Writing For Revenge

My teacher calls it bravery, I call it stupidity. There comes a time in writing where it’s very hard to create something from nothing. Often in art, whether it’s from someone very famous, or a first timer, friends of authors/artists will see some traits of themselves in characters or having a situation they recognise as something very similar to their reality. Whether they take this lightly or not I realized today in Non-Fiction class that there is a very fine line to creativeness in writing when it comes to defamation of a character.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is why can’t authors just be particularly more careful with people’s feelings in both fiction and non-fiction? Sometimes all it takes is a change of hair style, change of what they do for a living, even background information that is just completely unnecessary to the piece. Perhaps, as my teacher pointed out, it stems from authors writing for revenge, a type of stab at people they’ve hated in the past, and getting it off their chest in writing, the only way they can truly express themselves. But what about the people you care for that you write about? Sometimes I find it hard to insert the truth in there, so afraid that it hurts too much. Writers might find it so difficult, that its often hard not too, if you feel that passionate about the piece. But in some examples I’ve seen in writing, there has got to be a time when enough is really enough.

I’ve had similar problems in my writing in both my fiction pieces and my non fiction pieces. There are three examples off the top of my head and how I have dealt with them so far:

The first is from last year when I wrote a joint piece on how my Dad felt in an uncomfortable situation and linked that to how I felt when I was bullied in year 11. If I ever published these two pieces, SOMEONE would have recognised who they were, and not because I said it was my Dad, but because of the way I portrayed him, the way I explained his looks, demeanour and even some of the things he is likely to say in that situation. Likewise with the girls who bullied my group. If one of them were to read it, although I took a stab at their looks, personality and the way they held themselves as people there is no doubt that they would recognise themselves purely because of the quotations and the fact that they were in the situation themselves. I guess this was my form of writing for revenge, but I don’t think it would have helped if I ended up publishing it. This was for my assignment and only seen by two other students and my teacher (so, no emotional connection to me or the people mentioned) and the reason why I didn’t publish it was not because I wasn’t brave, but because I was smart. I knew it would get back to those girls if I ever did publish it, and because I painted them in a cruel light, from it being in my perspective, I would have gotten into trouble for writing what I perceived was truth. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to, but I’m no Helen Garner, I can’t reveal my life and other peoples in such a way to offend, no matter what they did to me in the first place.

The second case is writing my fiction novel. Now, to fully explain myself, the Mother character is everything opposite in what a Mother should be. She’s unloving, cruel, cynical etc. However, I do know that it’s very hard to create something from nothing. So from all the times I’ve been upset with my own Mum, even when the situation was completely different, I was able to describe how the Mother feels in the story and how her daughter feels. The way she would stand and hold herself, the accusing facial expressions and finally the body language that dismisses the daughter in such a way that the Mother was framed as a completely difficult person to live with.
To stress even more, my Mum is not like this at all. She is my female hero and I love her. But as I read back on some of the paragraphs involving the Mother I couldn’t help but wonder, would people see traits of my Mums behaviour in the character? Or worse, would my Mum see it herself? When the only example of a Mother figure is my own biological Mother, how can I explain this woman if I only have a single view of one?

The third example is another Non-Fiction piece that I wrote this year which I am trying to get published. The person I am writing about is from Geelong and I’m capturing how she feels at her age living there and I compare that to how she lives in Melbourne. In no way did I expect her to view herself as ‘whiny’ and ‘immature’. Of course, it was never my intention to frame her in that light at all and in fact I was complimenting her, but I did find it difficult to let this thought go. Although everyone else who read and critiqued it didn’t think she was framed in that way, the fact that SOMEONE interpreted the wrong meaning made me want to change the whole thing; because someone is enough, and worse than no one. She still very much wants me to publish it, admits she was just being protective of herself, and was only questioning whether people could see it that way and not necessarily what she thinks, but it makes you wonder, how careful you have to be with words. One word can skew the meaning in a completely different light even when you don’t intentionally make it so.

It is definitely a challenge to think about when writing.

The article that raised this issue and made me really think about what I was putting into my writing is called Thinly Disguised by Caroline Baum from The Age Newspaper. Full article here:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/19/1058035185380.html

Thoughtfully yours,

Jinx xx

So Good, You'll Want to Vomit!

Last Thursday, was not like any other inspiring day at uni with my fiction teacher. That day was the THREE HOUR NOVELLA CHALLENGE! Now, if you didn’t read my last blog where I mentioned the before picture to how I was feeling, the link is here (http://book-unfinished.blogspot.com/2010/05/dont-kill-your-mice.html)

So now I write for you the reflection of the experience before, during and after the contest.

This story starts off the Wednesday night when I realized after being perfectly comfortable writing 4000-5000 words in three hours on my novel in the other characters point of view that as I started doing character profiles, I thought to myself
“Hang on, this character can’t do this! They just can’t be a main it’s not right!” I thought it would be pointless to write for three hours on something I didn’t think was achievable, nor worth my time. And plus, considering we couldn’t take time in the three hours to really think about the writing, I figured I should just start from scratch.

