Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Book Launch

You only ever get one book launch for your first book - and many people will never even get that chance.
So June 28 will live in my memory as a golden day, the day when I launched The Wounded Guardian.
I say ''I'' but it would never have happened without the help and support of friends and family. The Global Financial Crisis means HarperCollins is unable to help out with book launches (especially for nobodies) but, seeing as they are the ones publishing my books, I reckon they've done more than enough right there! I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am to Stephanie Smith and the Voyager team!
But I digress - friends and family really stepped in and worked unbelievably hard - I owe them all a great debt of thanks.
Kincumba Mountain was the perfect place for the launch - an atmospheric building, lots of grass for all the kids to run wild and toilets that were positively medieval!
The road up to the top is long and, for those who travelled from Sydney or even further afield, it must have felt almost as long as the trip to Mount Doom! I'm sure I saw a couple of hobbits wandering dazedly around the bush tracks...
I'd never done anything like this before, and found myself operating on a combination of adrenalin and nervous energy. Only the knowledge of how bad the toilets were kept me from too many nervous trips to the bathroom. That, and not really eating or drinking anything the whole day because I wanted to talk to everyone there!
Sadly, such a thing was impossible - there were more than 100 people there, from as far away as Brisbane and Melbourne. To all those who made it there, I thank you - and if I didn't get around to talking to you, I am sorry!
The whole thing was somewhat dream-like ... to see Dymocks Erina staff piling up my book (and then see people buy it) was surreal. To sign it for people was even crazier! This was the sort of thing I had imagined and dreamed about for years ... to see it happen was an incredible experience.
I can honestly say that it is only topped by seeing my children born and my marriage day.
We had some incredible Celtic music care of two young musicians, Elissa and Naomi, as well as half a dozen medieval warriors thanks to Mahkra and his mates. The music was great and the kids all loved the chance to get a photograph holding a bow and arrow or a sword!
But the main thing was the book, and to see so many people buying not just a copy for themselves but for a friend was, simply, humbling.
Signing books for friends (and family) I have known for years or even decades was a surreal experience. I still pinch myself to imagine it was real!
But now the book is out there.
It has been launched and now it will be judged by the people who were at the launch, and hopefully a few others!
But wherever it goes, whatever it does, that launch day will be a high point in my life.

writing checklist

Every writer has their own style, their own habits. What works for one may not work for the other. But, having said that, here's what I have learned about writing - perhaps it may be of some use.
1) Imagine you are writing it out longhand. Don't fiddle around, don't get bogged down. Imagine instead that you cannot go back and change anything until you have finished, so that you press ahead and have a first draft of your work. Once you have a first draft, you have a much better foundation to work from and will have learned more about your story and your characters, which you can use to add depth and complexity.
2) Let your characters do the driving. Get them fixed in your head so that they push the action along. Don't make them do things or make choices you realise they wouldn't really make, just because you plotted it in a Chapter Plan three months ago. If you want them to turn right but you just know they would turn left, then turn left and explore where that goes.
3) Rewrite, rewrite and then rewrite some more. Rewrite until you are absolutely sick of it - and then do it again. Would-be writers send their work off to agents waaaay too early (I know, I did!) You need to put your draft away in a drawer for a week, or even a month, then come back and start ironing out the flaws.
4) Find some friends you can trust to point out the flaws. There will be flaws, trust me on this. The trick is finding someone who can tell you - this character isn't working, this plot point isn't up to scratch. Perhaps publish a chapter or two on the HarperVoyager site ... they have a section for writers to post work, where it can get feedback. Having your flaws exposed is painful. Having an agent reject your work at the last moment because you didn't spot those flaws is agony.
5) Explore the concept of external and internal action. Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly) tells this best. Get the two-disc edition of Serenity and watch him talk to a bunch of Aussies at Fox Studios about this. Boiled down, he says that external action is your plot (ie, goblins attack). That, by itself, is fairly ho-hum. What you need is to couple it with internal action (how it affects each character and the characters' relationship with each other). So goblins attack, which makes Fred mad, because he's been warning about this for years. George, who's been boasting about how great a warrior he is, discovers he's terrified. The two, who had been friends, are now arguing - all because of a few goblins. Their relationship has been fundamentally altered and will affect the rest of the book, all because of a simple goblin attack.
6) Finally, just begin writing. Even if you don't hit the jackpot with your first effort, you will have learned something. Every failed attempt I had taught me how to be a better writer and, ultimately, led me to be published.
Good luck!

