Rabbit. But she has always been a song writer. That explains a lot.)

Setting Your Own Deadlines

A writer friend and I were talking today about what we'd like to achieve with our writing this year. She has been working on a trilogy for a long time but has had to put it on the back burner for a while, so she wants to get her head back inside the story and commit to it again. I have a handy deadline of a conference this year, and a new novel - put the two together and presto! I've decided I want to achieve a decent draft of the novel by the time the conference comes around.

But in the past, this kind of incentive hasn't always been there. I've had to simply keep plugging away at whatever I was working on, whether it be the fifteenth draft of a picture book or a novel that may or may not be working. Some people use Nanowrimo to inspire them to write a whole novel, while others are good at goal setting and timelines. Where do you sit?

For many of us, work and family commitments shove their way into our spare time and energy, taking over until there is nothing left. If you work in a job that requires a fair amount of creative energy (teaching is one), you probably struggle to keep some for writing. If you have small children or a demanding home situation (I'll let you imagine what that might mean!) or your health is not good, it can be hard for you to give your writing its fair share of time in your life.

This is where deadlines can be very useful, and there is nothing to stop you setting them for yourself. They can be as simple as 10 pages per week by Sunday 9pm. If you have a big 0 birthday coming up (40 or 50, say) you might start thinking about finishing your novel by that date. You might hunt out some competition opportunities and set their closing dates as deadlines for yourself. Or even find yourself a writing buddy that you can work with to set deadlines and encourage each other to meet them.

Often a good deadline is one with a goal, like a writing competition with its closing date. You can attach a reward to your deadline - If I finish my novel by 31st July, I can book that holiday to the Byron Bay Writers' festival, for example. Sometimes I set a really short deadline and reward - finish 20 pages by the weekend and I'm off to the movies! The thing about attaching a deadline to a reward is the time limit. No putting off those pages forever and a day. You have to have them finished or no reward at all. All of this might sound like the kind of big stick you don't want behind you, but remember the real reward - the more writing you do, the better you get, and the more likely you are to finish that novel.

Put Your Heart Work First

After eleven inspiring days at Hamline, I arrive home and am faced with two things - normal life and due dates for packets of work to my advisor. These two things are, of course, in direct conflict. As much as I would love to settle down with a huge pile of books and my notebooks and focus on reading, study and writing for the next few months, I have a job to go to, necessary things to do like tax returns and bills to pay, and people who need or want my attention (and cats who do as well, but are easily diverted by food, which only works sometimes for humans!).

It was a common topic of discussion at Hamline, especially among the new students who were there for the first time. How on earth do you find the time for study when you get home? Especially if there are things in your life that loom like huge, gaping mouths, ready to suck you in and use up all your time and energy? Despite two terrific lectures about the writer's life during the residency, this is a battle that every writer has to fight, on their own.

But when others asked me, "How did you cope in your first semester?", I had to stop and think for a few moments. How did I cope? And what I realised was it came down to one thing - I put my heart work first. When it came to making a To Do list, study and writing for my Hamline packets went at the top. When it came to my diary, I looked at where I could make time for my heart work. When it came to social stuff, time on Facebook, TV - I chose my heart work first. That didn't mean I became a recluse! But once I made that firm decision and stuck to it, it became easier and easier to focus.

Funnily enough, not much else suffered. OK, I couldn't tell you more than a couple of TV shows I watched (hardly any loss), and probably people didn't get much from me in the way of emails and phone calls (sorry), and I did less unpaid overtime at work (gee, sad about that). But once I put the heart work first, everything else fell into line behind. Where it belonged. So often we think that the curveballs life keeps throwing at us are undodgeable, but I'm learning to simply catch them, deal with them, put them where they belong (a lot less stress that way, too) and get back to my heart work.

Me and the MFA - January 2012

I have just finished my second residency at Hamline University in Minneapolis/St Paul - 12 days of hard work, deep thinking and reflection. A lot of reading as well (I was reading ahead for my next 40 books on the list), six workshop sessions, many readings, lectures and presentations. The theme for this residency was Point of View, and we looked at this in every way, from picture books to YA, poetry to rabbits. Rabbits, you ask? I guess you had to be there!

I loved all of the lectures, and although I know about POV, there are always more ways to think about it. We looked at psychic distance a lot, and had plenty of discussions about things such as "What is the POV in Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus?" We also looked at the 3 act structure, playwriting, and most importantly for me right now, the writing life. It's not about time management so much as committment and being brave enough to go deeper into your writing. Facing fears and "breaking open on the page". That's a scary thought for many writers. We like to write about other people, mostly, especially imaginary ones. Write about ourselves, even through a character? No way!

