Art. Science. Craft.

Two issues I'm having today (yes, only two. It's a good day!) :
1. Sometimes my story seems so vast I have trouble steering though the excess to find the core. The true grit. The bits that move the plot forward.
2. Can you learn how to write a novel from a book about how to write a novel? Or should you relegate thoughts of how-to books to the desperado rubbish heap and just go with your gut?
I'd never bought a book on how to write a novel. Until...um, today. But it had a lovely cover and the blurb spoke to me*. Not in an epiphanous [ethereal breathy voice] "if you build it, they will come" kind of way. More like a gentle nudge from a old friend saying "glad you found me, let's sit down and have a cuppa".
In her book Bird by Bird, some instructions on writing and life, Anne Lamott remembers being 10 years old and watching her brother struggle to write a school report on birds. He'd had three months to do it, had written nothing, it was due the next day. Their father, seeing the boy frozen by the enormity of the task ahead, sat down beside him, put his arm around his shoulder and said 'bird by bird, buddy. Take it bird by bird'.
I like it. 
To break down my vast ideas into bite size pieces, I'm trying an exercise Lamott calls writing what you can see through a one inch picture frame. Choose one single piece of your story and write about all that you can see of it through a one inch frame. 
"One small scene, one memory, one exchange... This is all we're going to do for now. Just take it bird by bird."
At the same time I'm navigating my course via my gut instinct. 
What's the best writing advice you've come across?


*The bird theme first piqued my interest. The synchronicity of discovering the author and I share a birthday (albeit a few decades apart) came later.

A rockin' read...

Haha - this is my kind of children's book! Thanks to my little friend Angus for the recommendation. M is for Metal, The Loudest Alphabet Book on Earth by Paul McNeil and Barry Divola, in which a motley crew of old rockers appears in fabulous technicolour, reinvented Spinal-Tap-style-for-kids. The Rolling Stones, Ozzie Osborne, Gene Simmons, Led Zeppelin and more metal dinosaurs get a guernsey. McNeil's artwork is perfectly pitched at the irreverent rhymes. Like this one:
"S is for Stones
That just keep on rolling
Most of their fans
Have now switched to lawn bowling"
You and your kid will laugh out loud. Not necessarily at the same thing. And I'm pretty sure you won't drift off to sleep mid-bedtime story.

Australia Day

12 hours in the life of...
11.01am: Two seven-year olds on the pavement bumble and bump their way down to the beach, balancing a pink surfboard between them. They remind me of Dr Doolittle's Push-me-pull-you.
11.31am: The Aussie flag flaps from the branches of our shade tree, two thongs dangle as weights from the bottom corners. In the foreground the pop and fizz of the first beer being opened. 
12.07pm: 'Packing an esky should be part of the Australian citizenship test.'
1.13pm: Girls unfurled in the shade talk about life drawing classes. Boys clumped around the BBQ talk iPhone apps. And in Australia-ville, all is right with the world.
2.03pm: All about us heads bob in the harbour like corks in a bathtub. Mmm...shark bait.
3.10pm: A frisbee careens through the park skimming a policewoman's right ear.
3.35pm: 'Where's that rock? Are you standing on it? Yeah the water's warm there that's piss rock.'
4.00pm: Wash from a passing speedboat spits a terrier pup out onto the water's edge, all springy and crimplene. Gasping it slips and straddles across barnacle-rocks in a frenzy to follow its master.
5.02pm: New bowler up. 'Look out boys, get ready for the left-arm Chinaman wrong-un!'
5.55pm: A guy wearing nothing but dark blue Speedos parades around the frisbee field. He thinks he's an Aussie Adonis, but really he's just a man, in a park, in very small pants. 
6.45pm: Grasping the hot, metal handrail, a woman in a halter neck sundress bends down to adjust the ankle strap on her 3 inch stilettos. It's 30 degrees. Her feet are sweaty. Blistering. She glances enviously at our barefoot, swim drenched clan.
7.50pm: A trail of coconut snow across picnic blankets leads to the last lamington, standing alone but erect, in the face of the last hot rays of the evening sun. 
8.30pm: Beer. Dusty beach towels. Twisties. Sea salt bodies. Watermelon. Bikinis. Sav blanc. Beach ball cricket. Obligatory dacking at the backpackers barbie nearby. Postcard sunset. Triple J.
9.10pm: The scrape of empty eskies being dragged back into the garage.
11.32pm: Random eruptions of tuneless but heartfelt song from the street below as the last of the revellers find their way home. 
'Thro-oooooooOOOOooo your arms around meeeh.'

