NaNoWriMo - Why I won't be writing 50K words this month.

I may need to bow out of NaNoWriMo.

I thought I'd use the redrafting of my novel as part of my wordcount (only using the 'new' words) but I'm already noticing sloppy writing as I try to clock up some NaNo words. I think I should give it a miss this year while I concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

Good luck to all my friends doing NaNo this year. I envy you the helter-skelter race to the finish line, the buzz of writing fast without looking back. Next year I hope to finally have this novel finished and be ready for a fresh start on a new project. NaNo will be just the kick in the pants a new project will need. So NaNo is definitely pencilled in for 2012.

Hope to see some of you there!

(For those of you who are wondering "What is NaNoWriMo?" it's a month-long writing challenge where participants try to write 50,000 words in 30 days. For more information click here.)

Lisa Heidke - Author Interview Series

Lisa Heidke writes contemporary women’s fiction. Her first book, Lucy Springer Gets Even (Allen & Unwin, 2009), was quickly followed by What Kate Did Next (2010). Her third novel, Claudia’s Big Break, was published in January 2011.

What authors/books did you read as a child? When did you first discover your love of books?

My mother started reading to me when I was very small so I don’t remember a time when books weren’t a part of my life. Mum read Australian classics to me like Snuggle Pot and Cuddle Pie, Blinky Bill and The Magic Pudding.

Enid Blyton was the most prominent author I remember when I was a child. I loved The Magic Faraway TreeThe Naughtiest Girl in School, The Wishing Chair, The Famous Five, etc.

When did you first realise you were a writer? What do you hope your readers will take away with them from reading your books?

That’s a difficult question. I have always written because I trained as a journalist but I guess I realised I was a writer when I started wanting to create my own fictional worlds. I love having the power to make characters act and talk in ways they would never dare in real life.

Generally, I write about women in their thirties going through crises and personal upheaval so I guess I’d like people to read my books and realise that there’s light at the end of the tunnel (if they’re going through a tunnel). If women reading my books are already living prefect lives, then I’d hope they’d be relieved they are not living my characters lives!

That all sounds very gloomy...in fact I write with a humorous bent, so even though my main character might be going through a divorce there’s enough humour in the story to stop it from becoming a tragedy.

Do you find it difficult to read purely for pleasure? Does everything you read come under your ‘writer’ microscope?

No, I love reading for pleasure. I’ll admit when I am reading books in my genre, I’ll think, ‘now why didn’t I write that’ or I might analyse how the author has created the tension or woven several strands of a plot together. When I’m reading outside my genre, for example— crime, fantasy, historical romance etc, it’s entirely for pleasure. I love being swept away by a story and transported to another time.

Do you have to avoid reading certain types of fiction while writing your own? Does what you read while writing have an effect on what you write? In what way?

I avoid reading books in my genre when I’m writing, so that I am not indirectly influenced or led astray. To completely get away from what I’m writing, I’ll read memoirs, historical romance or the classics like Pride and Prejudice.

Name five authors or books that have influenced or inspired your own writing in some way.

Marian Keyes would have to be number one. I love her books – her style of writing, humour and characters appeal to me.

Stephen king. Even though I don’t read his fiction, his book ‘On Writing’ has been an enormous help to me.

Then of course there are the classic writers like Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen and Dorothy Parker, who continue to inspire me.

If you were travelling and were told you could only take one book with you, what book would it be and why?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams. In case I get lost – and it’s laugh-out-loud funny.

What makes a book ‘too good to put down’?

When I get swept away BY the story...when every page is a page turner and I am thinking to myself...I can’t go to sleep yet...just one more chapter...I have to read what happens next. And then I fall asleep thinking about the book and wondering what is going to happen in the following scene or chapter.

What makes you put down a book without finishing it?

I try not to do that. When I pick up a novel, I do my best to see it through to the end. Having said that, if the characters aren’t engaging or I can’t relate to them for whatever reason, I do find it a struggle to continue.

