Ways to Write

I was chatting to a friend over coffee recently and they mentioned they'd been to a writing course and the instructor told them always to write by hand because it freed up creativity.

I'm sure that's true for some people. In fact I'm sure it's true for many people and I even expect there's research out there to back it up. And obviously helping people develop their writing is in part about helping them with their writing process. But for me the problem comes when a process suggestion becomes a rule.

I used to write longhand, in pencil. (Using a pen paralysed me, it felt as if ink made the words unalterable.) But it turns out I have terrible fine motor skills so my hand could never keep up with the stream of thought running through my arm. Not to mention I can't spell at speed, so looking back on what I'd written was enough to throw me into despair.

Now I can't really type either and I'm still not going to win any spelling bees, but my two fingers can put enough on the screen that I know what I meant and I can go back and fix it up when the flow stops. When I discovered the word processor (I'm that old!) it let me be creative in a way paper and pen just couldn't. I can type anything because with a click it disappears. No one but me will ever know what a shockingly bad sentence I'm capable of.

For me, writing is all in the editing. I used to tell my coding son he needed to write me a program that put random junk on the page so I'd have something to edit. (Careful what you wish for!)

Even in my first draft, I'm editing as I go. I'll write a sentence, a paragraph, a scene and then realise the idea and most of the words are right but whole isn't. I'll reverse sentences, change tense, reorder paragraphs and voila, clumsy, unsubtle text develops flow and depth. (Well, I think so anyway.) I need to shore up the foundations before I can build on them. With pen and paper, I'd have a scrawl of crossings out and intersecting arrows to insertions all covered with a smear of hand-heel ink that even I couldn't read.

Some people (I suspect) use pen and paper because it guides them forward. (It's not called the puke draft for nothing!) They may well be trying to avoid exactly what I'm trying to do. And that's a good way to write, if it's right for you. But it's not the only way, because our brains are all different and each has a different key to unlock it.

Word file showing the changes in one scene I've written.
This isn't first to last draft because when I try to do that there's literally nothing lining up

Lucky

 

Twenty five years ago this month I was diagnosed with cancer. First of all I just want to say, look at me, still here. I'm pretty happy about that.

But twenty five years ago, for a year my and my family's life revolved around surgery, chemo and radiation. And then the best part of a decade of medications with with their 'tolerated' side effects. And still the sneaky little blighter tried to stage a comeback a few years in, but we evicted it.

Twenty five years is a while, so my medical experiences are not current but there are a few things I learnt in that year and the ones after and I'd like to say them out loud -

Cancer did not make me a better person. It did not make me re-evaluate my life and see the world in a new perspective. It might for some people, but it just made me tired and grumpy. And intolerant of people's bullshit. 

It was not a blessing in disguise. Having people tell me there had to be a silver lining or that everything happens for a reason was not helpful.

Everyone has their own approach. Mine was evidenced based western medicine. Random strangers (no friends, I'm glad to say), telling me I was poisoning myself was not helpful. I was poisoning *it*, the side effects on me were necessary collateral damage

The most important thing my friends did for me was to be normal. Doing stuff we usually did - grabbing a coffee, going out for a meal, seeing a movie. I was thinking about cancer every waking minute, respite from that was what I needed

The other day someone reminded me I told them this - One of the women in my support group talked about how hard it was not to cry in front of her kids. The facilitator asked, what message are you sending to your kids if, when something this bad happens, it's not okay to cry? This is one of the most important things I've ever learnt. Hiding your feeling doesn't let people in and it's not a viable strategy for longer than half a second.

I'm not a spiritual person but I made a bargain with the universe. Or not so much a bargain as a demand. I wanted ten years. There were things I had to see through. I've had twenty five so far and no reason to believe there won't be many more. I'm one of the lucky ones

And maybe that's the final thing I learnt. Way more of life is dumb luck than any of us is comfortable with. I was lucky to have a doctor who insisted on an exam because it was my first visit, when I thought that was totally unnecessary. Lucky to have been in countries with excellent public systems and good doctors who took my questions seriously and considered alternatives. Lucky that when things went wrong they got noticed quickly. I was unlucky to be on the wrong side of almost every statistic - the number of times I heard a doctor say 'but for someone in your category that is very unlikely', only for it to be the case - except for the one that counts.

