I was going to have a rant. I read something about writing process that gave me the irrits, and I was going to have a rant.
But then I got to thinking (it’s my curse, being able to see things from both sides) and I decided that there was something in the advice, even though it irritated me, so I have been giving it some more, less ranty thought.
There will be a post in it, but in the meantime, the gist of what I wanted to say is:
Do what works for you.
If it’s writing like a mad thing, then editing at leisure, do that. If it’s writing at the kitchen table after everyone is in bed, do that. If it’s doing most of the work in your head, then writing the thing in almost one draft, do that. Whatever gets you to ‘the end’ and makes you happy with the result is what works for you and don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong.
And now, in celebration of doing things your own way, my latest favourite musical group, Walk off the Earth, with a great a capella cover of Taylor Swift’s I Knew You Were Trouble.
I should have got onto them much earlier, as they were the ones responsible for this clever cover of possibly the most covered song in the history of the internet, Gotye’s Somebody That I Used To Know.
I was amused to discover this little more recent send-up, which made me like them even more:
And finally, perhaps the best example of my point, of doing it your own way, this great cover of the Beatles From Me to You.
I was going to beg your indulgence, for some parental skiting. But I changed my mind, because what I am sharing is so good that it needs no apology.
My girl recently completed an assignment for her English class at school. They have been reading a book called Chinese Cinderella, by Adeline Yen Mah. The assignment was to write a story inspired by something in or about the book. This is what my girl came up with:
My name is Feng San-San. I live in the streets of Hong Kong. Every day I scrounge for food, beg and look in garbage bins. It is very seldom that I get so much as a watermelon rind. People say I smell, but how can I wash when I live in the filth of the streets? They say I should not be idle, but who will let me work?
My name is Feng San-San. The winters are so cold, and all I have to wear are rags. I shiver so much, but I have no food to bring back my energy. Mother started coughing today.
My name is Feng San-San. I am so scared. Mother’s cough is getting worse, my nose is running and we have no medicine to get better. I am so scared that we are all going to die.
My name is Feng San-San. My mother died today; I will miss her forever, her loss is so painful. Now all I have is my dad, and he becomes more depressed every day.
My name is Feng San-San. We get less and less food, as there are so many beggars these days. My father is getting desperate, and blames me for everything. He beats me almost every day now. I am so scared, will we survive?
My name is Feng San-San. I really don’t think that we can survive. Our situation has never been more desperate, and I wonder what we will do. My dad mutters incessantly that he will get money, we will have food. I think he is too hopeful.
My name is Feng San-San. My father has gone mad. He says we will be rich. That I will make him rich. I am more frightened than ever.
My name is Feng San-San. I am for Sale.
~
This story is copyright 2013. No reproduction without written permission.
For those who are interested, the last line of the story above appears in the book. That was the inspiration she used to create this story.
I think it’s great. If you do too, please tell her so in the comments. I know she’d appreciate it.
My girl is at a school that is very big on music. Seriously, at least twice a year they have Official Events at which they play ALL THE THINGS, then a couple of times more they have small events at which they play even more things. At last count she was in five different musical groups and attending the rehearsals of a sixth, which her best friend is in.
It is the latter group that is currently rehearsing a rather funky arrangement of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. For those of you not around in the 70s, it goes like this:
In the chorus of this song, Elton sings that he is giving up the so-called high life (characterised as ‘The Yellow Brick Road) and is going back to his plough. Then he says that he is going back to something in the woods and will be hunting something something toad.
Since 1973, I have been singing along to this song and have never got closer to knowing what these words were than that. True, I inserted a completely spurious cabin into the woods, because it seemed a likely thing to be going back to, but I guess I always knew it wasn’t right. It doesn’t scan. To fit with the music, it would have to be a cabin-o (which is, indeed, frequently what I sang) and even Elton, in his most outre glasses days, would not have inflicted a cabin-o on an unsuspecting public. I also doubted that even the most disenchanted would leave the high-life for the dubious pleasures of hunting toads. But I chose not to go into that too closely. I was young, in the 70s, and there was a limit to what I wanted to know about alternative lifestyles.