Do you have a favourite author? Who is it and what is it about their writing that draws you to them?

When it comes to modern day authors, I would say Marian Keyes. I like her style. However the more I read Australian authors, the more I enjoy them. Women like Kirsty Eagar, Kylie Ladd, Fleur McDonald, Sara Foster, Anita Heiss, Helene Young, Liane Moriarty, and Fiona Palmer are truly talented authors writing interesting and original stories.

If you had to list them, what would be your ‘top ten’ reads of all time (excluding the classics) and why?

This an almost impossible task and my top ten changes all the time. However, this is my list for today:

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold

The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

1984, George Orwell

What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty

One Day, David Nicholls

High Infidelity, Nick Hornby

Rachel’s Holiday, Marian Keyes

What was your 2010 ‘best read’? What was it that made it number one?

One Day by David Nicholls. It’s a love story about Emma and Dexter, who have an end of university one night fling - and about how their lives intersect and parallel over the next twenty years. It’s funny, wise, sad and poignant. One Day is definitely one of those books that after I finished reading it, I thought, why couldn’t I have written this?

What do you think of the non-traditional publishing methods – eBooks etc? Do you think the new technology will encourage more people to read? Do you think there’s a future for print books?

I don’t know a lot about the eBook market but I do know most books being published these days, including my own, are available as eBooks. As far as I am concerned, anything that gets more people reading or makes it easier for people to access books is good.

I definitely believe in the future of print books. Nothing beats holding a book in your hands when you’re reading in bed at night. (I have to confess I’m one of those people who turn the top corner of the pages over!)

In February 2011, Claudia’s Big Break, was listed in SMH’s Spectrum as one of the Top Ten Australian Best Sellers.

You can find out more about Lisa and check out her blog, at www.lisaheidke.com

You may also like to follow her on Twitter @lisaheidke

Fran Cusworth - Author Interview Series

Fran Cusworth is an author and freelance journalist who has written for The Age, Herald Sun and The Australian.

What authors/books did you read as a child? When did you first discover your love of books?

I was an early reader and I remember my father growing exasperated at how quickly I would finish books and ask for more. I would wake in the night and read, and my parents finally took the light bulbs out of my room to stop me – it sounds mean now, but I think they were worried I wasn’t sleeping. The first book I ever read was Jaws; after that my family realised I could read chapter books and furnished me with more appropriate reading matter. I loved Enid Blyton, CS Lewis, the poetry of Walter De La Mare, Lewis Carroll, and any Australian books – the Billabong series, Seven Little Australians.

When did you first realise you were a writer? What do you hope your readers will take away with them from reading your books?

I decided very young I was a writer, and I started keeping a journal at about age eight. The good thing about starting early is that you have a couple of decades to work through the deadly, terrible, self obsessed stuff, and I have all sorts of short stories about favourite hiding places, or my best friend looking at me the wrong way, or who did the best jump on the trampoline. I really can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel certain I would be a writer, and being a keen reader helped this.

I hope my readers will be absorbed, and escape their every day lives for a while when they read my books. I’m not seeking to change the world through my books, I just want to entertain, and at the most reflect some aspect of the reader’s life back at them in a new way.

Do you find it difficult to read purely for pleasure? Does everything you read come under your ‘writer’ microscope?

I read a great deal for pleasure, but my writer radar is always turned on. I find a lot to inspire me. I just finished Jonathon Franzen’s Freedom, and then read Corrections, and while I absolutely loved them, I was very envious that he could write about family so humourously and cleverly, while pinpointing society so accurately at the same time.

Do you have to avoid reading certain types of fiction while writing your own? Does what you read while writing have an effect on what you write? In what way?

I should avoid reading certain types of fiction while I’m writing, but I don’t. I’m always writing, so I would never read if I did that, and reading is too enjoyable to stop. I am very affected by what I read – the last Geraldine Brooks book I read, I decided I had to have a historical thread through my novel and it took a couple of months to realise that was impossible for the novel I was writing. I read Toni Jordan’s second novel Fall Girl, and felt I wanted my book to be more funny. Then I read The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and just about felt like never bothering to write again, it was so perfect. I certainly should stop reading. But I won’t.