But I think these challenges are what I'm going to be thinking about all through this semester, as I write picture books and keep working on my novel, as well as tackling the critical essays. What does it mean to be a writer? Really. Does it just mean we write stuff and try to get it published? Or do we need to engage more with what and why we are writing, and what are the themes that are most important to us? Claire Rudolf Murphy asked us two questions.

1. When was the last time you wrote something safe, in order to "get the job done"?
2. When was the last time you wrote something risky, and wrote with freedom?
I'm going to be thinking about these two questions on my long flights home! But after that, I have enough in my notebook to keep me going for six months. And then in July, I'll be back - minus the snow.

Give Yourself a Gift in 2012

Is today the day we all rush around and write down our goals for the year? I doubt it. Some people might have had some resolutions in mind over the past few days, but I'm betting that most of you are either on the beach or in the snow, or just having a good time while the holiday season is still going! But not long before Xmas, I tweeted a blog post that suggested you give any writers in your life the gift of TIME. Do something for them that allows them to take off and write.

Now, if you are a writer and you saw that mentioned somewhere, did you go to your nearest and dearest and suggest it to them? Maybe you should have, because the one thing we all know is that nobody ever rocks up and just gives it to you. Because it never occurs to them that you need it! Writing is easy, is it not? You just have to sit down and scribble some stuff or pound the keyboard for a while and there it is.

If you are a writer, I will bet that you have many stories about those close to you and how they react to your writing. I actually align writing to dieting - the more you try to do it, the more likely you are to be offered a piece of cake, or in the writer's case, a trip to the movies or the zoo or a night out, accompanied by a sniffy mood if you refuse. Let's face it - non-writers don't get it, and family are even worse. They seem to think that your writing takes something away from them.

So in 2012, if you want time to write, you will have to give it to yourself. You will have to wrest it from those others around you and gather it up and keep it for yourself. You will have to suffer words like selfish and self-absorbed (and maybe worse), you might even have to cope with a bit of emotional blackmail. But writing takes time. Good writing takes a lot of time. If you continually give it away to other people, your writing won't get done. See, you gave all those gifts to other people at Xmas, but what about you? Give yourself the gift of time to follow your passion.
And enjoy it. No gift wrapping required.

Me and the MFA - Part 5

To continue my occasional posts about studying an MFA in Writing for Children and YA at Hamline University in Minneapolis/St Paul...

I’ve reached the end of my first semester, and am looking forward to the next residency at Hamline, despite the snow and minus temperatures! When I look back at the work I’ve done this semester, I’m amazed at what I’ve produced, especially when it seemed so daunting at the beginning. Daunting because I still had to go to my teaching job as well as do school visits and write and revise some commissioned work.

But I have survived. Four essays and 130 pages of a novel later, as well as about 35 pages of reflections and many pages of writing exercises and revisions, I feel very happy with it all. The novel was an experiment, something I wanted to write without any thought of publication, something I could write several versions of, just to see what worked and what didn’t. The lack of pressure (will an editor like this?) freed me up to do all kinds of writing of and around the novel in ways I haven’t tried for many years.

The reflections were useful as I wrote them kind of like a diary, one or two entries a week, about what I was reading, writing and puzzling over. Maybe other people don’t do theirs like this but it was interesting to read back and see what had evolved over the four months.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the essay writing, but each topic was something that I wanted to know more about, and wanted to investigate more deeply. How a particular writer creates character on the page, voice in historical fiction, dual narrator novels – all of these led me to new work and re-reading familiar novels, as well as delving into theory. I finished the semester with a personal essay, something I have little experience in, and I delved into Sheila Bender’s book on writing personal essays for some help and writing exercises, which then gave me some more ideas on other things I could write about!

To me, this is the perfect writer’s life – reading, delving, thinking, coming up with new ideas, waking in the morning and laying there thinking about what I will write that day. Then getting up and making a start on the next page of the current work. A pity that many days I had to get up and go to my job instead!

Now I have a big pile of books to read before the January residency, and notebooks, laptop and pens to get ready. I’m also looking forward to seeing everyone again, finding out how their semester went, and celebrating that I’m now a Semester Two girl! But somehow I doubt I'll be counting squirrels this time.