My daughter, who clearly listened more closely than I did (or who, perhaps, scorned a cabin-o) sang that he was going back to the Haligo Daligo woods. She, too, felt this was unlikely to be correct, but there are many woods in the backblocks of the USA and who is to say that his plough was not domiciled in the Haligo Daligo woods? It did, at least, scan.
It turns out that the actual lyric is ‘back to the HOWLING OLD OWL, in the woods, hunting THE HORNY-BACKED toad.’
A Horned Owl, which may or may not be about to howl…
Get out.
I take it back about what Elton was willing to inflict on an unsuspecting public. If ever a line was written to fit a gap in a song (and to rhyme with road) this is it. Do owls even howl? I mean, I know they can make many noises, but I’m not sure howling is among them (cue a deluge of info from owl-fanciers about their cries). Although, to be fair, it is all real words (no cabin-o) and it does, indisputably, scan.
But it made me wonder just how many things are misunderstood, not just in songs, but in stories, and what effect it might have on the reader.
I, for example, dearly love a ‘saying’. I enjoy colloquialisms and I use them fairly freely in my writing. I sometimes run afoul of editors as a result. In the novel that I had published last year, I took one out, because my editor didn’t understand it, only to see exactly the same expression used in a novel I read just a few weeks later.
I am all for writing clearly, but I think colloquial language injects colour and potential amusement – within reason of course, one doesn’t want to drown in dialect – and should be left in. But I suppose it does raise the potential for ‘Haligo Daligo Woods’-style misunderstandings. I generally think unfamiliar words and word usage can be worked out from context, but I wonder, though, even if it does lead to misunderstandings, whether it matters?
So I guess my question is, do you think you should leave out the quirky speech in favour of clarity, or leave it in and let the misunderstandings fall where they may? Or should you, as one historical writer I know does, include a glossary at the back?
So, yesterday, Melbourne, my town, turned on one of those glorious autumn days that make you want to frolic and gambol and otherwise bask in the sunshine and revel in being alive. And then I turned on the radio and this was on, which seemed appropriate:
Although in my case it was more go outside and loll in the hammock, rather than in bed, but you get the idea.
But I was good. I did do some work, I just did it at a coffee shop with outside tables, where I could bask in the real sunshine (and frolic in my imaginary world). And I enjoyed it. And it has put me in a good mood today, which is lovely. So I want to share some things I’m grateful for. First, at the moment, I am most pleased with this:
It’s a book. It has my name on it. It has a gorgeous cover. All of these things have existed since October last year. But now it is available in three dimensions, with actual paper between covers, for people to buy*. This makes me glad. And a little squoogly.**
(*In Australian Post shops if you are in Australia. My apologies if you aren’t! One day I will have many books and they will be available in all formats everywhere, but it is not this day. Sadly.)
(**Squoogly is a word we have invented in our house for that combination of bashful and delighted that you get when someone compliments you fulsomely – or when you see your first book available for sale.)
I am also grateful to friends who bought the book (see first photo) and took pictures of it in the wild (see both photos). They make me squoogly too! (See**, above.)
I am also pleased that we have a tiny, miraculously tiny frog in our frog tank. Last year, our little frogs successfully bred in captivity, surprising and delighting us. They produced one normal-sized frog and one we called Frodo because he was little and gorgeous. But this year, although we got spawn and even tadpoles, we didn’t get any new frogs. At least, so I thought, until I saw the tiny, tiny one the other day. He’s the size of a quarter of a thumbnail. He’s so small it was hard to believe he wasn’t just a trick of the light. But he’s real and he’s still there and he feels like a tiny miracle. I’m finding tiny tiny insects to feed him and hoping we can keep him alive and growing.
And then there’s this:
I enjoyed the Hobbit movie but best of all, I think was the dwarves singing. I sincerely hope there will be more in the next two.
And there are many more things to be happy about, but I’ve rabbited for long enough. What are you happy about today?
Sorry, my bloggies and blogettes for the late post. I have posts almost done, but also have a deadline and right now the deadline is winning. Because I’m hoping that, if all goes to plan, this deadline will lead to a companion story for Rules are for Breaking (squee!). For those of you who’ve read it, it’s Kate and Josh’s story and it’s close to my heart, as I love these characters.