Name five authors or books that have influenced or inspired your own writing in some way.

Well, as described above, most books I read. Even bad ones inspire me with what I don’t want to do. I would have to say Geraldine Brooks, Anne Tyler, Toni Jordan, Franzen, Jane Austen.

If you were travelling and were told you could only take one book with you, what book would it be and why?

A compendium of Jane Austen’s six novels. Or The Forsyte Saga. Or The Bone People.

What makes a book ‘too good to put down’?

Wondering what will happen next. Providing a world you want to return to. Humour. Likeable characters.

What makes you put down a book without finishing it?

Pretension. Boredom. Literary high-falutin’ showing off where nothing happens and the reader is treated with disdain.

Do you have a favourite author? Who is it and what is it about their writing that draws you to them?

I like a lot of English classics: Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Austen – I think I’m drawn to the wordiness of their writing style and the focus on morality.

If you had to list them, what would be your ‘top ten’ reads of all time and why?

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.

Middlemarch by George Eliot (or Mary Anne Evans).

Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban.

Mitten Strings For God by Katrina Kenison.

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

What was your 2010 ‘best read’? What was it that made it number one?

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I loved the language and I found the fictionalised life of Thomas Cromwell, PA to Henry Eighth, fascinating.

What do you think of the non-traditional publishing methods – eBooks etc? Do you think the new technology will encourage more people to read? Do you think there’s a future for print books?

I think eBooks will probably take off in a big way over the next year, and maybe even people I know will be buying them – they’re not yet. I just had floor to ceililng wall to wall bookshelves installed in my home, so I won’t be getting an eBook just yet I don’t think. I think it’s just a medium, I doubt it will change how much people read.

Fran Cusworth is a Melbourne based journalist who has published two novels, The Love Child and Hopetoun Wives, both with Penguin Books.

Margo Lanagan - Author Interview Series

Margo Lanagan is a four-time World Fantasy Award winner (for best collection, short story, novel and novella), and has won and been shortlisted for many other awards.

What authors/books did you read as a child? When did you first discover your love of books?

I was the third of four children, so I had two readers going ahead of me. There wasn’t a time when books weren’t part of my life. My mum read to us at bedtime all through our childhood.

I read, and continue to read, all over the place in a very undisciplined way. As a child I remember enjoying fairly white-bread books from the US (Elizabeth Enright’s Melendy family series, Eleanor Estes’ Moffatt books) and the UK (Noel Streatfeild), and perhaps slightly-less-white-bread Australian books (Patricia Wrightson, Nan Chauncy). Tove Jansson’s Moomin books, the Narnia chronicles and Alan Garner’s books were favourites.

When did you first realise you were a writer?

I started writing (poetry) for my own interest when I was about 14. I don’t think I thought of myself as a writer, though, for another decade or so, after which I’d published a dozen or so poems and received a Literature Board grant and residency at the Nancy Keesing Studio in Paris. Even then, being a writer wasn’t something I ‘realised I was’ as much as it was a goal that I set myself.

What do you hope your readers will take away with them from reading your books?

A strong emotional impression; an atmosphere they can’t shake off for a while. Curiosity about what I might try next.

Do you find it difficult to read purely for pleasure? Does everything you read come under your ‘writer’ microscope?

I don’t have a problem finding books that are pleasurable to read. Sometimes it’s difficult to pick up a novel and read for pleasure after a day of reading grant applications or Vogel entries, but that’s more burnout than writerly-microscope problems. I certainly have lower tolerance for sloppy or inexpert writing than I used to.

Do you have to avoid reading certain types of fiction while writing your own? Does what you read while writing have an effect on what you write? In what way?