Cue the next day.

So I arrived at uni a little annoyed at myself for leaving it go this late and so I really worked hard in the allocated 10 minutes to really plan everything out, instead of wondering how I’m ever going to get through it with such a sugar high (seriously, large amount of candy!)

So, I wrote…

Sometimes, when I’m under stress and I have to write something, my mind goes into a sort of creative spasm. I like my brain for this and I guess it just goes to show that someday I could be a real writer because as I sat down and stared at my laptop I had two lovely words pop into my head

Setting
Country

And bam! That’s all it took. I finally realized I start off with setting. So long as I have the general setting I am able to write a story. It was kind of a nice feeling to find my voice, especially when I didn’t expect it.

When I finally got my setting, I started to question some things to help me gain understanding of the story I was slowly conjuring. What do you see when you think of the country? What does it smell like? How do you feel? And this is when I got words like dry grass, old fashioned small houses surrounded by nothing, cows mooing, fire and smoke.

And here emerged a character. Here are my notes written in the 10 minutes:
1. Loves: the country
2. Her school
3. Her friends. 3
4. Her mums fresh pavlova for breakfast
5. Her blue dress with the brown belt she wore to the summer dance by the lake
6. The fire her dad makes every night, even in summer so they can cook marshmallows. Oozing white and pink balls or delicious balls of joy
7. Sunday at mass
8. Painting
9. Writing
10. The Nothing

Mind you, it’s not the most grammatically correct but isn’t that the point of note taking? I find it hilarious to read back and think
“What was I thinking, delicious balls of joy? YUCK!” But once I got down what the character loved it was enough to really start to think about conflict. Something that disrupts her in the usual routine she seems to have:

1. Hates the river that circles around her house
2. The swinging rope by the river
3. Boys, especially her dead brother
4. Trees that she cant climb
5. Snakes

Also, kind of liked it when I became a bit brutal in the last few minutes of getting this down
“Hates boys…especially her dead brother…” hmmm that was random!

Cue the writing process!

It was draining, and my back ached. I kept finding excuses for taking my hands off the keyboard by grabbing another lolly even though I wasn’t even hungry. I hated my character at the start because her language was so simple and she seemed really stupid. I saw a lot of mistakes and it took all my might not to go back and edit. I crawled and bashed at the keyboard words I didn’t even know made sense in the sentence. I imagined the little man inside my head going nuts and throwing all the English knowledge I had in my brain into the giant recycle bin. I forgot how to spell the at one point, and wrote ushered instead of meaning to dismiss the person. My brain became mushy I felt I could make a dint in my head if I poked it. And suddenly I felt so tired! Like I’d run a million miles.

And then I wrote the last few words down and finished my piece, relieved I did it. It’s not perfect, and it sure doesn’t read well, but the story is there and with a big structural edit, I should be able to come out at the end with some gold! Because I do very much like the story; it’s deliciously mysterious!

Here is one piece of the gold so far which is the opening line to my piece:

The river runs all around the house, as if it’s taunting me and encircling me into the nothing…

I have to say I am quite happy with the outcome of the first line in the first draft. I thought that was a pretty good beginning, yes?

I am so proud I completed the task I set for myself which was basically to finish it. I didn’t even realize how much I wrote until I clicked the recount on word and found myself staring at a whopping 4,800. That is massive to me at this stage in my writing so I was very happy; and even happier when I WON THE NOVELLA CHALLENGE!

This was my prize:

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster and three fun size Mars Bars (only fun when you get three!) Not bad, eh? I can’t wait to sink my teeth into this book. My teacher thought it was a good prize because it’s one of her favourites so she thought it would be nice to pass it on to someone else. I also can’t wait to read it because as she passed it to me her exact words were
“It was so good I wanted to vomit!”


Proudly yours,

Jinx xx

Don't Kill Your Mice!

Someone once told me, that writing classes are a waste of time. If you really need to learn how to write, then you can’t be a good writer. To write, you must be good at it and work until its right, because there is no set way you can teach this.

To an extent, I believed in a small part of that opinion for a long time. I used to take it on as truth, that’s the way it was and writing classes were like a ‘hope’ course. Someone who really wants to write, but just can’t do it. I wrote stories about these people for years until I realized how depressing and utterly untrue that statement really is.

Being in a writing course is not being told how to write, nor is it to be told what to do with your writing. For me, the best advice they have given me is to find your voice. What makes you tick, and we shall help you along the way to really polish that voice into something worth reading. That is not to say that people who haven’t done a writing course cannot write as well. But maybe because we have these courses, for a lot people, such as myself, they need the hope, they need the instruction to find themselves, because humans are so fragile and at times we just can’t walk it alone.