Thoughts on writing

I wrote all three books of the trilogy on the train, travelling to and from Sydney - and it actually has me very valuable lessons about writing that can be used by anyone, not just commuters with about three hours a day to kill!
My first draft was written by hand, in a notebook. Sure that's about as old school as you can get but it is actually a really good technique.
See, if you are writing by hand, you can't go back and start messing about with it, editing words and sentences and changing things around. You can make notes for yourself in the margin, you can write future scenes with a particular character as if you had changed something important in the earlier part of the story but YOU CAN'T GO BACK. The only way is forwards.
Sounds like a recipe for more work but, in actual fact, it is a great way to write. It forces you to push on and finish your first draft, instead of getting bogged down in one particular place. Instead of wasting time trying to get something perfect, or obsessing over something that's not really working, you have to push on. Thus you are able to defeat writer's block by the simple expedient of leaving the blockage behind.
When you have a first draft in your hand, then you can REALLY get to work on improving and polishing things. A first draft is just a first draft - a book is not like an essay where you write it out once and then hand it to the teacher. You have to keep going through it, time after time, polishing it and adding layers of plot and character.
I reckon it's better to have a finished first draft, a foundation if you like, rather than a half-finished book that you've been working on for months or even years, unable to move forward because you're tinkering with Chapter Three.
Imagine it's hand-written and that you can't play with it. Make copious notes to yourself for the next draft (I always keep a notepad by my bed for this very thing) but move on. Don't look back until you've written The End.
Even when I put aside the pad and wrote books two and three exclusively on the laptop, I still wrote like that. Don't fiddle endlessly with something - just push on.
Of course you can write like that anywhere, not just on the train. But the other way a train really works well is that it removes all distraction. You can't make a cup of tea, you can't put out the washing or do the dishes, there is no escape and no way out. You have to write or listen to the person across the aisle recount their exciting weekend over the mobile phone.
The other great thing about the train, for me, is that it enables me to walk in the door, plug in the laptop to recharge, back up my day's work - and then forget about writing until the next day.
(Well, all right, my mind is sometimes buzzing, but at least I'm spending my time with the family, not physically writing).
It teaches you discipline and focus.
If you can bring those to your writing - ie set aside an hour or two where all you can do is write, then that's just as good.
You too can have the experience of writing on a train - just without the strange smell, the audible iPod doof-doof music and the early mornings.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Writing on a train

THOUSANDS of people are locked into metal cylinders every day. Their surly guards are indifferent to their suffering, while the mysterious power that controls their every movement taunts them with a recording, which promises sarcastically that ``CityRail apologises for the inconvenience...''
It sounds like it could be the plot of a novel but, instead, it was the place I chose to write my novel.
Instead of the stereotypical artist's garret or just somewhere peaceful and calm, I wrote not just one book but a trilogy while on the train, commuting from my home on the Central Coast to Surry Hills.
That's more than 750,000 words written and, later, typed onto a laptop.It meant I struggled with character development and plot points among crowds of people with strange physical habits, the bizarre need to share their lives with the rest of the carriage via the mobile phone, snoring problems, issues with personal space and various illnesses.
In some ways it was a fantastic place to write. It's mostly air-conditioned, the seats are mostly comfortable and my fellow travellers are mostly normal.
Sure, you get the days when the remnants of Saturday night's kebabs are strewn all over the carriage _ hopefully still undigested _ or a school excursion takes over the carriage.
But an iPod helps you tune out the distractions. And when the alternative is listening to Dodgy Headphone Man with his doof-doof on maximum or Social Girl catching up on all the goss on her mobile phone, it's an easy way to beat writers' block.
Plus, with two small children at home, even the old blokes offering free life advice to any poor unfortunate close enough to listen are bearable.
Most of all, it was the knowledge that four hours of my life each working day were not wasted. Rather than resign myself to another long session at the whim of CityRail, I could escape to this world I was writing - and the journey sped by.
I could even accept delays (as long as I was on the train, rather than waiting on a rain-swept platform), reasoning that it was more writing time.
Of course there were challenges.
Probably the biggest one was the daily fight over the arm rest.
You see, you need a little bit of elbow room when typing. Sitting in the aisle seat was perhaps the best position because, apart from being knocked by every schoolkid with a large backpack, your elbow has room to run free.
But get the window seat and, while you can luxuriate in the space if you're by yourself, you're always dreading who's going to sit next to you.
Small Asian student doing their homework is good, the fat bloke who ate the Cabbage Surprise for dinner, not so good.
My book, although a fantasy, does not feature any magical creatures _ although I saw plenty of strange ones at different times on my travels.
While Cityrail country trains have two armrests, one for each seat, many commuters seem to feel they need both, and a swift game of Elbow Fencing can ensue.
One of the stranger encounters was when a lady tapped my elbow until I lifted it, then used a cleaning wipe to make sure the armrest was spotless, before politely sharing it with me for the rest of the trip.
I have caught some people watching my screen curiously, particularly when I am writing something gruesome or when I am editing a book and the words ``Chapter Sixteen'' in 20-point type scroll across.
Quite possibly they thought I was mad, writing a book on the train. Quite possibly they were right.
But not only was it a huge amount of fun (and how many people can say that about their daily commute) but if I can see someone reading my book on the train, it will be all worth it!
PS: CityRail isn't quite as bad as I made out.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