Uncut...

OK, confession time after Thursday's post. This is what my writing room really looks like. (As opposed to how it started.) Lived in and loved!
I came across this thread yesterday on author Tara Moss' blog - check it out to see inside other writers' creative spaces.

The novelist's apprentice...

Pretty much every day I discover something new about writing. One step forward, three steps back. If my learning curve could be graphed, it would look something like this:

Stephen King, in his book On Writing, says he writes 10 pages a day without fail. Even when he's on holidays.
Truman Capote wrote lying down, either on the couch or in his bed. He wrote longhand for the first couple of drafts and then switched to a typewriter, balancing it on his knees while horizontal.
Vladimir Nabokov wrote standing up. For his novels Lolita, Ada and Pale Fire he wrote all his scenes on index cards so he could work non-sequentially and mix things around at will. That's a lot of index cards. I think I would get totally confused.
Ernest Hemingway's target was a modest 500 words a day. He rose early to write in the cool and peace of dawn. And he never wrote when he was drunk, which perhaps explains the two previous points.
James Joyce wasn't known for setting himself a daily word or page count. He preferred to let the words come to him in their own good time. Asked by a friend once if he'd had a good day writing, he replied with a satisfied smile, 'Yes'. 'How many words did you write?' 'Three sentences.' 
Rubyfire writes at the break of dawn. Or in the afternoon. On her grandfather's recliner chair. At her walnut workbench in her writing room. On the aeroplane. At a cafe surrounded by hubbub and chatter. In bed until lunchtime. At the pub. In the bush. Listening to soft music but only if it has no lyrics. Longhand. On her computer. 1000 words a day. A couple of paragraphs. But the story is unfolding... and will get there eventually, no matter what.
For deep concentration and productivity I like my writing room best, although I'm on the lookout for a more comfy chair...
Where do you write? And can you recommend a great chair?

My writing room (Looking way too tidy. In real life there are piles of books and journals everywhere. Photo magic.)
Top: artwork Curves, Anne Naylor 

Love Leunig...

I like to delve into my bookcase for a little dose of Leunig every now and then.

"I have developed a deep affection for my abiding characters and symbols, they nourish me greatly... They ask for things and do what they will. They surprise, disturb and inspire me. I observe them with bemusement and respect. I let them be and eventually I hear what they are telling me." - Michael Leunig

Hmm...I reckon someone deserves a slap...

Have you read The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas? 
It was published in 2008 and is still on the SMH's Top 10 (Independent booksellers) list, has picked up the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Overall Best Book, was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award and was the ABIA's Book of the Year.
I read it based on its success both commercially and critically, and because I thought it may have some contextual similarities to my own unfolding story. But I was disappointed. 
Publisher Allen and Unwin's  blurb reads: At a suburban barbecue, a man slaps a child who is not his own. This event has a shocking ricochet effect on a group of people, mostly friends, who are directly or indirectly influenced by the event...The slap and its consequences force them all to question their own families and the way they live, their expectations, beliefs and desires.
I wanted it to be a fantastic read. I wanted to be inspired by its contemporary portrayal of Australian middle class life, multiculturalism and our collective moral compass. 
But I wasn't. 
While I found the first half fairly engaging and the dialogue well written, I laboured, rather than raced through the second half. 
I didn't particularly like, nor empathise with any of the characters. They came across as  weary, unimaginative, generally apathetic and some of them were plain painful.
The titular 'slap' wasn't enough of an event to hold the plot as it meandered and backtracked and veered off on tangents for no other reason than to make sure each of the eight central characters had time to voice their perspective.
I was glad these people weren't my circle of friends.
The Slap is nothing like my story. So even though I wouldn't recommend it, I'm very glad I read it because I'm now more certain than ever of what I want my story to be.
Listening to Tracy Chevalier (Girl With a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures) speak last year in Sydney, she imparted some valid advice. 
'Write the kind of story that you want to read, but can't find out there in the bookstores.'
Far from the gloom and resignation of The Slap, I want to read something about us, as Australians, that is hopeful and optimistic. And that's what I'm writing.
What did you think of The Slap?