Writing Workshops - For or Against?

I've recently been reading two different (but similar) books about the writing workshop - whether it's an archaic structure or setup that has run its course and does more harm than good, or whether the workshop is still a beneficial thing for writers but perhaps needs to be considered differently these days. I'm going to discuss the books themselves in a week or so, when I've finished reading them, but it did seem a bit strange that both of them have been published in the last year. (They are Does the Writing Workshop Still Work? ed Dianne Donnelly and Against the Workshop: Provocations, Polemics, Controversies by Anis Shivani.)

Where I teach, the writing workshop is a staple in our classrooms. Not because we are slavishly following some ideal that was set up in Iowa 60 years ago, but because we think that it has a lot of benefits. And some downsides. The benefits are: students gain a first audience for their work, one that wants to learn as much from commenting on other's work as they do from the feedback they receive; they start to see common weaknesses and through discussion begin to learn how to address these; they build a sense of a writing community; they realise that you can't please all of the people all of the time!

The downsides might include: the writer who becomes defensive and angry and argues with the group; the person who criticizes everyone's work relentlessly and never says anything positive; those who only say what they like or don't like but don't offer anything else; the person who accepts everyone's comments on their own writing but doesn't reciprocate. There are probably more than this! But the downsides for us tend to be limited to individual's problems with the process, and because we're in a classroom it can be easier to work these through. The other thing to be wary of, of course, is creating a situation where you "homogenise" everyone's work, or where writers go for the safe options, especially where a grade at the end is involved. I think we try to avoid that, as much as possible.

I do know of workshop groups where no one ever critiques - they just read out to each, pat each other on the back and then go home. I've also heard of others where one person has managed to destroy the whole group! Outside of a classroom, the writing group has to manage itself and be reasonably democratic. This is harder to achieve than you might think. A willingness to contribute honestly and fairly, to encourage and support as well as critique, and to bring writing for critique regularly, are basic requirements for success.

Some of the issues mentioned so far in the books I'm reading include workshops that discourage experimentation, don't critique critically enough to be useful, and those that operate only as critique groups with no reference to or study of literary texts as a basis for learning. I'm sure there's going to be a lot more! I'll get back to you when I'm done reading and thinking. In the meantime, if you have any comments on workshopping experiences, please do share!

Writers and Rescue Options

A friend today told me how much she loves a show where people move to their country dream house, and tonight I watched an old episode of Country House Rescue. It got me thinking about the analogy between those who call in an "expert" to find them a house, or fix a horrible house, and those who ask for help with their writing.

In a writers' group or a class, there is a sense that everyone is there for the same reason, and you are all focused on the same thing - improving your work. Fixing the story or poem that doesn't engage your reader, or looking at how to rewrite the novel that drags in the middle. We all know the myriad ways a piece of writing can run off the rails. In a class, I think there is a sense of camaraderie, and also an acknowledgement that once you receive some good feedback, you'll go away and work hard on rewriting (and those who clearly don't are somewhat scorned by the others!).

But while watching some of the house rescue shows, my husband and I often become frustrated. Why don't they listen to that good advice? The advice of the expert? Why ask for expert advice if you are not going to follow it? We watch people who are told "Don't sub-divide that room as buyers won't pay for a house with tiny bedrooms". And they still do it. Or more often, they are advised to spend more time and money on making something look top-notch, and they don't, and then they can't sell the house.

OK, that's no doubt got a lot to do with TV producers deliberately choosing obtuse or stubborn people who are guaranteed to provide a more "stimulating" viewing experience! But I couldn't help comparing this to writers who want to write publishable work - usually novels - and pay for critiques, classes and writing "doctors" and still will not or cannot do the work required at a professional level. It's as if they're paying for what they hope will be a person who will say "A totally marvelous novel and you are a brilliant writer". And then they don't need to fix anything.

All the money in the world will not produce a good, publishable novel without a bit of talent and a whole lot of hard work. Just like it won't produce a renovated house you can sell for a profit unless you knuckle down and learn and do a whole lot of hard work. (You can pay someone else to do it but you won't make a profit - you could pay someone else to write your novel for you, but what on earth is the point?)

On the show I watched tonight, a participant was shown the rotting wood and holes in the ceiling and asked, "What are you going to do about it?" And her answer was, "I'm resigned to it." Imagine if an editor pointed out your lack of characterization and poor dialogue and asked you to revise, and you said, "I'm resigned to it." Are you resigned to settling for a first draft? Or are you going to get out your hammer and drill and chisel and renovate your writing?

