skip to main |
skip to sidebar
As you may already suspect, I am a voracious reader. I devour books with the fervour of a fat masterchef. What I don't do often enough is let them settle when I'm done. Digest. I scoff them down one after the other without thought for indigestion.
After having Cormac McCarthy's The Road staring at me from the bookcase (pantry) for over a year I finally took it from the shelf and read it. I'd heard all the talk about how horrifyingly bleak it was, but had (& have) not seen the film, so I came to it with a fresh palette so to speak.
I read The Road in 3 days, beginning it on the train to the Emerging Writers Festival (which I'll blog about later). The writing style is plain and honest. The structure leads you into the story one paragraph at a time and keeps you reading. There are no chapters. The writer's use of "the man" and "the boy" is clever. By not assigning names and therefore fixed identities to these characters he has made them "every man" and "every boy"; representative of humankind.
The boy's constant need to be reasured that they are the "good guys" is understandable given his child's perspective. To survive in the face of such widespread devastation; the total breakdown of society, is a difficult, seemingly impossible, thing to do. In order to do it, lines must be crossed. There is no room for regret, for weighing the right and the wrong of a thing; action (& sometimes inaction) is primal; instinctive.
What sustains "the man" is not the food they manage to find along the road, nor is it the gun he carries. What sustains him, what motivates him to keep going, is his love for "the boy". Though he is forced to face the very vilest parts of mankind, both within himself and in other people, it is humanity - the goodness of it - that makes survival possible. The human spirit needs a reason to fight; needs something worth fighting for. Without it, why would we bother, when it's much easier to give up.
When I'd finished reading The Road I chose another book from the shelf, but I found I didn't want to start it just yet. If we don't ever allow ourselves to feel hungry, how can we ever fully appreciate what we eat.
I have found that The Road is a meal best digested slowly; thoughtfully.
I've been dragging my heels when it comes to my writing of late. Between June and November '09 I wrote 46,000 (first draft) words of my historic novel. The first six months of the year had been spent reading for research and thinking; and as one of my teachers at Tafe always drummed into me "thinking time is writing time", but now my thinking is working against me.
The problem is I think I've lost my passion for the project and, as I discussed with a writer friend today over coffee at my local cafe, I feel guilty about it. I've spent a lot of time developing this novel idea and I've put in a lot of hours at the keyboard. The thought of abandoning it and moving onto something else (or back to something else as the case may well be) just feels wrong.
I'm holding on at the moment; trying to figure out if this is just a block I have to push through as opposed to a real lack of faith in the project and/or my ability to see it through, or perhaps even a normal down period (for want of a better word) after completing a previous project - my short story collection Reflections.
I guess I could try and write my way through it but I feel this disconnection with it at the moment and I'm not convinced I can find that spark of interest again. I can take a break from it; I have some poetry I could work on in the mean time & a few short story ideas that could use my attention. And of course there's that other novel...I guess I'm worried that if I do move on to other things and leave it by the wayside that this novel will be there in the background (like some spectural being) nagging at me, calling me a coward and a quitter...
It's been a year since the worst natural disaster to hit Victoria. A lot has changed. The emergency services have realised the warnings were too little too late. New early warning systems have been put in place, but we'll only know how good they are if the worst were to happen...again, and I hope that it never does.
I was worried about friends and family on that weekend. So many fires on so many fronts and even my suburb and the next got their own small dose of the madness. It's important to remember that built up residential areas are still at risk. We Aussies love our bush, and many suburbs keep as much of it as they can. I hope we never become complacent and that tougher penalties - which should include jail time - will be enough to deter the would-be firebugs.
Last year I wrote a poem in response to that harrowing time. I thought I might share it here...
February 2009
the nightly news
has become a morbid fascination
and you’ve never listened
so much to 774 AM
and each night
the nightmare deepens
and the daily papers
show the faces
of the dead
and the living
keep on breathing — thankful
for breath
and survival seems
more and more
a carnival trick
or divine intervention
and you wish
you could be there to help
knowing
it’ll get worse
before it gets better
and that nothing you do
could ever be enough
so as night falls
you switch off your
radio, turn off your
TV and settle down to sleep
in your comfortable bed
inside your house — thankful
it’s not you
As some of you know (especially those who came along - thankyou!) My book - Reflections - was launched by Toni Jordan on Saturday December 12th at the Cranbourne Library. The launch has become a bit of a blur for me but the photos that my good friend Tony Tulloch took jolt the memory sufficiently for me to tell you that it was a great success. So many wonderful people came along to support me and I am forever thankful for that. Both John Irving and Toni Jordan said wonderful things about me and about my writing, and when the dust had settled later that afternoon and I realised I'd signed 51 copies that day, I was further over the moon than that fabled cow!Since that day I have sold another 15 copies of my book and the interest in it doesn't seem to be waning. I'm hoping for a review or two in the new year (fingers crossed) but for now I'll leave you with the jacket blurb by the lovely Angela Meyer...Thanks Ange!
