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These boots were made for walking: writing rituals

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I have very few writing rituals, things that I actually need in order to write. Having children has focused me in a way nothing else ever could because until this year I wrote in the cracks of life. I grabbed an hour while the littlest slept and the two older children were at school, or while the bloke took the lot of them down to the park. I learnt how to ignore the housework and sit down at my computer and just go. When time is limited every second counts.

This year, for the first time, I have all three of my children at school. But that ability to sit down and get on with it is now ingrained. There is only one thing that I need before I start writing: coffee. It doesn’t matter where I write (my study, the library, cafés) but I need (good) coffee. The caffeine helps my fingers fly across the keyboard, but in reality it is just a ritual. A small thing that signals a shift into a different mindspace.

Mostly I work from home. In some minds this seems to translate into me swanning about the house, and writing the odd sentence or two. It’s as far from that as you can get. There is zero swanning involved. It’s a job like any other, except that I don’t take a lunch break or stop for cake to farewell some colleague or chat about the weekend in the staff room. After I’ve done the school drop-off I take five minutes to make coffee, then get stuck straight into it, drinking at my desk while I read back over a little of the previous day’s writing to get me started.

Read More »These boots were made for walking: writing rituals

Because I try to cram in as much as I can between my working hours of 9.30 to 2.30 while the kids are at school, for lunch I eat last night’s dinner, or whatever I can scrounge from the fridge that requires zero prep time, at my desk. Last week Master 10 was home for a couple of days. He was sick enough to be off school, but well enough to entertain himself, so I kept working. That day I took a proper break to eat lunch with him. ‘Your work is intense, Mum,’ he said to me with mild admiration. ‘You don’t stop.’

But there is one exception, my second ritual: a daily walk. Sitting on your bum for hours is not the best, so in the middle of the day I get out of the house and walk. It gets everything moving again, but it’s also the best way to reset and prepare for the afternoon. At the moment I’m finishing a novel, and on Monday to Wednesday I divide my day roughly down the middle. Morning is for writing, afternoon is for all my non-writing activities: editing other writers’ manuscripts; developing any workshops I might be running; prep for my university editing seminars or upcoming events; answering emails and other admin, and so on. (Thursday and Friday are dedicated solely to editing.) In-between I clear the cobwebs with a walk.

The view from my balcony — I swear Canberra has the best sunsets in the world

Sometimes I listen to a writing podcast, sometimes I don’t want words filling up my ears. However there is a danger inherent in walking after having written all morning. Sometimes I tune out of the podcast and begin unknotting some issue with my novel, or ‘writing’ a new scene. The mind is a strange thing, often I don’t realise I’ve even been subconsciously doing this until the solution presents itself to me. Of course then I have to get that down on paper which means the afternoon’s work gets shunted to the evening or the weekend. But hey, that kind of flexibility is why I love working from home.

Writing and walking commonly go hand in hand. I know so many writers who walk to work out thorny problems with their manuscripts. I’m fortunate that I live in a house looking to the hills, so my walk is accompanied by a vista over the valley to the Brindabellas. Honestly, I never tire of it. It fills me up every single day. And at the moment, when I’m in the middle of a particularly busy couple of months, it’s an indispensable pause in an otherwise ‘intense’ day.

Reading memories

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One of the perks of being Ambassador for the ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge is visiting schools to talk about my favourite topic—books (duh). This week I headed to Holy Trinity Primary to meet the Year 1s and 2s. Here we all are getting a bit crazy together.

Talking about reading got me thinking about my own special reading memories, and one teacher in particular. Her name was Miss O’D and she was my Grade 6 teacher. She wore blue mascara and shoulder pads and was every kind of eighties cool. She was young, not that long out of university, and she made everything fun. And I mean everything. It was the only year that I enjoyed maths as we played ‘The Footy Game’ to learn our times tables. It involved an actual footy and four teams and much laughter. That year everyone’s understanding of maths skyrocketed.