Writing in Chaos

The other day I read an article about certainty by Sarah Wilson (Sunday Age). She'd been inspired by a book called Uncertainty by Jonathan Fields, and said: "I became aware of how often my anxiety around uncertainty prevents me from creating freely..." Which caught my interest - isn't it uncertainty and doubt that often causes writer's block? Or at least stops us from facing up to the blank page?

In her article she also talked about how she'd discovered many creative people lead "ritualised" lives - eating the same things, getting up at the same time, following the same routines - because that steadiness, that certainty in their everyday lives meant that the uncertainty that comes with creating is much easier to face. This got me thinking about how often I hear people say they haven't been able to write because they've been too busy or life has been too hectic.

What is "too busy" really? Is it that every hour of your day is so totally filled with obligations and chores and duties and work that you don't have time to write? Or is it, as Wilson and Fields suggest, that the chaos of being busy and disorganised and always rushing creates so much uncertainty (or stress or angst or whatever you want to call it) that mentally you cannot find a place where writing will happen?

There's a cliche that if you want to get something done, ask a busy person. What lies beneath this is simply that a busy person who gets a lot done is simply very organised because they have to be. It's logical. Also a busy, organised person is often more able to say No because they are aware of whether they really do have the time and energy or not. Many of us don't say No because of guilt, but also because we often don't understand where our time goes and can't come up with a way of saying No and meaning it!

I like the idea of creativity coming from uncertainty - I feel it every time I sit down to write, and it's a relief to know it's normal. But I also like the idea that ordering the rest of my life with lists and prioritising and a visual diary is what allows me to create more, and create with less anxiety. I know that since I began my MFA studies this year, I have never worked harder or more consistently! But in a weird way, I've been less stressed because I've stuck with my priority job lists, and it's kept me off emails and time-wasting stuff. The one thing that has been stressful was maybe something I should have said No to, but I've learnt from that as well.
So, where do certainty and uncertainty sit in your creative life?

The Computer vs Your Body

I've just spent more than two weeks where I was at the computer or the laptop every day for several hours or more. It takes a toll. I like to think it's just because I'm getting older, and it is, but as we become more and more reliant on computers and technology, and spend more hours in front of any screen, we're going to have to be more pro-active about the ongoing and accumulating effects of this.

Years ago, I worked for a printer as a typesetter. It was an old-style machine with font disks that had to be changed if you wanted to use a different font. One of the main components of the machine was a set of extra keys off to the right-hand side. Now we have a number keyboard there that most of us hardly use. Back then, I used those keys constantly for formatting, so it should have been no surprise to me when I got RSI. In other words, a huge amount of pain and inflammation up my right arm.

Eventually I had to give that job up. Later I also discovered that the rickety chair I sat on, which couldn't be raised or lowered, had undoubtedly made things worse. Aha, you think, it's all different now. We know about ergonomics and RSI and stuff like that. Yep, sure do. But how many writers do anything about it? I no longer have that particular RSI symptom - now I have a ganglion on my right hand from the mouse, and constant neck and shoulder problems. And I'm not the only one, according to writer friends.

So what are the things I am still doing wrong, despite knowing better? I still hunch in my chair instead of sitting up straight. I still struggle to find the best position for using my laptop, even though I now have a separate keyboard for it. I still get engrossed in what I'm working on and forget to get up and stretch. But at least I have a decent chair and it's at the right height.

We get our professional writing students to analyse their work areas to see what needs to be fixed or changed. I sometimes wonder how many of them actually do anything about it. But in the long term, if you don't, you are asking for ongoing, painful physical problems. Today, after several weeks of sustained computer work to meet some deadlines, I went off to have a massage as a reward. But I knew, all the same, that it wasn't just a reward. It was a necessity so that my back and shoulders would stop feeling like pretzels and I could walk straight and upright!

Don't take your time at the computer for granted. Stay aware of what your body is telling you, and do something about it. This is an ongoing problem - it will gradually get worse with time, and the longer you leave it, the harder it is to fix. Just ask my neck!

Book Awards - Precarious and Providential

The news this week came from the US National Book Awards - in the young adult section, the judges chose five books for the shortlist but somehow six were announced. At first it seemed that yes, an error had been made in the announcement but they would stick with it. Now they have taken one book off the list - Shine by Lauren Myracle - or should I say, Myracle apparently "withdrew the book from consideration". Who knows what went on behind the scenes, but Myracle has behaved most professionally in what must be a horrible situation, and no doubt it has earned her many new fans.