Life went back to normal in the end - or mostly. There's still a few niggles. I'm a bit more risk averse than I was. Some of the treatments left scars. I know it had an effect on how my kids view the world - I wish it hadn't. And I still have the occasional sleepless night when I wonder whether that ache in my back is a harbinger or just, you know, the stupidly heavy box I decided was absolutely fine to lug by myself.

I know there are many, many people who had all the same medical advantages as me, who were healthier than me, fitter than me, younger than me, more deserving than me, had better odds than me. Who did everything they could and still ended up on the wrong side of those odds. Yes, all those treatments gave me a chance to be here all these years later, but the fact that I am is still luck. That's the nature of the disease. 

I've lived longer than both my grandmothers which tells you something about how far cancer treatment had come in the sixty years prior. Almost every treatment I got had been developed since their times. So I was lucky there, too. And I have an inkling of how far it's come in the last twenty five. Without the science that drives that progress, the luck means nothing.

Scribblings

I used to know this girl who wrote a lot. So much scribbling. As a favour to her I thought I'd put up one or two things here. Be indulgent, it was a long time ago and she was young.

Staring Out a Quiet Schoolroom Window 17

In silence there is the beauty of reality.

Beneath a blanket of traffic-hum

Peace, monotonous and uncontrasted, goes unnoticed.

Nature within artificial angles

Has roots in the earth,

Green among brown.

The evergreen autumn tones of buildings

Contrasts with the twisted trees, spring green.

Like footbound girls they are formed to man's conception of beauty.

Beauty

So I was out for a walk with my other half the other day, and a young woman leaned out from a passing car and yelled at us. It took me a few moments to parse what she'd said, but her words were 'You are so beautiful'.

Now, I can say with no false modesty, I'm not. Especially not from behind when tramping up a hill. But the way she called it out, I believe she meant it sincerely. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I came to the conclusion that this is what she meant – The universe is beautiful. You are part of the universe. So you are beautiful. 

And a total stranger's expression of love and wonder at the universe kept me buoyant for several days.

But it made me think back a few decades, walking with the same other half in the city one day and a guy leaned out of his car and yelled 'Your girlfriend's a dog.' And at the time I didn't think 'what he means is life sucks and I'm part of life therefore...' I wrote him off as a jerk and I didn't take it too much to heart (except I still remember it all these years later) although I definitely thought it was directly aimed at me.

Why is that? Why do we interpret the stinging words literally and the soothing ones generically?

Maybe I was, for a moment, beautiful. Maybe the afternoon sun lit us up and made haloes of our hair. I'll never know. 

Reading List!

This is something I never expected - I'm on an official school suggested texts list, under Extended Texts. And in nice company!

So, if there's any Year 11 South Australian English student who wants to hit me up with questions - I'm here.

https://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/english/stage-1/support-materials/suggested-text-lists

STEAM Powered!

Excited to have (virtually) sat down with Michele from STEAM Powered for a great chat about the not so straight line from computing to novel writing with a side trip into the importance of robotics competitions and bookbinding - https://youtu.be/0Ue2wdrFq3E

Searching through a box for something else, look what I came across last night. Cheery background reading for Before This Is Over/An Ordinary Epidemic circa 2009. 

My little book - about grappling with your fears, about holding your course in the face of voices telling you to chill, about sheltering in place in a pandemic - is out in paperback in the US today. 

Takes a while to open a box of books when you have to stop between each stage to wash your hands for twenty seconds.

Worth it.

US paperback out June

The US paperback of Before This Is Over will be in stores June. With a new cover!