Read More »Reading memories

But for a booklover like me it was the literary activities that got me all shiny-eyed. Every week Miss O’D wrote a Poem of the Week on our blackboard and illustrated it with Dr Seuss-style characters. We would copy out the poem (using smelly glitter pens) and create our own illustrations. I still remember the time I got a rare and coveted 10 out of 10 for my work. ‘Perfect!’ she wrote, and my feet did not touch the ground for the rest of the day. She also constructed a haunted house reading corner from a massive crate painted black. It was full of cushions and dangling streamers and clearly sent one message: reading is fun. But best of all, she got us to write, illustrate and ‘publish’ our own picture books. I had been writing stories and making my own books at home for as long as I could remember, so the opportunity to create a shiny hardback (well, more laminated cardboard) had me practically salivating. I still have those two books and I often take them with me on school visits, as I did to Holy Trinity, to encourage kids to make their own.

So as all the Reading Challenge Ambassadors head out for their school visits, I thought I’d ask them about their own special reading memories. Here’s what they had to say.

Jack Heath: At Lyneham Primary School I had a wonderful teacher librarian named Kay Pietsch. When I missed school due to a crippling ear infection, she hand-picked books for me to read during my recovery. Thanks to her I discovered Claire Carmichael, Jackie French, Brian Jacques and many others. When I finally got back to school, I wasn’t behind my classmates. I might even have been ahead.

Harry Laing: There’s a nursery rhyme that’s always stuck in my head with a particularly vivid quality. I think my grandmother read it to me (and I’m sure my mother and maybe a favourite great aunt). I think it was probably just before I was reading properly so the words had that talismanic quality…

Hark! Hark! The dogs do bark
Beggars are coming to town
Some in jags, some in rags
And one in a velvet gown.

Listening to this as a child gave me a delicious shiver. Something to do with the wonderfully tight and expressive sounds and rhymes of hark/bark and jags/rags. It was scary to think of the beggars coming to town, and their power to provoke the dogs with their rags and then the really scary last line ‘and one in a velvet gown’. What did that mean? I’m sure I barely understood what velvet was or even a gown but it was such a smooth and sinister phrase. I still get the same feeling 50-odd years later. I can go back and look at Mother Goose and there’s the nursery rhyme with illustration but it’s the sound of the words that lingers. And how precious that is, to be able to go straight back to being five years old with nothing in-between. Mind you I did have to look up the meaning of ‘jags’ (tatters, rags).

Tracey Hawkins: As a child I owned a boxed set of Golden Press books, Wonderful World of Walt Disney. There were four books in the set, Fantasyland, Worlds of Nature, America and Stories from Other Lands. My favourite was Stories from Other Lands. Turning the pages took me to a world far away from the small coastal town I lived in. Books provided knowledge and escapism, and fascinated me. Reading fed my imagination as I unearthed the mystery, myths, legends and cultural diversity of other countries. I read thousands of books as a child, but I believe it was this book led me on my future path as an adult to explore and travel the world.

Tania McCartney: One of my earliest and most precious reading memories is with my mum, reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. The intriguing thing about this persistent memory is that it’s not the actual story I remember. It’s the warmth of her lap. It’s her arms around my shoulders and the rumble of her voice, resonating from her diaphragm into my back. It’s the smell of her clothes and the smoothness of the book’s pages. I can still feel my little toddler fingers poking through the holes in the page as the caterpillar eats its way through a multitude of delicious treats, and how the paper scratched my skin. I can also feel the rumble in my tummy, wanting to join the caterpillar for cherry pie, watermelon and a lollipop. It’s all those tactile elements, yes, but it’s also the less tactile—that envelope of love, that feeling of belonging, that parental attention and sheer enjoyment of story. And that, my friends, is how children fall in love with books.

Just look at all those hands! Such enthusiastic little readers!

As Ambassadors we all hope that our school visits will inspire kids to explore many more books and develop a lifelong love of reading. So I was so thrilled to receive a stack of letters from Holy Trinity with beautiful words of thanks and equally beautiful illustrations. I wish I could include them all here but since there’s not space here’s my lounge room carpeted in them, and one of my favourites from Lachy. His exclamations (‘Your visit…OH! I loved it. Please come again!’) brought a big grin to my face. Also, I am ‘awsem’. That’s the best bit of being an author right there.

