05.20.12
Posted in Writing at 9:41 pm by Natalie
The last two books I read were Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Both these books have very distinct voices, reflected in the style of writing; one using beautiful old English which has long since dropped out of the common lexicon, the other capturing the sound of the southern black woman in the 60’s with amazing depth.
Reading these two wildly different sounding books in quick succession made me realise something peculiar about myself; I think in the style of the book I am reading. I don’t know that I have ever said the word hitherto out loud, yet I found myself thinking it. Later, when I was walking up a rather steep footpath, I thought to myself ‘law, this sho a big hill…’ I stopped dead. Who was that in my head?!?
Has this been happening all my life and I’ve just never realised? Did I think Hunger Games style, only to be replaced by Bill Bryson and then a bit of Lemony Snicket? I can take comfort in idea that the subject of my thoughts does not seem to be influenced, just the delivery.
Naturally my first fear was how much of an impact has this been having on my writing? Fortunately I have been writing (just) enough to be able to say with confidence, none at all. I’ve been writing the same story across at least four books read and there is no change in my writing voice.
So what is happening to that voice inside my head? Is the voice that reads the story that your eyes are seeing the same voice that puts your thoughts into words?
You may not realise, but it is possible to think without words, not easy, but possible. Next time you are thinking something just stop your thought mid-sentence and you’ll see that you actually know how the sentence is going to end, you don’t need the words. So why do we need that voice?
This realisation opens a whole world of questions about what other impacts the books I’m reading might have on me? What is the purpose of my personal changing voice? It would be interesting to track my moods against the books I’m reading and see if maybe there could be something deeper to all this.
Finally there is also the question of how can I best employ my voice in the heads of my readers to better serve my stories? Got you thinking –but in whose voice?
Permalink
05.13.12
Posted in Journal at 11:17 pm by Natalie
Mums are such amazing people. I know mine helps me out whenever she can, even when I don’t ask her, even when I don’t want her to help 
It is great that we have a day dedicated to Mum’s across the world. A day when they get to feast on rubbery eggs and burnt toast, delicious because they have been made with love, if not skill. Millions of school-made gifts will be given; the soft drink-bottle terrariums and all manner of hand stitched, knitted or crochet useless things. The thought of it tempted me to turn my hand to such crafty tasks just for old time’s sake, but I thought it might make Mum cry with the nostalgia.
It is also important to spare a thought for those mothers who don’t have anyone to shower them with love today, or those whose mothers are no longer around to be appreciated. My heart goes out to you.
So thank you Mum for picking me up after the parties, for being there when the postie is delivering my online purchase, for feeding me my favourite dinner every time I come over… Oh, and for all that birthing and raising me stuff too.
To all the Mums out there; Happy Mother’s Day!
Permalink
05.06.12
Posted in Writing at 9:54 pm by Natalie
I have been lamenting for some time about my lack of writing, it’s not that I’m not writing, I’m just not writing as much as I would like to be. Yes, I know, no-one’s fault but my own. But today while working in the garden I noticed something strange…
I was observing things; like the way my gumboots left chevrons of drying mud on the footpath: the way the leaves sounded like waves on the beach when raked into a pile: the way the golden elm held tightly onto her yellowing leaves, trying desperately not to mix them with the spent foliage of the liquid amber.
In short I was writing these observations into my memory.
It got me thinking about how we look at the world. Maybe an accountant would rake that lawn thinking about how much money they were saving by doing the job themselves? A statistician might stand there calculating how many times he had to draw the rake across a square metre to catch all the leaves, while a painter would see the base colour of each leaf, and the thirty other colours that came together to make the autumnal hue that I just called yellow.
We see everything with our passion, even if it is not in its truest form (for me, putting the words to paper/screen) but the words are always forming in my head. I guess that is how we know what it is we love to do, because in some ways we are always doing it.
Permalink
04.29.12
Posted in Journal at 10:12 pm by Natalie
I was having lunch with a group of friends the other day, and after we got through the usual banter of work complaints and theories on what previous lives we might have lived, we got onto the topic of statistics.
The fact is 80% of quoted statistics are completely bogus, including that one.
The funny thing was that we could all quote specific stats with absolute confidence, but in reality have no idea if they were based on fact. Half of which were about things that no-one in their right mind would ever fund the research into (such as 60% of Jack Russel dogs being called Jack or Russell).
So where does that leave the writer when it comes to quoting statistics? Do we need to back up all statistics with sources, or does it only matter when you are writing non-fiction?