Undoubtedly what I read affects what I write. Sometimes there’s a kind of stain across my own writing that I can identify as the influence of my reading at the time; it can be removed during revision, though, and I don’t swear off particular styles of writing if I’m enjoying them. The effect of other writers’ work can just as often be positive as negative, adding a different energy to a story I’m working on. It tends to be more at the idea-generation level than an echo of their writing style, though.

Name five authors or books that have influenced or inspired your own writing in some way.

Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker and Greer Gilman’s Cloud and Ashes show me how far you can push language and still retain sense and story. Anne Tyler and Ursula Dubosarsky are great at creating characters I get attached to. Tove Jansson in both her children’s and her adult books is a wonderful inhabitant of the worlds she creates, and her fine, serious, pared-back style is an inspiration.

If you were travelling and were told you could only take one book with you, what book would it be and why?

I’d take the latest issue of The Lifted Brow magazine, because it’s always jam-packed with so much good and interesting material, it’d last a while and would provide something for whatever mood I found myself in.

What makes a book ‘too good to put down’?

Characters whose fate I care about and whose company I enjoy (and I can enjoy thoroughly nasty characters just as much as amiable ones); a strong plot; a setting that the author has clearly spent a lot of love constructing; confident, correct, flexible use of language and good control of shades of meaning.

What makes you put down a book without finishing it?

The opposites of the above, all of which can be summed up in a word: boredom.

Do you have a favourite author? Who is it and what is it about their writing that draws you to them?

I don’t really have a favourite author, or even a favourite genre; within the constraints of what’s ‘too good to put down’ I like to roam widely from literary to all the different kinds of speculative fiction, and also take in some crime, non-fiction and poetry.

If you had to list them, what would be your ‘top ten’ reads of all time (excluding the classics) and why?

Hm, I don’t like to be too definitive about these things, as some reads are good for some times and not for others. However, here’s a stab:

Anne Tyler, Noah’s Compass (beautifully drawn characters in a strong, relevant story characteristically tinged with both sadness and humour)

George Saunders, Pastoralia (well, anything Saunders writes is so much his own thing – odd, funny, tragic and oblique)

Anne Enright, Taking Pictures (dark humour, lean storytelling)

William Mayne, Earthfasts (a tense and creepy story, set in a place the author knows like the back of his hand)

Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners (I’m happy to follow wherever Kelly’s distinctively serious, fantastical stories take me)

Jennifer Stevenson, Trash Sex Magic (a lush, steamy world I wanted to stay in for a lot longer)

W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz (or any Sebald, really – it’s just a privilege to see inside his brain)

Gail Godwin, The Good Husband (for intelligence and humanity)

Ursula Dubosarsky The Red Shoe (a decent self-respecting Australian story, peopled as all Ursula’s novels are by worried children and worrying grown-ups)

William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways (a lovely rich journey around the backroads of the US)

What was your 2010 ‘best read’? What was it that made it number one?

John Crowley’s Little, Big. The worldbuilding was so complex, yet he made it seem so effortless; there was a wonderful array of characters; the mood of it was so dreamy and magical, but kept cutting back to real-world details that anchored the story in modern times. I just thoroughly enjoyed inhabiting that book.

What do you think of the non-traditional publishing methods – eBooks etc? Do you think the new technology will encourage more people to read? Do you think there’s a future for print books?

I welcome eBooks and look forward to the difference they’ll make to my cabin baggage and my daypack. I don’t think new technologies can help but attract new segments of the population to reading who found print books too cumbersome. But I don’t think we’re going to get rid of print books any time soon, and I think they’ll happily co-exist for a long while yet. Children’s picture books, for example, don’t translate easily into electronic forms, and I’m pretty sure children brought up on print picture books will always have an attachment to print formats.

Margo has published four collections of short stories, White Time, Black Juice, Red Spikes and Yellowcake, and a novel, Tender Morsels. She grew up in the Hunter Valley and Melbourne, and now lives in Sydney and works as a technical writer. She is currently working on a novel about selkies based on her award-winning novella, Sea-Hearts.

Margo blogs at http://amongamidwhile.blogspot.com/