Sleep talking gold...!

It's Monday and you need a laugh right? 
Click here. Sleep talkin' man.
What's this? Furrow brow. Read. Huh? Scroll down. Giggle. Read more. Eyes widen. Laugh. Keep reading. Ha haaaaa! What the?! Laugh out loud. 
10 minutes later still reading. Guffaw! OMG. Do I do that? Read read read. Split sides. This man is a living, breathing, snoring story. Add to favourites. MWAH-HA-HA-HAAA! Can you believe this dude? Gold.
Cheers to the unconscious fertile mind. 
Vow to be a more original thinker.

Have your rice and eat it too

This is a true story. At least, it's the beginning of one... the possible endings boggle the mind. 
A friend saw this advert posted on a telegraph pole in the city today. Reminds me of those Choose Your Own Adventure books I used to read as a kid, where at the end of each chapter the reader made choices to determine how the plot unfolded, with a multitude of possible endings. 
$135 per week is pretty steep for one third of a bedroom I reckon. But hey - you get FREE RICE! 
How do you think the story rolls...?

Somewhere on the Australian east coast...

Today's musical inspiration comes with pictures not sound - imagine waking here at daybreak to a thousand-strong cicada orchestra. Magical! Ear-splitting.

Avoiding adjective overload in my writing has become a focus. Mark Twain's advice is: "As to the Adjective; when in doubt, strike it out... They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart."

See below, sans adjectives, snaps from a writing spot somewhere on the Australian east coast... 

Books Do Furnish A Room...

Absolutely adore this book I was given for Christmas! 

Books Do Furnish a Room by Leslie Geddes-Brown. 

It's a visual feast for any bibliophile and makes me green with envy. Oh to have the space and flair to creatively house all those beautiful books...

The rejectors' regret...!

What do each of these famous writers have in common?:

Mark Twain

Walt Whitman

Deepak Chopra

Gertrude Stein

Virginia Wolf

Margaret Atwood

Tom Clancy

Beatrix Potter

e e cummings

Believe it or not their manuscripts were rejected, time and time and time again, by publishing houses around the world.
So they self-published and the rest is… a fortune in literary treasures.
Joseph Heller suffered 22 rejections for (guess what) Catch 22. Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead - 12 rejections. Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull – 20.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig was declared a non-starter by supposed ‘experts’ a soul-destroying 121 times. According to the Guinness Book of World Records it wears the sash for the most-rejected best seller. And yet Pirsig remained resolute, releasing it himself in 1974. Thirty-six years on it’s an indisputable American cult classic. Who hasn’t heard of it?
The self-help career tome that is standard reading for any job seeker, Bolles’ What Color is Your Parachute?, didn’t even get an interview. Now in its 37th reprint and having sold over 10 million copies, someone, somewhere, clearly couldn’t see the giant gift horse's big brown eyes staring him in the face.
Imagine if George Orwell hadn’t stuck to his guns and self-published Animal Farm? Should it never have seen the light of day I bet even my 17-year-old cousin, still dripping from being saturated in Year 10 Orwellian satire, would grudgingly admit to being the lesser for its absence.
Mark Twain’s publisher lived to rue the day he ever scorned Huckleberry Finn. Defiant to the last, Twain came up with an ingenious strategy to market and publish his book simultaneously. He hired a team of door-to-door salesmen to sell subscriptions to the as-yet unpublished book, which he then paid to produce himself.
My book is nowhere near publishing stage, but it’s something a wannabe writer can’t help but think about from time to time. What do I do with it once I’ve finally finished the @%*!@! thing?
In the publishing mosh pit one person’s decision might seem to be your maker or breaker. But I reckon if a person fails to see something special in what you put in front of them, put it in front of someone else. If they can’t see the value in it, (besides being nutso) they don’t deserve the rewards it will - undoubtedly - bring :)
And your mum and dad will love it regardless.