People tend to place a lot of faith in the written word, so in many ways all writers have an obligation to try to only perpetuate that which they know to be true, but actually providing the reference is probably taking it a little too far.
I think I’ll go with the 55% of people who think that it is just easier to avoid such strict numbers, and opt instead for more general ‘many’, ‘generally’ or even ‘very few’. That should keep most people happy…
Permalink
04.22.12
Posted in Writing at 5:38 pm by Natalie
One of my favourite stories (that I have written) was started at 8:30pm on the night it was due. I submitted it at 11:48pm. The competition administrator made a point of telling me that mine was the last submission received before cut-off. I did not win, but the point is I wrote an entire short story from start to finish in one sitting. Why? Well there was the deadline, but also the competition had firm boundaries about what needed to be included.
I was reminded of that again last night when the little Miss slept over. ‘Tell me a story’ she requested in yet another attempt to put off going to bed. My mind instantly went blank; the usual response, I’m sure, for any writer. ‘Make it about a fairy, and Harry Potter and an octopus’ –of course, what a natural combination!
Funnily it was enough boundaries to hem me in enough to pull a story together, even more amazing it was one she really enjoyed. Now given the whole world of topics to choose from I would not have put Harry, a fairy and an octopus together, but when my brain could pick anything, it picked nothing.
I think this month I’m going to put some random words in a hat and pull them out to make story ideas. I think that’s how Duran Duran wrote half their songs, so there must be some merit in it! I’ll let you know how I get on.
Happy writing,
Nat
Permalink
04.15.12
Posted in Journal at 8:58 pm by Natalie
Recently, I was lucky enough to watch the 2010 NSW School Spectacular. And it really was spectacular! This is a performance put on each year by public high school students from NSW (including regional schools) which involves lots of amazing singing and dancing. It is thoroughly entertaining and something of which the students can be proud for the rest of their lives.
What struck me was the overwhelming talent on stage. To give you an idea, the winner of last year’s Australia’s Got Talent TV Show, Jack Vidgen was in the 2010 spectacular, and more notably he did not stand out! There were literally dozens of kids with outstanding voices, and it made me wonder what happens when they leave school? After all, we are now in 2012, so why haven’t I seen these 2010 performers somewhere? Why was the top 20 of Idol or X-factor not filled with these kids? Do they go on to become lawyers and business analysts instead, only dusting off their talent for the office Christmas karaoke party or the over-the-phone rendition of happy birthday?
My heart goes out to these kids. I can’t imagine having so much talent and having such a hard slog and so little time to have it recognised. Writers are a bit like male actors in Hollywood; the older and greyer they get, the more wisdom and appeal they are perceived to have. So any ticking time we feel slipping through our fingers is a perception of our own creation and in reality we can keep slogging away until the day we die, ever-hopeful of having our dreams realised.
The same cannot be said for these singers and dancers who, in our youth obsessed society, need to break out before they hit 30. Unfortunately the DVDs of these schools performances are prohibitably expensive, so unless you share DNA with one of the performers you are unlikely to buy one. But if you ever get a chance to watch any of the spectaculars, you will be glad that you did! Here is just a sample;
Permalink
04.08.12
Posted in Journal, Writing at 10:24 pm by Natalie
What is it about a confession that tends to lead to a change? I had been struggling with my lack of writing for a while now, but only opened up about it last week. I thought that confessing would be like giving me permission to give up, that’s why I resisted for so long.
Little did I know what I actually was setting in motion.
My characters are coming and talking to me. All the time. When I vague out on the bus, when I’m in the shower, cooking dinner or digging in the distracting garden. Time that used to be spent worrying about solutions to work problems has been filled with the chatter of my characters. They want me to write them. They are getting a bit grumpy with me.
I won’t pretend there has been some miraculous change, I’m still not writing, but I’m plotting like a woman possessed. In the past this has led to writing.
Let’s see what the next week brings. I must admit, I’m a little excited.
Permalink
04.01.12
Posted in Journal, Writing at 6:05 pm by Natalie
I have a confession to make. I’m not really doing any creative writing at the moment, and haven’t done any for a few months. Worse yet, I don’t really care. I’m trying to care, and for a long time now I’ve been pretending to care, but the truth is I don’t. It’s a bit scary.
I’ve been trying to diagnose the problem, sure that there must be a cure for it, or that it will just clear up if I apply enough Lucas’s Pawpaw cream, but it hasn’t. Today I think I might finally have found the answer; it’s all about creativity.
