Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category

Over at her Year in America blog, my friend Fiona Leonard recently posed the question, “If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?”

I thought for quite a while about this before posting a comment, trying to identify how I define success and what anchors me in my undertakings.  I came to the conclusion that it’s not the lure of success that motivates me, but my passion for the thing I’m doing.

I’ve had many interests over the course of my life: in fact, in a recent post over at my other blog I described myself as being “artistically promiscuous” as a girl, since I loved so many things. I studied piano, singing, speech and drama and several forms of dance as well as a full trencher of school subjects and all the peripherals that go with being a music student – theory, harmony, aural training, history and form of music…my days were full from wake-up time at 6.00am until I collapsed into bed at about 9.30pm. I loved all those activities (or at least most of them, most of the time!) and did not want to give any of them up.

Until, of course, they became too difficult. This happened first with piano. I was a student at Sydney Conservatorium, and I was well aware that although I had above average ability in music, I was never going to be much better at it than I was then. It had become a hard grind. I pushed myself through the required two hours of practice each day, but each session was a struggle. My teacher, Raymond Fischer, told me I was at least three years away from being ready to sit even the simplest diploma exam, and I realised I just didn’t have the enthusiasm to last the distance. Possibly, with a lot of effort, I could have done what my parents hoped and expected I would do – go on to Teachers’ College and become a specialist music teacher in a high school. But the prospect of having to face four or five classes a day for the rest of my life, trying to interest a mob of teenagers in a subject that had already lost its juice for me, was utterly unthinkable.

After a year of Arts at Sydney University, I took a year off study to work in the public service and make a rather unfortunate early marriage. It didn’t take long for me to realise that working in an office environment was not my thing, either, and in 1962 I entered the National Institute of Dramatic Art to try my hand at acting. However, during that year I had my first baby and in those days there were no creches at universities, and as I couldn’t find suitable child care, I had to give up my scholarship and quit the course. I was sad, but not devastated, because at heart I’d already realised that this was not my path, either. I loved Shakespeare, but opportunities for specialist Shakesperean actors in Australia were virtually nil at that time, and the thought of spending my time preparing for auditions for TV commercials didn’t exactly fill me with enthusiasm.  Several of my fellow students did indeed become professional actors — two of them,  John Bell and Anna Volska, even became specialist Shakespereans! — but many more became bartenders, teachers and insurance agents.

I continued to be involved in amateur theatre and to teach dance for another twenty years, while rearing my five children. Along the way I furthered an interest in astrology that had started in my teens, and tried my hand at farming, even gaining a Certificate in Rural Studies to give myself a theoretical base for milking cows, drenching sheep and mucking out pig pens. Actually this was one of the happiest times of my life in many ways, and not the least happy-making part was watching my children growing up close to nature, seeing first-hand the cycles of  life that as urban dwellers we see only dimly, as when someone has a baby or an elderly relative dies. In farm animals these cycles play themselves out far more quickly.

Dance was the one thing that never lost its appeal for me, despite my short legs and hockey-player’s build that rendered me unsuited to classical ballet. In my forties I returned to study at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, where I completed an Associate Diploma in Performing Arts (Dance) with the intention of  “updating my expertise” so that I could catch up with the latest doings in the dance world, especially in teaching. My forty-odd-year-old body complained terribly and it took three years for me to complete the two year course, but complete it I did, and I was quite proud when I walked across the platform to receive my scroll. Concurrently, I’d started a BA in Religious Studies, which I loved. I complemented it by converting my Associate Diploma to a Dance minor, and also started another BA in Languages. This was in those heady days of the 1980s when all tertiary education was free, so I was merrily undertaking units in French, Italian, English Literature, Linguistics, Psychology and Journalism. However, when I was part-way through this second BA, my second marrriage broke down and fees for university courses came back, so I could not afford to finish it, much less go on to do the masters in Religious Studies that I’d hoped to do. Of course, none of those transcripts actually qualified me to do anything, and I was getting older and becoming less and less employable in a country that has always valued youth above almost everything else. So I turned to my other interests to put bread on the table, and these are the things I still do today – writing, editing, astrology and meditation. And I still love all of them.

Writing fiction, however, is just as heartbreaking as music, dance and acting. The chances of any individual “succeeding” at it are very low indeed. For every thousand manuscripts that are started by hopeful would-be authors, only one or two, at best, will eventually be published by one of the major commercial publishing houses. I frequently become discouraged, and talking to my fellow writers, I realise most of them do, too.