Ok, so I haven't been blogging much and I want to change that come the new year. The only problem with that is...how much do I really have to say? Most of the time I think my life is mega boring and not worthy of a blog post, the other part I'm usually so busy pulling rabbits out of hats (not really, but the metaphor kinda works for my writing sometimes) that I don't have time to blog. I guess I could set a blogging goal for the new year and make it an overall part of my writing goals for twenty-ten...well...we'll see...
My book launch approaches at a rate of knots! I am nervous and excited. It's a little hard organising a launch from 2000 miles away but I'm doing it anyway...
My short story collection, Reflections, will be launched by novelist Toni Jordan (Addition - TEXT) at the Cranbourne Library 11am Sat 12th Dec.
For those who can't make it - the collection is available for sale on the Ginninderra website (www.ginninderrapress.com.au).
That's all for now :)
Today I had one of those moments that, as a writer, I live for...You know, those brief yet vivid glimpses into the future, the discovery of new characters, of new directions for your story to go in; those moments when the writing comes easily, where you feel more like you're channeling the words than making any conscious effort to think them, where it's all flow and you wonder why it can't always be like this, and wish that you didn't have to stop soon and pick your kid up from school; those moments when your characters become real, and you are simply recording the overheard conversations between them, when you feel more like a fly on the wall, observing, than a writer, creating......you know the ones.
So I've checked with my publisher and he says the proof of my short story collection Reflections is on the way. He told me I could probably look at launching in November, but due to other commitments that month I'm tentatively planning for the 12th of December.
I will blog more about it and send out invites when I have everything booked and confirmed.
I think I might just have to get excited all over again!
As you may or may not know, I am currently working on a piece of historical fiction...a novel, no less...In May I was lucky enough to win the Herb Thomas Memorial Trust Award and received a nice juicy cheque to spend on developing my writing career. Thanks to that money I have been able to afford a range of workshops and seminars at the Victorian Writers Centre, as well as a few choice events at both the Emerging Writers Festival and the Melbourne Writers Festival, which has just been and gone.I thought it was about time I blogged about the two events I attended - a masterclass with John Boyne (The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas), and a seminar/lecture with Alexander Waugh (Fathers and Sons) and Glen David Gold (Sunnyside). Both of these events were exciting for me. Just to break away from the monotony of my daily life as a mother and to escape my four walls and interact with other adults, specifically writers, is a treat.John filled our day with readings from a wide array of historic novels, which proved somewhat difficult seeing as the titles and authors names were missing from many of the pages we had stapled together (there was a large amount of rustling). He also made us write and read what we had written aloud. No one missed out, we all had our turn in the spotlight or under it.It's all in the details. That's one of the things I took away from this intensive day, along with the email address of a lady I'd like to stay in touch with (she's writing about her great-grandmother's immigration experience). It's the details that will bring to life any character in any time and any place. Specifics. Novelists should never generalise. Ever.As for the other two writers, well I have to tell you that Alexander is a true and natural comedian. What surprising fun he was! He believes we should all, as writers, sit down and write 3000 words about each of our parents (more if we can - he certainly did). He says we'll be surprised at how little we actually know about them. Glen's most helpful advice, at least to me, was that research needs an emotional context, that key emotions unlock scenes. He said that good (great) historical fiction needs three things - research, imagination and emotional continuity. Not all facts are interesting, he said, but the facts aren't what's important, it's whether they are interesting to the reader. It's how you dress it up.
How on earth do I keep the writing momentum up when I have to stop all the time, often for days at a time, sometimes for over a week? I thought I had this whole thing figured out but life keeps getting in the way.
Family life, though there are now only three of us here, seems to be getting more complex as the days go by. We are all so busy! The man's business is in it's pre-spring-busy-period, looking after Jay is becoming more and more time-consuming as he gets older, yeah - it should be the other way around but tell that to an 11 year old with autism and see how far it gets you!
Now I know why I was in two minds about this job. Oh (hell yes) I love it, but the time I'm off work goes so damn quickly and then it's time to go to work again. I know I'm just being a big sook, and that many ppl work full-time, have families and still manage to write novels...just wish one of them would tell me where I'm going wrong...
Someone? Anyone?