Boxed up in my little flat in Melbourne there were limits on my creative outlets in the home, so writing was always going to be the winner (I assure you, one look at my sketches or knitting would convince you of this fact). Our back yard was about twice the size of my desk and always in shade, and our front yard was the communal driveway.
In the Adelaide hills I have this massive garden screaming out for my creative expression. It is a blank canvas begging for veggie patches and fruit trees, it demands mowing and clipping and brings all manner of birds down to amaze and hypnotise me. I get into it every weekend and love every muscle straining moment of it.
I know a garden cannot enchant me forever, at least I hope not, and in the words of the Starks ‘Winter is Coming’ –so maybe my novels will just have to wait a little bit longer, for the magic to wear off or the rains to arrive. Whichever comes first…
Permalink
03.25.12
Posted in Writing at 1:42 pm by Natalie
In the past 5-6 years I’ve read more fantasy novels than in all the previous years of my life. I think all of us could really get into fantasy novels (just look at how popular the movie equivalents are) as long as we are introduced to the genre by the right author. For me that author was Robin Hobb, followed by a heavy dose of Jennifer Fallon.
But that’s not what I’m here to talk about, the right fantasy author is different for every person depending on what fantasy trope you dislike most (hot tip for any new fantasy writers out there; females whose only purpose is to be rescued is not a good selling point for a book).
Now that I can see the possibilities of fantasy, I can look past the tropes that I dislike and see the rest of the story. For me it is the ‘nearly Earth’ thing. When an author throws strange food names into a sentence, without describing that food and not having it sufficiently different from, say, an apple, I get ripped out of the novel and think ‘Oh, that’s the author telling me we are not in our world’. I already know it is a fantasy novel, I know it is not real world history, I don’t need people to be eating limots and greegaws to tell me that.
Worse still is the momos running with the elephants and the description of the momos being exactly that of zebras. You either have to name all the animals the same, or all different, or make them different animals. Don’t just randomly change a cat into a pipaw if your dogs are called dogs. A pipaw has to shed its skin or something different if in all other respects it looks like a cat. If not, it’s a cat.
None of the examples I’ve given above are actually taken from the books that inspired these comments. I don’t want to identify them because other than these crazy near-world things I’ve really liked them, so I don’t want to seem to be bagging them. As I said, I’ve learned to look past it and see the promise of a great story instead.
But before you all jump on me and tell me that fantasy novels should be allowed to change names, I have to say that I whole-heartedly agree, so long as it is done well and with purpose.
I read a great book last year where people drank something called Karv, the description of it made it clear it wasn’t coffee and it wasn’t tea, and by the end of the book I desperately wanted a cup of it myself. That is a good way to introduce other worldly things without the author hitting me over the head and putting a neon sign around the words NOT EARTH. That’s the mark of good fantasy world building.
Permalink
03.18.12
Posted in Writing at 7:43 pm by Natalie
I must make a confession now. Before Adelaide Writers’ Week 2012 kicked off I had not even heard of most of the writers, let alone read them. Unlike the last festival where there were numerous authors of books I had loved, this year I had very little idea about what to expect.
I occasionally found myself sitting at a table talking writing with someone, we would both excuse ourselves to go to the next event, and I would find the person I was talking to was the writer I was going to see. That’s a bit embarrassing.
But oddly enough I managed to get something out of this festival which I did not get out of the last one, something more important; I wasn’t so hungry to hear validation of my own writing process.
When writers spoke of starting their novels with no plan (my process) I didn’t find myself sighing in relief. I was not intrigued by those who spend a whole year planning every step of their novel before they wrote the first word, nor was I perplexed by those who wrote different bits of a novel, out of order as their first draft and their second draft was to put them all together in the right order and write the joining bits. I know enough authors now to know that these are all common novel writing processes. For that knowledge I am grateful.
Writers week 2012 also brought a bunch of wonderful gifts to me. I met a lot more authors this time around, spending evenings with some of them thanks to my wonderful guests from Melbourne. I also discovered a bunch of writers whom I would otherwise have never heard of. So my pile of books to read has grown by 5 more tomes, and my credit card has suffered yet another tax deductable hit (if I could just earn something to deduct tax from).
So yet again the week was surreal, and inspirational and wonderful and you can bet that I’m booking my holidays in for the same time next year as now (thankfully) it has become an annual event. If you didn’t get to this year’s event, book it into your calendar for next year, you will be glad you came.
Permalink
« Previous entries Next Page » Next Page »