There's a saying that all publicity is good publicity, but with the internet these days, that's not always true. An author a few months ago who tried to defend herself against a bad review received a huge backlash. True, she defended with insults! But in this world where hundreds of new books are published every week, where self publishers are using the net and Amazon to get their books out there, for many readers awards remain one of the standard guides for what is a "good book".

This week also there was much outrage about the shortlist for the Man Booker prize. This is an award for a book that is considered to be the best of the best in literary fiction, and the critics are complaining that the books are too "popular". So apparently the criteria for this award includes "too literary to be readable and/or enjoyable", which is a pity. Regardless of that, the uproar will help sales because all those people who thought the Man Booker shortlist was too literary might now go and buy at least one of them and actually read them!

The quandary with awards is this - they attempt to choose the best in a given year. The shortlist they come up with is a mix of opinion and compromise (the more on the judging committee, the more compromise - this is fact borne out by experience!). But for most awards, this shortlist influences book sales to an immense degree. Here in Australia, if you are shortlisted for one of the Children's Book Council awards, your book is guaranteed an immediate reprint and at least 3000 extra sales (a lot here in Oz).

What are the repercussions of this? For a start, if you get shortlisted, you are very, very happy! If your book doesn't get shortlisted, however (and if you aren't Andy Griffiths or writing a current hot series), your book will very likely die within 12 months and probably not earn out its advance. So the argument that book awards unfairly promote some books at the expense of a lot of others is a valid one.

For children's books, the other option is the various children's choice awards. I'm going to put my foot in my mouth here and say I actually think these are worthless to the author and their book. I mean worthless in terms of sales. For a book to win a children's choice award, it needs to have been already bought/borrowed and read by lots and lots of kids, so if you win one, it means you and your book (because often it's the author who is winning on reputation for great books) are already out there in huge numbers. But they are great validations for you personally, because it does show kids read and love your books. How good is that?!

It's interesting to see some state awards here now include a People's Choice award that is voted for by readers. (I do wonder though about the publishers who email you and urge you to vote - oh well, it all counts.) So awards are providential. You never know when you might get shortlisted, and if you win, good gracious! How wonderful, especially if the prize money is nice. But you can't count on them either. You just have to write, and believe in what you write, and keep on writing.

Expanding Writing Horizons

Every now and then it's good to try something new. A while ago, I volunteered to be part of an art "experience". I wasn't quite sure what it would be but I'd done other stuff - writers sports, poem writing at exhibitions, performance writing. This was a bit different. Power to the People is part of the Melbourne Arts Festival and "presents works from over 15 Australian and international artists who have revisited, revised and revitalized these art-making strategies. Works shown by artists including Dora Garcia, Fiona Macdonald, Jonathan Monk and Mario Garcia Torres, demonstrate a move away from the art ‘object’, into more performative, documentative, research and participatory modes of art making."
This is another work in the exhibition. People can try on the animal costumes if they want. Most didn't. But one big group of Asian students had a wonderful time. Nothing quite like a penguin wearing a gorilla's head!
Basically I, and about 20-30 others (we work in shifts), am part of the Dora Garcia artwork (installation?). While people visit the exhibition, we sit at the table with the laptop and write about what we observe - and we are observing the people. The idea is that whatever we write appears above us on the projected image, and that they should at some point realise that we are writing about them.
That's when it gets interesting ... or confronting. For both sides. As the writer, I am not allowed to use my point of view or say I or me. I can only be the "objective witness". As the words appearing on the wall above me are the only things that move in the room, most people notice and then realise what is going on. Then they watch you watching them and writing about them.

It takes the role of the lonely writer in the garret and blows it out of the water, although my understanding of the instructions we are given is that it's the audience who are important. The writer is just part of the installation. I did find it hard to keep a straight face some of the time. I am only doing two shifts - all I have time for - but next time I'm going to have a closer look at some of the other works so I can "interpret" some of the body language I'm seeing in response to what is around me!

"The Taste of River Water" by Cate Kennedy

In my poetry class, we often come back to the question of what we think a poem should or could do. There are lots of answers, but one of my favourites is that a poem can show you something that you thought you knew about in a different and/or surprising way. To me, this is what Cate's poems do. While some might say they are too "prosey" or dwell too much on the ordinary, this is what gives her images such power. She sets the scene and then stuns the reader with imagery that you can see and feel and, at times, smell and touch.