Nevertheless, I will keep up the battle until writing loses its juice for me. And when might that be?  If my past experience is any guide, it will be when I know that I’ve reached the limits of my ability, which to me isn’t failure; it’s just a fact of life. I have the good fortune to have better-than-average talents in a lot of directions, but I have never proved to be outstanding at any of them.

But is this a bad thing?

I think not. If it were, I wouldn’t have had the chance to do so many wonderful things because I would have spent my life focussing on the prospect of success in just one of the things I love. I worship all the muses, and while, perhaps, none of them loves me quite as much as she loves her dedicated votaries who have just one talent in abundance, I can nonetheless bathe in all their sacred pools and come away refreshed. And that may be the best gift of all.

I know, long time no blog – but I’ve had internet and computer problems as well as being busy catching up with friends now I’m back in Perth for a few months! Today I’ll post about something I’ve had an ongoing interest in for some years: things that turn readers off a book.

I’ve actually researched this, both on the internet (by reading forums, mailing lists etc) and by questioning friends who are readers rather than writers. Writers tend to read rather differently from others because it’s almost impossible to turn off the editorial voice that says things like “Hmph – badly researched” and “How stupid to drag up that old trope” and “Oh no, not another vampire story…”

A reader who does not write, however, generally wants two things: an enthralling story and at least one character to identify with. Of course, ideas of what constitute an enthralling story and a likeable character are as varied as readers, which is why one reader’s soul food is another’s Bali belly material. It also means that the most unlikely book can attract at least some readers.

When we look at what turns readers off, however, there are several things that a wide range of readers will dislike. One is a waffly or confusing story. There are various factors that can contribute to this. The main one is lack of action. Many readers, and especially genre readers, want to see action on page one and want to see the action kept up throughout the book. Gone are the days when writers could spend a chapter or more setting the scene and introducing the characters. Modern readers want to become involved in an adventure of some kind right away. They also want plenty of sensory detail: first-hand experience of the sights, sounds, smells, textures and even tastes that the characters encounter. So boring writing that goes nowhere slowly or engages in lengthy description without a definite point of view doesn’t cut it. Too many point-of-view characters – some readers will not tolerate more than three or four – can also confuse and annoy readers.

In fact, point of view is probably the next thing on which most readers have a firm opinion. Unless the story is a real stand-out, most readers dislike the old-fashioned head-hopping or fly-on-the-wall omniscient styles. Most people relate well to the “close third”, which puts the reader right inside the character’s head, experiencing the character’s thoughts and physical sensations as closely as possible. Yet some of these same readers dislike the first person point of view, and I’ve been given two reasons for this. One is that although most readers love close third and its immediacy, some find first person, which is even closer and more immediate, somewhat threatening, as if they were being made to think another person’s thoughts and must lose their own. Another reason given for disliking the first person POV is that it’s obvious the character survives the trials and tribulations of the plot, since s/he couldn’t be recounting the story otherwise. Seeing as the main character almost always does survive, no matter what the point-of-view, I can’t really fathom this objection, but it has been given to me more than once as a reason for disliking first person narratives.

Which brings me to another widely held pet hate: the killing off of a favourite character. I’ve even heard readers say they will not read a particular author any more. “She killed off the man I really liked; the one I hoped the heroine would end up with,” one of my informants said of a well-known fantasy author. Readers can be very unforgiving sometimes!

Most readers dislike long, unpronounceable names. Names with lots of x’s, k’s, y’s, z’s and funny symbols supposed to represent sounds not found in English generally annoy readers. Solid text – long paragraphs that take up more than a quarter of a page – are another pet hate, as are long internal monologues and long stretches without dialogue. Excessive use of italics is unpopular, although readers’ tolerance for this varies widely: speculative fiction readers will put up with it if it represents telepathic communication, for example.

The final hate is of mucking about with time – flashbacks, flashforwards and big time jumps upset a lot of readers. Persons of a more literary bent tend to accept these more readily than genre readers, however.

What is your pet hate? What turns you off a book? I’d love to hear about it, especially if it’s something I haven’t covered above. So do leave a comment and let me know!

Science fiction has long been noted for its ability to predict, sometimes with uncanny accuracy, things that will come into being in future years. Recently, though, technology has been catching up – it’s very hard for writers to stay ahead of inventors, so fast are things changing.

This was brought home to me very personally yesterday. Over at LinkedIn, members of that network’s science fiction group, including yours truly and e-buddy Dave Dunn, have started a “never ending story board”. You might’ve done something similar; one person starts a story and each person in turn adds a paragraph in rotation, continuing until the story comes to a natural end or the writers give up on it (usually the latter, in my experience!)