 

Take four

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‘I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood.’ Audre Lorde

This is what we writers do, in our private corners of solitude. We put words on the page that go out into the world and speak to readers. But a writer’s job also involves getting on a stage and speaking directly to those readers, trying to articulate the thinking behind the messy and elusive process of creating a work of fiction. It can be nerve-racking and exciting and stimulating. In the lead-up to an event I always feel anticipatory nerves, but once I’m on the stage I enjoy myself, and often come away feeling buoyant.

I’ve been part of four very varied events on writing and/or editing in recent weeks and I thought I’d share a little about the experience of each of them.

‘Animal Rights Writing’: Nigel Featherstone, Sam Vincent, Karen Viggers and Irma Gold

Most recently I was on an ‘Animal Rights Writing’ panel with Karen Viggers and Sam Vincent. I’ve never seen a panel programmed on this subject before. (Hit me up in the comments if you have, because it’s a topic I’d love to see discussed more.) This session was chaired by Nigel Featherstone who managed to expertly guide the discussion through our respective areas of interest. Our books deal with kangaroo culling (Karen, The Grass Castle), international whaling (Sam, Blood and Guts) and the exploitation of elephants for tourism (me, a children’s book, Seree’s Story, due out with Walker Books, and a work-in-progress novel, Rescuing Chang). Our conversation covered much ground, but, for me at least, the key idea that emerged was that conservation issues tend to be distilled into polarised positions which don’t necessarily reflect the complexities involved. Life is full of grey, and solutions are rarely of the black-and-white kind. Fortunately, writing can explore the grey. While this event delved into the darker side of humans’ impact on the world, it was a thoroughly stimulating and thought-provoking discussion. And as the icing on the cake, I returned home to an email from an audience member who felt moved to get in touch after hearing me speak about the devastating situation facing Asian elephants. With both my books yet to be released, I’m looking forward to many more conversations like this one.

Read More »Take four

Noted: Ashley Thomson, Irma Gold, Alan Vaarwerk, Sian Campbell

As part of Noted Festival, I was on a panel with Alan Vaarwerk (Kill Your Darlings) and Sian Campbell (Scum Magazine), ‘Literally the Worst: Bad Writing and Badder Editing’, with Homer Editor Ashley Thomson chairing. I wasn’t keen on the title’s negative angle, but I guess a feisty premise draws the crowds, and the event was certainly packed. Fortunately the focus of discussion was productive, emphasising ways for writers to improve their craft. We also spoke about the hallmarks of good editing and when to identify ‘bad’ editing. In particular, I spoke about the need for editors to work with the author’s voice, not impose their own. Our own idiom is always what sounds ‘right’, so good editors learn to recognise their own preferences and then set them aside. They essentially become chameleons, taking on the colours of the manuscript in order to help the author make their work the very best it can be. (As you can see, Shauna O’Meara choose to illustrate this part of our conversation; my first time immortalised as a cartoon!) We spoke about a whole lot else besides and the event was podcasted here if you’d like to have a listen.

For the next two events I was the one in the interviewer’s hot seat. It’s such a responsibility being the interviewer. Over the years I’ve seen the way poor interviewers give authors no place to go and leave everyone feeling flat, and conversely the way brilliant interviewers draw the very best out of their subjects, gleaning new insights. Part of the skill is developing a rapport with the interviewees before hitting the stage, which is of course easier if you already know them. It’s also important to be super prepared but then be able to go with the flow on the day, so that the conversation evolves, rather than rigidly following a pre-existing set of questions.

It’s such a privilege chatting with other writers, and the in-conversation event with Marion Halligan and John Stokes about their lives together was one of the loveliest events I’ve been a part of. Marion and John are perhaps best described as Canberra literary royalty. They are a warm, generous and supportive presence in the local community, and our discussion reflected that. There was much laughter, but also tears. Both have written so movingly about grief and loss, and John’s reading of his prose poem about the death of Marion’s daughter, ‘Funeral Address for a Stepdaughter’, had the audience reaching for the tissues. Marion once wrote, ‘Grief does not dissipate, it is something that exists, and must be valued, even treasured.’ Wise words indeed. It was a rich and wonderful hour spent with two marvellous writers.

And finally, I interviewed Robyn Cadwallader about her stunning debut novel, The Anchoress, as part of Festival Muse. I wrote about some of our discussion here, so I won’t rehash it, but Robyn was a delight to interview—thoughtful, insightful and intelligent. Our discussion lingered in my mind long after the event was over.