Many of her poems, in fact, feel like narratives. When did we last read good narrative poetry? Some of Les Murray's do this, but many other Australian poets focus more on lyrical imagery and small moments in a landscape. Behind Cate's poems sit whole histories and what we see are not just glimpses but the bones of the stories within. She allows the reader to fill in the gaps, which is also what I think good poems do.

Not all of the poems are like narratives. Any collection benefits from variety, but I think what also underpins this one is a real sense of place. Some of you would be familiar with her poem, "8x10 colour enlargements $16.50" which tells of a farmer's wife, a talented amateur photographer, who enters a competition. The reader is invited into the poem: "Let me lay it out for you". We are in the local town hall with the poet, observing, commenting on the winning photo: "a massive sunset shot, the colours juiced with Photoshop" and the farmer's wife who said so little about the injustice that the poet felt compelled to show us what happened.

The collection is book-ended by two poems about writing poetry, an interesting touch given that I've heard Cate talk about her short stories and how often she tries to begin and end a story with images that mirror or connect in some way. As I said, I think this is where the strength of the poems lies, in the way an image will reach out from the page and hit you, make you pay closer attention to what is being created for you. For example, in "Windburn" after a day at the beach:

this rim of salt on my forearm
like unnoticed, evaporated tears,
as if I've spent today silent, unconsolable,
weeping into the crook of my elbow

My favourite poem in the collection is "Temporality". We don't need to know exactly what building this is, just that it's one with a secret history that the average museum visitor might well miss unless they looked more closely and used their imagination. This history is of ordinary working men, and the details tell us much more than you expect:

This four-inch nail banged in beside them to hold invoices
that they always meant to replace with a decent hook or clip;
see how it's holding fast
long after they have gone,
see how they were wrong
about what was temporary.

I could go on about this book of poetry all day, but I won't. However, I will recommend it very highly as one you should add to your bookshelf.
By the way, The Taste of River Water recently won the Victorian Premier's Award for Poetry.

Why Do We Need Libraries?

I love libraries. (This is my lovely new local library.) I have been using them more and more over the past few years, mainly for research but also so I can read a wider range of books (without having to buy them). This might seem penny-pinching. Yep, it is to start with. But if I do find an author's books that I really like, I will often go and buy one or two. However, there are often books that I give up on after 40-50 pages (sorry, Quentin Jardine) and know that I will never read further. Or buy any. The voice or the style or the kind of story it is just doesn't resonate with me. And public libraries allow me to seek out what does resonate. Every reader wants something different.

However, I'm one of the lucky ones. Not only do I have access to the internet, so I can research online, but I also have access to some university library databases. Now I can find a huge range of articles, ebooks, scanned books (I hope legally), reviews and summaries that might assist me in my quest for the perfect essay. :)

But a blog post by Seanen McGuire a few days ago here has kept me thinking about this topic. She says that 20% - 1 in 5 Americans - don't have any access to the internet. I'm going to quote from her blog post (I hope she doesn't mind!):

It is sometimes difficult for me to truly articulate my reaction to people saying that print is dead. I don't want to be labeled a luddite, or anti-ebook; I love my computer, I love my smartphone, and I love the fact that I have the internet in my pocket. The existence of ebooks means that people who can't store physical books can have more to read. It means that hard-to-find and out of print material is becoming accessible again. I means that people who have arthritis, or weak wrists, or other physical disabilities that make reading physical books difficult, can read again, without worrying about physical pain. I love that ebooks exist.

This doesn't change the part where, every time a discussion of ebooks turns, seemingly inevitably, to "Print is dead, traditional publishing is dead, all smart authors should be bailing to the brave new electronic frontier," what I hear, however unintentionally, is "Poor people don't deserve to read."

In the media, I see a lot of stuff about the gap that is growing between the richest and the poorest, not just in the US but in Australia and other countries. Our (un)esteemed current premier politician in Victoria, Ted Ballieu, tried very early on in his election campaign, to present himself as someone who understood the "battler" - which in itself is a term that has been so commandeered by politicians here as to become a joke. What did Ted try to do not so long ago here? Cut funding to public libraries. Thankfully the huge protests (unreported by the media, I might add) made him back down.