In the first part of the story, Dave brought in a trio of robots, each fashioned in the image of a giant Jack Russell terrier! I thought they were very funny, so I added to the description when my turn came. They are metallic, probably put together out of bits and pieces of scrap. And they can give anyone who messes with them a nasty electric shock. How original, I thought. How very clever and creative we are!

HA! the very next day, Dave found this article about fire-breathing robot dogs. Someone had beaten us to it!

More imaginative writing can be found at a new site created by ROR (wRiters-on-the-Rise). The group, which includes top Aussie talent such as Richard Harland, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Dirk Flinthart, Marianne de Pierres, Trent Jamieson, Rowena Cory Daniells and Maxine McArthur, has started this site so you can download short stories and even chapters of their books. When I tell you that in recent months, Rowena has sold King Rolen’s Kin, a 3 book fantasy series, to Solaris; Tansy has sold Power and Majesty, also a 3 book fantasy series, to Harper Collins; Richard has sold Worldshaker, a children’s book, to Allen and Unwin and Marianne has sold Tara Tasse, a paranormal crime/romance, also to Allen and Unwin, you will understand the calibre of work I’m talking about. Go over there and taste for yourself!

Oh, and you might want to look at Edward II (Alianore’s blog)
again, too:-) She has uploaded another lot of funny medieval names for our delectation and delight!

This meme was, I believe, originated by Charles Stross, who gave permission for it to be turned loose into the wild. My version is based on the one from Sharon Lee’s blog . Lee Battersby has a version and that’s where I first saw it. Some users have chucked the references to non-fiction publication, which is about all I can lay claim to, really. So I’ve put them back in.

* Age when I decided I wanted to be a writer: 8

* Age when I “wrote” my first story: 5 (A play ripped off from Oliver Twist, as I remember! I made my entire family take part, but reserved the lead for myself.)

* Age when I first had something published: 7 (A poem called “Dolly’s Lullaby” in what was then the Manchester Guardian.)

* Age when I next had something published: 11 (Numerous poems and descriptive pieces over two or three years in something called “Chucklers’ Weekly”. Yes, really! I got paid a pound a time!)

* Age when I got my hands on a typewriter: 21 (An Oliver, manual and sort-of portable. My daughter still has it!)

* Age when I landed a paid magazine column: 45 (In the now defunct “Music Maker”, later “ArtsWest”. I didn’t kill it: in fact, it died when I left. The editor said he was unable to find a decent dance columnist, despite trying out several. Then another writer also left and the mag folded. Sad.)

* Age when I wrote my first novel: 53. I’m a slow starter.

* Age when I wrote my first short story: 58. I don’t believe in rushing things.

* Age when I first submitted a short story for professional publication: 58

* Age when I sold my first short story: It depends what you mean by “sold” – so far, paying markets have seemed strangely resistant to my charisma. Non-paying ones seem slightly more appreciative.

* Thickness of file of rejection slips prior to first story sale: Unless you count FTL (for-the-love) pubs, that file’s still in the fattening pen.

* Age when I first came close to selling a novel: Close? Not within scent of it yet!

* Age when that first book deal imploded (prior to publication): Heaven forbid that it ever happen!

* Age when I killed my first market: 59 – I submitted my first novel to an e-publisher and they went broke the next week. I’ve never sent it out again for fear of destroying the entire industry.

* Age when I first sold a non-fiction book: I haven’t written any. (Addendum: I haven’t written any for sale to publishers. I have actually written several family histories, for my own family and for paying clients. Do they count as “sales”?)

* Age when I first wrote a saleable novel: HAH!

* Age when that novel was published: I’ll let you know…

* Age when the second saleable novel finally sold: Ditto

* Age when the second saleable novel came out: Hey, lemme get the first one out already!

* Age when the third saleable novel came out: Ditto

* Age when the fourth saleable novel came out: Give over, will you?

* Age when I first won an award: LOL

* Age when I finally shut down the day-job and became a full-time novelist: 59

* Age when the money coming in exceeded my previous salary: HEH!

* Age when I returned to the day-job because of publisher implosion: I’m too old for that to happen, goddess be thanked.

* Age now: 65

* Number of books/poems/articles sold: Not sure. No novels or paid shorts, but probably several hundred articles, a few poems and a smattering of family histories.

* Number of titles in print: 0

* Number of titles fallen out of print: 5 0r 6 – all family histories.

Hmm. Maybe I should take up golf.

The original author says: if you write professionally, feel free to post your own equivalent of this list. (Obviously you’ll need to customize it to track your career path — but you get the idea.)