Next up, I’m heading to Holy Trinity Primary School in my role as Ambassador for the ACT Chief Minister’s Reading Challenge. School visits are always heaps of fun, so I can’t wait to meet all those new little readers.

The Invisible Thread series: Marion Halligan

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Somehow Marion Halligan’s home is exactly as I imagine a writer’s should be. Books everywhere, the right kind of clutter, a garden full of gorgeous sprawl. I first visited her there a couple of years ago. My then four year old bought with him a copy of Toy Story, an appallingly written transcript (this happened then this happened then this…) that I always tried to avoid reading. Not the kind of book to bring to Marion Halligan’s house, I thought, but said nothing. As it turned out it was this book that resulted in Marion’s young granddaughter, Bianca, taking an instant liking to Marius. So there we were, two writers whose respective charges had bonded over a trashy book version of a movie.

But this time when I visit it’s just me and cameraman Dylan Jones and a (not at all trashy, I can assure you) copy of The Invisible Thread. In the hallway, reminding me of that earlier visit, is a painting of Bianca, arms outstretched with the kind of unrestrained joy only children allow themselves.

We follow Marion up a flight of stairs to her writing space. ‘As you can see I’m a messy writer,’ she says. ‘I like a lot of junk around. I like to have things that I can look at.’ But it’s not junk. It’s books and art and papers and the kinds of things writers need.

Read More »The Invisible Thread series: Marion Halligan

Her partner and fellow Invisible Thread author, poet John Stokes, makes us strong coffee in cobalt patterned cups while Dylan sets up the cameras. The windows are full of trees and that particular Canberra light that Marion has recently written about. I can just see her, pen in hand, gazing out of the window, searching for exactly the right word.

The cameras roll and we talk about Marion’s writing life. At the age of 15 she earned the substantial sum of one guinea for a poem (‘It’s what you paid a specialist doctor,’ Marion points out), and yet nobody encouraged her to write for a living. It wasn’t until her fortieth birthday that she decided to stop thinking about being a writer ‘one day, and do it now’. Lucky for us she did. Marion is now one of Australia’s finest writers, though she regrets not having started earlier at a ‘Tim Winton-ish sort of age’.

As I said at the launch, I found reading and re-reading her essay, ‘Luminous Moments’, which concludes The Invisible Thread, a profound experience. As good literature can, it has changed me. For the anthology we were sifting through 100 years of work to find luminous moments in literature, so it’s an apt note to finish on, but for me it’s about more than that. Marion speaks about it eloquently in this interview saying, ‘It’s important for our lives to think of past moments as still existing.’ If you watch the interview you’ll understand why.

Marion also speaks about The Invisible Thread selection process and being part of the Advisory Committee; reflects on what she sees when she looks back on her career to date; and speaks candidly about the now legendary Seven Writers group, saying, ‘I was very reluctant to join in the first place. I thought, No, I don’t need this.’ But the competitive yet nurturing nature of the group proved to be ‘hugely motivating’ and all of them went on to find success.

Marion always has so many interesting things to say and I could have sat chatting all afternoon. You can join our conversation via YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_xkgzur7nk

The real value of books

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Unless you’ve been in seclusion forBook heart the last week you’ll have heard that just ten days into office Queensland’s new Premier, Campbell Newman, scrapped the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. Since then I’ve read countless articles by authors and members of the arts community condemning the move and being forced to justify their own worth.

Let’s get a few things straight. Campbell Newman has a $47 billion state budget. A $244,475 saving is merely small change. It’s like stealing five cents from a wishing well — no one will notice the difference. But while it’s small change for the government, it has a huge potential to impact writers.

There seems to be a misconception among the general public that when you publish a book you’re on a gravy train. Writers earn only ten per cent of the RRP of every book sold. An average print run for a first novel is around 5000. So a paperback selling at $29.95 will earn the author $14,975 (if, and it’s a big if, the whole print run sells). Most books take years to write, diluting any funds earned down to a miserable ‘wage’. Say you’ve spent two years writing your novel, that equates to earnings of $144 per week. If you spent five years it equates to $57 per week. Who in their right mind would work for that? Not Campbell Newman, that’s for sure. As author Justine Larbalestier says, ‘The life of a novelist is, financially speaking, a mug’s game.’ So the money from major literary awards can dramatically boost a writer’s income, often allowing them to devote more time to their writing instead of undertaking all manner of other writing jobs to pay the bills. But the benefits are not just monetary. More importantly, awards can make careers. Being shortlisted or winning a major award signals to readers that this is a book worth reading. It impacts sales and boosts the industry. It generates business. What’s more, the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards did all this for the equivalent of 18.3 cents per Queenslander.