But enough of that! The other day I wrote a post on how to help authors you love stay in print. Well, today (in a break from the ms) I read another author’s post that illuminates another aspect of how things beyond an author’s control can affect availability of their books. The post is about the barney between Barnes and Noble and Simon and Schuster and you can read it here.
This is a sad state of affairs for this author. But the point I want to make is that one of the big problems that all these things cause, for both writers and readers, is in how they affect discoverability. How do you find the books and authors in the first place, so that you can love them and pre-order new books?
I’ve just had a conversation with an author friend that made my blood boil and my hair curl and I want to share it with you because YOU HAVE THE POWER TO MAKE THIS BETTER.
Seriously, how many things is that true of? Not many. But this is a situation that you, as a reader, as a consumer can have a direct and meaningful influence on.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to PRE-ORDER THE BOOKS YOU WANT TO READ.
What, you say? Why? What difference does it make when I buy them? Surely the sale is what matters?
I have been absent from the bloggery for a while. For those who noticed, I’m sorry, truly. It’s not that I haven’t had ideas for posts. My brain it teems with schemes (as usual). But a couple of things got in the way of me getting them onto the blog. The pictures below show the fun one:
I have been out of town. In Brisbane, Queensland, to be precise at the very wonderful Australian Romance Readers’ Convention, run by the even more wonderful Australian Romance Readers Association. (If you love Romance, you really should check them out. And give them money. And come to the next ARRC!)
At this wonderful weekend, I got to be An Author. And talk about being one (a talk which involved a miniature T-Rex for reasons not even I can explain). And attend an author signing. AN AUTHOR SIGNING! ON THE SITTING DOWN SIDE OF THE DESK! SQUEEEEEE!
A couple of weeks ago I started a new series on the blog called ‘So you want to be a writer?’ It seems I have plenty of things to say on this topic, as I have roughly fifty scraps of paper lying around the house with ideas for posts scribbled on them, but so far they haven’t made it to the blog. (Writer reality number 15: there are more ideas than there are hours to realise them.)
But today I thought I’d liberate one of them from its scrappy home and it’s this:
You meet a lot of lovely people on the interwebs. One I met recently is writer Terri Giuliano Long, who is this year, hosting a fun blog hop to celebrate Valentine’s Day.
I signed up to join the hop a while ago, not knowing quite what I’d write about. The prompt was to talk about our favourite romantic reads. Should be easy, I thought. I have plenty of those. But that was my undoing. I thought of too many!
So then I decided to think outside of books. And I remembered that, much as I love a romantic story, my favourite kind of romantic read isn’t printed inside the covers of a book, but by hand on a piece of paper:
Love letters.
Once they were common but are they a lost art in this electronic age? I hope not. What can compare to sneaking away somewhere private to read, over and over again, someone express their love for you? It’s a special kind of bliss.
Maybe this Valentine’s day, instead of buying flowers or chocolates or going out, we should take the time to put down in words how wonderful life is ’cause our beloved is in the world. (With apologies to Elton John. )
To get you in the mood, here’s one I prepared earlier, in response to a similar prompt on the RWA blog, for my Valentine:
Please note this is A Big Thing, not actually MY Big Thing… (It’s the CSIRO Radio Telescope at Parkes, Australia. A favourite Big Thing)
I’m delighted to be part of The Next Big Thing Blog Hop. I’ve been asked to answer ten questions about what I’m working on and then tag other authors to do the same.
Some of these questions were easy and some were trickier, but it was fun to do! I’m quite excited to talk about this novel as it’s a rewrite of the first novel I ever wrote and I’m really looking forward to see how the transformation works out. I can’t wait to give it to my stalwart beta reader, who has read every word I have ever written, and see how she likes it!
To continue the ‘hop’ you can follow the links at the bottom of this post. I hope you like reading about MY next big thing (even if it’s not the world’s). If you have questions, please ask, happy to answer. If you are a reviewer and interested in receiving an ARC when it comes out I’d be very happy to hear from you. Just drop me a note in the comments or on the contact form.
1: What is the working title of your book?
Playing by the Rules
2: Where did the idea come from for the book?
A scene popped into my head one day; two best friends discussing the best way to get over a dumping. I wrote that scene many years ago now and it sat in a drawer (literally, a filing cabinet drawer) for many years until I dragged it out and started thinking about how these two friends had got to this scene and where they would go from there.
)