Those of us who are able to buy books (in any format) tend to forget how many other people not only don't or can't buy books, but don't and probably won't have access to the reading technology of the future because of cost. All of those ereaders that we debate over - and I am one of the debaters! - are meaningless to a huge proportion of our population who don't even have a computer at home. If you can't afford a $10 book, why on earth would you even consider a $150 Kindle or a $600+ iPad?

When I was a kid, I was 10 before I owned my first book (a gift). I relied on my school library and then later, the public library in town. Now I will spend money on books before I spend it on movies or DVDs or dinners out. That's my choice. There are a lot of families who need to spend money on rent and food before books even get considered. Kids need both public libraries and school libraries. They need books they can take home. Not computers in the library or classroom that tell them a few things while they have their turn.

Before we start debating the various experiences of a paper book versus an ebook, let's stop a moment and think about how a paper book gives simple and cheap (free via libraries) access to learning and reading experiences for millions of kids who aren't going to get it electronically. And let's support our school and public libraries. We can lobby our politicians at ALL levels (a lot of public library funding here comes via local councils), not just for public library support but for school library support.

There have been a lot of new school libraries built in Australia over the past 3 years, thanks to building funding, but too often there have been not nearly enough books to put in them. Call me a luddite, but I don't believe that replacing books with computers is a sensible move. But more than that, our schools need librarians to encourage and help kids to borrow books that excite and interest them, that give them the mind-expanding experiences that TV and computer games will never come close to. ALL of our kids should have access to books and libraries, not just the ones who can afford it.

Me and the MFA - Part 4

I have a confession - I love writing essays. Who knew? Not me. Up until four months ago, I hadn't written an essay for 18 years, and then I had to write two for my application to Hamline. I had no idea whether what I wrote was OK - I just focused on what they asked for and had a go. I figured the essays couldn't have been too awful because they let me in!

While I was at the July residency, we had a session on essay writing. What is this MLA thing, I wondered? When I did my BA at Deakin, I studied a whole range of subjects, mostly literature and writing where I could find it, but also Philosophy and Australian History 1 (and although at the time I only found the history of Melbourne vaguely interesting, it came in handy when I started researching for the Our Australian Girl books). I still remember in Philosophy being told, "We don't care what you think. Do not use "I" in your essays." So to hear that your opinion was valued in an essay, as long as you based it on what you had discovered in your reading, was both exciting and scary.

MLA also requires a different kind of referencing. The last time I wrote an essay, we used Harvard and it was all books and articles. Now, of course, we have the internet and data bases of stuff, so it can get tricky. I tend to do bibliographies with a magnifying glass to get the punctuation and numbers right!

But mostly what I am enjoying is the reading. Literary theory seems so much more accessible when you read it with your own novel writing in mind. Suddenly it's no longer abstract - it has a meaning and a context. I like being able to write essays about topics that will teach me something, and that will make my own writing better (I hope!). At the moment I'm reading about voice and point of view in historical fiction, and also reading some novels to see how other writers do it.

It's like taking the whole "reading as a writer" to a different level. It's focused, and I write down gold nuggets of ideas, theory, practical application and inspiration every time I find one. What is also exciting for me is that the information and theory is actually giving me more ideas for my novel. At times, almost too many! I guess judging their worth and keeping or tossing these new ideas is going to be a big part of my writing for the next few months.

As for the "residency glow", no, it hasn't faded. I was worried that it would. That after a month or two, I'd forget all the inspiration and advice, the feeling of growth and purpose that I had while at Hamline in July, and perhaps lose interest. Instead, every time I sit down to study or write, it comes back and keeps me working and thinking. I especially enjoy finding things I can share with my classes. Last week I read half a page about voice from Janet Burroway's Imaginative Writing to my poetry class - it fitted perfectly with what we were discussing that week. Now if the other Burroway book would just arrive in the mail, I'd be set for my mid-semester reading!

Time Management, Goals and Writing

The other day, I spent a couple of hours with one of my classes talking about time management and goal setting. It's a class where they are learning about being a freelancer (either as a writer or editor or any other myriad ways of earning money when you have good skills). So we've covered small business, ABNs, tax, record keeping, networking ... a whole range of things they may well need once they get out into the real world. Mostly what I say to the writers is "Don't give up your day job".

Yes, I am a bit depressing, I guess. If you want to look at it that way. I like to think about it in terms of "the more you know and understand, the more likely you are to make wise decisions and create a foundation for adventure". And when it comes to goal setting, I'm an advocate, whole-heartedly. Why? Because I've been doing this for about 20 years. I started it back when I didn't even really understand what it was. When the workshop leader told us to write down things that we really wanted or dreamed about, that's what I did. I've done it each time the exercise came up in different opportunities.