End of Year Chuffed

I can't tell you how chuffed I am to have made it onto some people's end of year lists. To wit:

Jami's favourites on chicklitcentral http://www.chicklitcentral.com/2017/12/2017-favorites.html

Dover Public Library librarian's choice http://doverpl.blogspot.com.au/2017/12/2017-librarians-choice-is-now-available.html

Becky LeJeune on bookbitch.com https://stacyalesi.com/2017/12/28/best-books-of-2017-becky-lejeune/

Snazzybooks five star reviews of 2017 https://snazzybooks.com/2017/12/24/my-5-reads-of-2017-bestbooksof2017

The Invisible Made Visible

I've been thinking about this year and what a strange experience it has been. And one of the things that strikes me is how immensely grateful I am for the internet. Specifically, to every blogger who, whether they liked my book or not, took the time to read it and write a review. To the bloggers who hosted me for interviews, Q&As, guest posts and excerpts. To every Goodreads user who read and reviewed or rated it.

Before This Is Over was published internationally this year. I didn't expect it to be published at all - writing it was a bit of a perverse obsession, like working really, really hard at hand crafting a lottery ticket - let alone in the US and the UK as well. I keep having to stop and remind myself that wasn't an elaborate hoax, it happened. Along the way I've discovered something that I'd read about but didn't grasp until I'd lived it. A writer works on writing a book for (in my case) years and the publication process takes another few years, and finally it's out. And then it's like the book takes off on a voyage of its own and only occasionally thinks to send a postcard.

When it was published in Oz back in 2015, I got to go around to bookshops, talk to the bookshop staff, see copies on shelves, and it felt real. Twice this year my book has landed on foreign shelves and half way around the world, while I've slept, people have bought it and read it. So now I realise that unlike, say, the theatre where an audience is right there expressing a reaction, for a writer most of their audience is forever invisible to them. The book comes out and we just have to trust that someone, somewhere is silently reading it.

I'm battling with a story that I think will be good if I can ever work out how to tell it, and when it's getting the better of me and I wonder why I thought I could do this, I can tell myself that I wrote a story once before and there were people who I've never met who enjoyed it and engaged with the ideas. And I know that because they wrote about it on their blog. Nothing prepared me for how it felt to read a review and know that someone really got something I put in there even though I thought no one else would pick it up.

I've said it before but it bears saying again. I'm also grateful to MidnightSun and Anna Solding for picking it off the slush pile. To Dan Lazar and Writers House for believing it could go further. To Asya Muchnick and Little, Brown and to Marion Donaldson and Headline for bringing it to a wider world. And to them all for taking me on a wild and unexpected ride.

Writing Is Not A Spectator Sport

I have a piece up today on WeHeartWriting - 'Writing is Not a Spectator Sport'. It's something I feel strongly about. We seem to have lost the assumption that we are creators and have settled for being consumers.

"The arts have become spectator sports. We read, we watch, we peruse, we listen. And if we ‘do’, its value is measured in money or clicks or fame. And I think that’s wrong. [...] The act of creating is an end in itself, whether you are ‘good’ at it or not. It should be done for its own sake."

UK Blog Tour Wrap

To wrap up the UK Blog Tour, I'm over at The Book Inspector discussing how living in Canada during SARS gave me both a novel and a love of pantries.

UK Blog Tour - Excerpt

UK Blog Tour and it's Launch Day! Today's stop is Keeper of Pages where you'll find the whole first chapter of Before This Is Over.

UK Blog Tour Wednesday.

I'm over at The Quiet Geordie discussing what inspires me about pandemics and us. Spoiler – it's mostly us. 

UK Blog Tour Day 2 - Five Apocalypse Novels

Especially for Halloween, an inappropriately zombie free list of my five favourite End Of the World novels at Short Book & Scribes.  

Q&A My Reading Corner

UK Blog Tour Day One. In which Karen of My Reading Corner forces me to pick only three books. Such cruelty!

UK Blog Tour!

The ‘Wake in Fright’ weekend

When they were all very young my father's little sister Patricia, who he adored, married his best friend Ken Cook. They were all involved in the Sydney theatre scene and then the early years of television. Ken wrote a book called Wake in Fright, which more than fifty years later has just become a TV miniseries. 