What's your story...?

Yesterday my good friend and fellow book lover, K, said she started writing a book once. 
'For like - a day. Then I stopped.' 
I asked her what it was about. A curious look played about her face. 
'Can't remember.'
There's an old adage that says everyone has a book inside them. It's just excruciatingly difficult to get it out.
I have mates with such a gift for storytelling they could spin a yarn right off a passing Merino's fluffy white behind. But put it down on paper? Not likely.
One who springs to mind is renowned in Africa for her gift of the written gab, and often thinks about putting her pen where her paper is and pounding out a book. But though she undoubtedly has the skill, she has no pretentions towards literary greatness.
Briefly caught in the daydream of scribing deeply philosophical and profound works of colossal importance, she screams with laughter and the facade shatters to earth amid our howls of mirth.
'Mine would be indulgent trashy pulp. All about my mates...' she confesses proudly.
And I'd snap it up straightaway. There's a time and a place for stories of every nature. 
So tell me, if everyone does have a book inside them - comedy, tragedy, thriller, farce, whatever - who and/or what would yours be about?!

Life in Spoonerville...

I'm not a pheasant plucker;

I'm a pheasant plucker's son.

Nonetheless, I pluck pheasants all day

Until the pheasant plucking's done.

From David Astle's column on Spoonerisms in the SMH yesterday which made me laugh. 

Research mission critique #1 - the mathematics of love

Herewith the promised critique from last night's research mission. And a fruitful mission it was. 
Our first hit came approximately 15 minutes after touchdown at our chosen bar. Let's call him 'Specimen A'. 

Quite a casual approach but engaging. Warm. Humorous. Non-threatening. And using the increasingly popular 'wingman' (or in this case 'wing-woman') technique of being out with a mate and together nonchalantly easing into a group conversation. This gives you a more confident success ratio than the one-on-one hit which has a higher degree of difficulty.

Speciman A was out with his 'sister' and has a million pick-up lines, most of them unprintable here. According to 'sister', who experienced it first hand, his default line goes something like this: Hides a tiny piece of paper fluff in his hand, approaches his target with a friendly smile and says "Excuse me, I'm sorry but you have something in your hair and it's been distracting me all night, let me get that for you", as he gently tugs a strand of hair behind her ear and gallantly retrieves said fluff from his own hand.
Sitting down next to us in our preyground, his lure of choice was: Leans in and points to an awkward looking couple across the bar. "Look at their body language. Do you think they're on a first date?" Yeah - points for that. Engaged us all in the conversation, which inevitably took a comedic turn and gave our new posse of four an excuse to check out everyone in the bar. Not bad Specimen A.
Then there was the couple on an arranged date at the table near us. She was sitting opposite her would-be suitor, staring numbly past his left ear while his fingers tapped and danced inexhaustibly across his iPhone. In a final, desperate attempt to attract his attention she slid sideways, clutched the arm of the 55-year-old man next to her and nestled into his chest. The man next to her did not object, in fact he settled in contentedly between her and his wife, judging by the smile creeping onto his face, conjuring up a happy ending for their story.

But the most unusual accessory award goes to our new friend the Mathinator for his bizarre appendage. He walked into the bar gently cosseting a grey, red and white polyhedron in his hands. Yes - polyhedron - "a geometric solid with flat faces and solid edges" according to Wikipedia.
It was a gift from his maths-teacher girlfriend. She made it especially for him - the most impressively geeky but sweet romantic gesture of the evening. Clearly, in the mathematics of love 1 + 1 = oneness for these two. ;)

Suffering for one's art...