I'm a hoarder. So over the years, every now and then I have discovered old goal setting notebooks and files that I've tucked away. And each time, I have been astonished at how many things I wrote down years ago, thinking they were impossible dreams, that have come to pass. I'm not talking magic here. I think the key has been that rather than write down one thing and decide it was impossible, I wrote down many things - most of which were connected. I can't remember when I first started writing down "Study MFA". At least ten years ago. Now I'm doing it. Who would've thought? Not me, back then.

But many of the other things I wrote down were like steps. Attend conferences, learn how to plot, write X and Y, send out manuscripts, get an agent, gather information... one way or another, they were all to do with writing and becoming more professional, and to do with learning. So as I stood in front of my class and took them through the goal setting exercise, I could see some skeptical faces. That's fine. I've done goal setting with other groups, so I'm used to it. Because I know that the only people it works for are the ones who commit.

Committing is an individual decision. I can't make anyone do that. I can only provide some tools. It's the same with time management. I've spent years trying to work this one out! I've read some great books, such as Eat That Frog by Brian Tracey. And done the Simpleology course. I've wrestled with procrastination and time wasting until I wanted to take a big stick and simply hit myself on the head with it. In the end, after all this, only two things work for me. A To Do list on which everything is prioritised (that I make myself stick to) and working in half hour focused bursts. Give me a whole day and I can waste it just like that! But those two tools are what work for me.

Maybe it's like giving up smoking or dieting - we all have to find what resonates, what works for us. There are dozens and dozens of books, courses, articles and gurus out there who will show you how to achieve your goals and manage your time. Sometimes you have to give some of them a try (hopefully without paying too much!) if only to realise what works for you. I sent my students off at the end of the class with one wish - that they will persevere and find what creates results for them.

Dying To Tell Me

Some books have longer or stranger journeys than others. When I do school visits, sometimes the kids ask me what happens to the books that don't get published, and usually I say, "They are the ones that need more work, so I put them away until I'm ready to rewrite."
But sometimes you have a manuscript that you just know in your gut is the one you wanted to write, and after a lot of revision, it feels right. And then what?

Dying to Tell Me is one of those books for me. I could have changed a lot of it to please people who didn't like some of the plot elements, but it felt "right" to me as it was. I just had to keep faith with it. And now it has found a wonderful home with Kane/Miller Publishers in the US. It came out on 1 September as a beautiful hardcover novel that I am totally happy with.

Here's the blurb: Sasha doesn't really mind moving. It's not like there was any reason to stay in her old life, after all the trouble. But Manna Creek is strange. And when after a pretty nasty fall, she starts hearing and seeing things that haven't happened yet, or happened a very long time ago, it gets even stranger. Maybe King, their new retired police dog, can help solve the mysteries. He thinks he can. He told Sasha he could. And she heard him ...

"A stronger-than-she-realizes heroine uses her disconcerting telepathic gifts to help others and heal herself in this satisfying adventure." - Kirkus Reviews

How Do You Feel About Plot?

After a terrific session at the Writers' Festival on plotting in the crime novel (see previous post), I was a bit astonished to see a report of another session in which Kate Grenville apparently said plot is the last resort of the mediocre writer (and cited Stephen King's On Writing to back up this statement). How intriguing, I thought. My first thought was: surely Stephen King didn't actually say this. So I went looking along my shelves and found that what he did say was this -

Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.

He actually talks about stories in that chapter, and says he believes that they are like fossils that you dig carefully out of the ground with a variety of tools. He likened plot to a jackhammer. For someone who was criticised for many years as being a hack genre writer, he obviously doesn't equate genre with plotting. And yet this is the literary writer's first attack weapon - genre writers rely too much on plot.

It all seems to me like another writing furphy. Tack it up there along with "writing courses are a waste of time" and "the only decent poetry is rhyming poetry" and "literary novels don't have plots". Really, it's just opinion, isn't it? Everyone writes differently. Some writers, like Jeffrey Deaver, are known for creating 150 page outlines for their novels. Other writers, both genre and literary, start with an idea or situation and fly by the seat of their pants.

I guess I would just like people like Kate Grenville to acknowledge that their way is only one way. Theirs is an opinion, that's all. So having said that, what do you think about plot?