Patricia between pre-beard Dad and Ken

Dad's extended family used to get together at significant dates – Christmas, Easter and fireworks night. I remember being very small, visiting my cousins one Christmas and hiding from uncle Ken behind my mum's legs. He was a terrifying bear, large in stature, personality and voice, but all the while I was desperately hoping he would ruffle my hair and call me 'kiddo'. I idolised Ken and was terrified of him. I wanted to be him, and when I learnt about genetics at school, I was heartbroken to realise I couldn't have inherited his writing ability.

Even before those early Christmases, I suspect, Dad and Ken drifted apart. When I finally realised how close they'd once been, I couldn’t make it make sense - they were polar opposites, if you discounted the beards. Even there, I remember Ken’s as a wild shaggy bush while my dad's was meticulously maintained. 

The stories Dad told about his and Ken's young years were hard to reconcile with my urbane, cautious and reserved father. What could possibly have persuaded my law abiding dad, who wouldn't go within metres of anything that looked like a drop, to walk home late at night across the arch of the Harbour Bridge after visiting girls on the North Shore? Nothing but the influence of Ken's large personality.

Dad also mentioned once that he'd taken blood soaked clothes to a laundry in Kings Cross and the proprietor hadn't batted an eyelid. You could never be sure if Dad was just trying to get a rise. At any rate, I didn't take the bait, so although I had every reason to believe it was true, I didn't know why.

Sometime after Ken died, a print of the film of Wake in Fright was found. All of us - my mum and dad, Ken's kids and my sister and I - turned up to the Chauvel to see it. Maybe it was there that Dad mentioned the weekend or so he spent with Ken in Broken Hill.

Dad abhorred violence, and if he explained why they decided to go roo shooting I don't remember. At any rate, they'd been told there was good shooting on a particular farm, but when they got to the farmhouse, the farmer was at the pub. Not to worry, the pub was on the farm too. Once tracked down, the farmer had just one question for them: 'Do you know what a sheep looks like?' 'Yes,' replied the two city boys. 'Well, don't shoot them.'

After an unsuccessful day, Dad and Ken returned to the pub to look for a lift back to town. A couple of locals would take them, but they still had some shooting to do. The ute only had three seats so Dad had to sit in the tray. The locals bagged animal after animal, cutting off the tails, leaving the rest of the carcass, and tossing the tails on top of those already bouncing around in the back … and Dad.

Finally, the shooters were ready to turn for home, after a drink of course. If you didn't drink with a man, there must be something wrong with you. The four of them stopped at every pub between the farm and Broken Hill, and pubs weren’t in short supply. And of course at every pub, they each shouted a round. In the wee hours of the morning the shooters dropped them on the main street. They were both well and truly worse for wear and Dad was soaked in roo blood. And for being good sports, they were handed a roo tail. Carrying it betweeen them, Dad and Ken weaved their way in the direction of Ken's lodgings.

But the local cop recognised drunk and disorderly when he saw it. For sure, they were spending the rest of the night in the lockup. He looked them up and down. 'That's a very nice roo tail you've got there, boys.' Even in their inebriated state, they knew the right answer. 'Why officer, would you like it?' And they were allowed to stumble home.

Then there was the breakfast barbecue at which all the other guests turned up with a slab of beer or a bottle of whisky and when that was finished, discussed who could get what from home, itemising their stash with ‘that'll have to be drunk, too.' One of the women had come for a couple of weeks' holiday but during the several years that had passed had never been sober enough to get herself on a train – a real life John Grant. And there might have been a story about the local cop offering directions to the two-up school, but I didn't write it down and can no longer be sure if I remember it or read it.

By the time I got around to asking for more, the fragments were mixed up and unreliable. Disease white-anted Dad's studied civilisation and grasp on the past and present. On his lucid days, he often thought we were in his childhood home, and while he seemed to recognise me, I suspect I was his sister. And that was okay. I know how much he loved her. 


More about my dad - Diversity at heart of design success