This is where research becomes fun. 
I'm heading out to a shmoozy bar tonight to check out the pick up techniques of our city's bachelors. 
Ok, so you can see that any night of the week in pretty much any pub in this town - but tonight it's an official research trip - which gives my friend MM and I the chance to set ourselves up as bait and be (extraordinarily) beguiling.
One of my characters sees himself as something of a Casanova. I won't tell you what others see him as, suffice to say that isn't it fascinating how some people simply wouldn't recognise themselves if society stood in front of them holding up a huge big mirror.
Notebook (clutch-purse size). Check. 
Spare shoes for when the killer heels live up to their name. Check.
Sense of humour. Check check check.
This is very important research. It may take a few outings. Stay tuned for the critique...

Psycho!

Just in from a loaded cinematic/symphonic experience - a screening of the original version of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in the reverberant cavern of the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House. 
Celebrating 50 years since its release, the inimitable and thoroughly scarifying score (by Academy Award winning composer Bernard Herrmann) was played live, and brilliantly, by the Sydney Lyric Orchestra.
They say a picture paints a thousand words but in this case its the music that turns this simple tale into simply terrifying. 
Ok, it's not actually that scary in today's world (to be honest it's hilarious), but I can imagine that when audiences were pouring into cinemas in 1960 to see it, the suspense, the dramatic flair of the cast and the ghoulish special effects would have had them crapping themselves in terror. And mostly because of the music. 
I can't play it here but check out these images from the film... a feast for those with a penchant for melodrama and a secret desire to start writing from: It was a dark and stormy night...

To think and then to do...

Last night I saw Bright Star, Jane Campion's 'learned and ravishing' new film about 18th century poet John Keats and the love of his short life, Fanny Brawne. 
The New York Times describes it as: "Perfectly chaste and insanely sexy..."
"A sequence in which, fully clothed, the couple trades stanzas of 'La Belle Dame Sans Merci' in a half darkened bedroom must surely count as one of the hottest sex scenes in recent cinema."
Ah you see boys! - there are no bounds to the merits of poetry :)
The other interesting thing about the story was that Keats wrote in a kind of tag-team with Charles Brown, who was his patron and collaborator. Is that how it works? 
I always imagined the greats - especially the Romantic poets - worked alone. But maybe this is just an early example of what we call mentoring? Or a novelist working with an editor?
I've spent the last eight weeks trying to figure out how to make constructive headway with my own novel and one line truly resonated with me. 
Keats and Brown are lying around staring dreamily into space and appearing, to the outsider, to be lazy sloths. On being rudely roused by Fanny and her siblings, Keats' eloquent explanation goes something like this: 
"Doing nothing is the muse of the poet."
It's taken me a while, but I've found that simply sitting and thinking is essential to the writing process. (So is talking to yourself. Don't think I'm weird.) 
I've been really frustrated by the amount of time I while away thinking, because I've felt unproductive. But I've discovered that by giving your unconscious time and space, bit by bit, word by word, scene by scene, it will gradually bring forth your story. 
I've also discovered - and this is REALLY important! - the only way the thinking part works, is if you then glue your butt to the chair, put pen to paper and write. 
That's the hard part!

Secret confessions...

I love this idea. 
Frank Warren is an American guy who started a community art project by printing out 3000 postcards and distributing them around town, inviting people to anonymously send him their secrets. 
The brief was: "Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before. Be brief. Be legible. Be creative."
The response was phenomenal. There's a lot of people out there with their conscience weighing on them. Thousands of secrets have been published on a blog and in a series of books.
Here's a few from the original book PostSecret - Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (2005). "Frank calls them 'graphic haiku', beautiful, elegant and small in structure but powerfully emotional."
Some are light-hearted and funny, others dark, obsessive and jarring.
They remind me of Plato's advice:
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
And everyone has a secret story...

And I love these two from the PostSecret blog:

Happy new year!

When writing at home, I like to drink from my love mug. I find it helps.
Happy 2010!