Read More »The real value of books

Queensland was only one of two states (the other being South Australia) to offer an award for an unpublished manuscript that included a publication contract. It was also the only state to offer a prize for an unpublished manuscript by an Indigenous writer (David Unaipon Award), and the only state to offer a prize for short fiction (Steele Rudd Award). All three of these awards supported emerging writers and helped establish the careers of writers like Tara June Winch, Nerida Newton and Patrick Holland. Fortunately UQP will continue to run the first two awards categories and publish the winning books. (They were rightly fuming that Newman cancelled these awards given that UQP established the David Unaipon Award before the Premier’s Awards were even in existence).

You can sign a petition to demand that Newman reinstates the awards here. However, Queensland authors Matthew Condon and Krissy Kneen are in the process of establishing a new independent set of awards, along the same lines as the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards but without the prize money.

Those who support Campbell Newman’s act have been vocal in condemning ‘government handouts’ to writers. Let me quote author Nick Earls extensively, who puts it nicely here:

“To the caller to talk back radio this morning who said ‘you don’t see the government giving money to apprentice plumbers,’ please open your eyes whenever you’re ready to. An apprentice is eligible for $5,500 in Tools for Your Trade grants, $7800 Adult Apprentice Support in year one if they’re over 25 and $5200 in year two, up to $1000 a year in travel support and up to 13 other Centrelink benefits. Plus the government pays their employers to have them. I don’t have the figures for plumbers, but for apprentice brickies the employer incentives total $19,800 per apprentice. It’s a rare writer who is good enough to win awards that might pay them an amount comparable to the tax dollars that go towards each and every apprentice training anywhere around the country…

To the caller who said ‘You don’t see governments handing this sort of money out to other industries,’ okay, you’ve got a point. The federal government recently committed a thousand times this much to one initiative in the car industry, for whom $250,000 proabably wouldn’t fund one meeting in Detroit. The government would never bother earmarking $250,000 for the car industry.

Governments give huge amounts to industries all the time, and we don’t notice much of it. A lot of it’s probably very useful, but it’s not there to be noticed. Writers’ awards are there to be noticed—it’s partly what they’re about. But don’t go saying governments don’t give out money to other industries.”

Like Earls, I’m sick of arts practitioners being forced to justify their worth. And I’m sick of hearing that the arts are not essential. The arts feed us, nurture us, teach us about ourselves and the world around us. They offer beauty, truth, grace. They have the potential to grow us as human beings. Even in places of poverty you’ll find music, dance, storytelling. They are fundamental to our society.

Other politicians have understood this. During World War II, Winston Churchill resisted closing down theatres at the beginning of the war and defended cuts to the arts*, and during the worst days of the civil war, Abraham Lincoln regularly attended the theatre because the arts replenished him. Campbell Newman could learn a thing or two from these men.

It’s the National Year of Reading and Newman has just sent a clear message that he doesn’t give a toss about literature. As Stuart Glover says, ‘He has signalled that he doesn’t understand the way artists and writers help us make a civilized society, and the way they help us discuss and negotiate who we are.  Newman may not like to read, but he is mistaken to think that we should not encourage others to do so.  While the writing community roils today, the rest of arts community might well shiver.’

Newman has saved $244,475 but the cost to Queensland’s cultural reputation remains to be seen.

*When Winston Churchill was told that the war’s mounting costs called for cuts to the arts, he is famously said to have responded, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’ Sadly, this quote appears to be fictitious. It is nowhere to be found in his 15 million speeches, papers, letters, articles or books. He was, however, a supporter of the arts and recognised their value. When the then director of the National Gallery, Kenneth Clark, suggested that the gallery’s paintings should be sent to Canada for safekeeping, Churchill responded with an emphastic ‘No’. He minuted, ‘Bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.’