THOUSANDS of people are locked into metal cylinders every day. Their surly guards are indifferent to their suffering, while the mysterious power that controls their every movement taunts them with a recording, which promises sarcastically that ``CityRail apologises for the inconvenience...''
It sounds like it could be the plot of a fantasy novel but, instead, it was the place I chose to write my fantasy novel.
Instead of the stereotypical artist's garret or just somewhere peaceful and calm, I wrote not just one book but a trilogy while on the train, commuting from my home on the Central Coast to Surry Hills.
That's more than 750,000 words written and, later, typed onto a laptop.
It meant I struggled with character development and plot points among crowds of people with strange physical habits, the bizarre need to share their lives with the rest of the carriage via the mobile phone, snoring problems, issues with personal space and various illnesses.
In some ways it was a fantastic place to write. It's mostly air-conditioned, the seats are mostly comfortable and my fellow travellers are mostly normal.
Sure, you get the days when the remnants of Saturday night's kebabs are strewn all over the carriage _ hopefully still undigested _ or a school excursion takes over the carriage.
But an iPod helps you tune out the distractions. And when the alternative is listening to Dodgy Headphone Man with his doof-doof on maximum or Social Girl catching up on all the goss on her mobile phone, it's an easy way to beat writers' block.
Plus, with two small children at home, even the old blokes offering free life advice to any poor unfortunate close enough to listen are bearable.
Most of all, it was the knowledge that four hours of my life each working day were not wasted. Rather than resign myself to another long session at the whim of CityRail, I could escape to this world I was writing - and the journey sped by.
I could even accept delays (as long as I was on the train, rather than waiting on a rain-swept platform), reasoning that it was more writing time.
Of course there were challenges.
Probably the biggest one was the daily fight over the arm rest.
You see, you need a little bit of elbow room when typing. Sitting in the aisle seat was perhaps the best position because, apart from being knocked by every schoolkid with a large backpack, your elbow has room to run free.
But get the window seat and, while you can luxuriate in the space if you're by yourself, you're always dreading who's going to sit next to you.
Small Asian student doing their homework is good, the fat bloke who ate the Cabbage Surprise for dinner, not so good.
My book, although a fantasy, does not feature any magical creatures _ although I saw plenty of strange ones at different times on my travels.
While CityRail country trains have two armrests, one for each seat, many commuters seem to feel they need both, and a swift game of Elbow Fencing can ensue.
One of the stranger encounters was when a lady tapped my elbow until I lifted it, then used a cleaning wipe to make sure the armrest was spotless, before politely sharing it with me for the rest of the trip.
I have caught some people watching my screen curiously, particularly when I am writing something gruesome or when I am editing a book and the words ``Chapter Sixteen'' in 20-point type scroll across.
Quite possibly they thought I was mad, writing a book on the train. Quite possibly they were right.
But not only was it a huge amount of fun (and how many people can say that about their daily commute) but if I can see someone reading my book on the train, it will be all worth it!
PS: CityRail isn't quite as bad as I made out!