My fiction teacher today was giving us good writing advice from all these different writers in order to help us be inspired to complete the challenge she set for us in two weeks. But, more on that later…

There were loads of things to write on, and every writer seemed to have their own way of creating a story. Which I think was really nice to hear. But the point she was really trying to make, is what kinds of authors resonate with you. What words and ways of writing do you relate to?

These authors resonated with me:

EM Forster – “’The King died, and then the Queen died’ is the story. ‘The King died, and then the Queen died, of grief’ is the plot.”

Eva Sallis – “Its very hard to imitate someone elses style well…I have this theory that everyone has a layer of crap that they have to write through before they get to the good stuff…just write, just let it rip…the only way you’ll ever find your voice.”

Anne Michaels – write with poetry of language to explore themes

Robin Hemley – “I’ve found I can be intrigued with characters without necessarily liking them…but I must feel sympathy for the character…” and “don’t kill your mice…in plainer language you might say they torture these poor mice…if I had allowed the mice to die…that would have become the story…overwhelmed the character and certainly any care the reader might have for them…I wanted to be liked…’I’m glad the mice didn’t die. If they had you would have lost me as a reader. Never kill the mice.”

Anne Lamott – ABDCE (Action, Background, Development, Climax, Ending)

Allegra Goodman – “there is nothing better than listening to your characters regale you…they are all fictional characters, yet in writing they are real” let them tell the story. Be amused by them, let them come alive.

These people intrigued me because they made me think about the story I was writing and all the times I’ve had trouble with some parts that just don’t feel like they’re working, seemed so small and insignificant when I really thought about what the experts believed. Especially Robin Hemley, who told me not to kill my mice! I realized after reading his article Sympathy for the Devil: What to Do About Difficult Characters I was going to kill my mice in my own story, which is why it was failing. I had to leave my mice in the story…what the mice are…well that’s my little secret!
It really inspires you to write when you realize that authors who have their works published have sat in your exact position wondering the same thing. I hope later in my career when I’m middle aged and have written a few stories/articles that I can write my own writing story. That someone will want to know how I got through the bad days, the writers block and pick up a few pieces to put towards their puzzle.

Something to look forward to

On another note, the challenge my fiction teacher set us. Are you ready?

THE THREE HOUR NOVELLA CONTEST!

The mission? To write a 4000-5000 word narrative in 3 hours!

Wish me luck; I am craving some good chain-me-to-the-chair-writing! I am, truly! I’ve never done anything like it before!

I just need to locate my delicious bowl mug. This is going to take a large cup of tea…

Promising not to kill her mice, and always yours,

Jinx xx

Here's the Story...

When discussing genre theory in class last week for fiction it got me thinking about some stories I wrote years ago that I thought weren’t really good because I didn’t realise the writing styles I was using. When I talked about Intertexuality in one of my posts below (http://book-unfinished.blogspot.com/2010/03/chicken-and-egg-story.html) I pulled out all my old pieces and read them again. Although I laughed a lot at how simple my language was at the time it was really nice to sit back and think how far I have come in my writing! I used to have a lot of problems with writing, yet I loved it so much! The idea, the blank paper, and trying to get them to combine is both challenging but rewarding when the task is done. So when I had to write for an hour in the exercise last week with genre theory I wondered what I could do with my old stories, if I were to re-write it. It’s hard, because the story I did end up using is my baby, I’ve re-written it so many times but I never had the theories and techniques to make it something worthwhile, but I knew the story itself was interesting enough. It has always been floating in my mind somehow, but I never thought to write it again recently. Perhaps I thought deep down that it seemed childish, when I wrote it so long ago. But I pushed the thoughts out and started writing…

When I got home from the class I kept writing, and then I sat on two pages, thinking the same as all of my exercise pieces “that will do, I’ve finished the exercise now.” On the public holiday I let Ben read it, and got an answer I didn’t expect. I was tossing up whether to finish it and submit it to a journal, or even just hand it in for my next assignment, but I didn’t expect his suggestion to turn it into a book!

The world and the characters are so dense, the more I pulled it apart, the more I realised I needed thousands of words to really tell the story. Even when taking it to critique class, I still didn’t have the confidence, I was nervous because I thought they would tear my baby apart. Tell me it’s got potential, but I’ve got so far to go. But even my friends told me it was worth it.

Sometimes all you need is a push from someone. I guess what I’m trying to say, apart from the fact that I am indeed in the process of writing a novel that maybe we think too low of ourselves, and it just takes that one person who cares about you that much (like my Ben!) to tell you its worth something - your time, your energy, and your thoughts. You need people who can be a critique (like a critiquing class!) and to really push you into reality. Tell you “yes, write a novel!”

The best sentence I’ve heard all day!

Now a writer and always yours,

Jinx xx

P.S I'm thinking the picture is a little cheesy, but kind of fits anyway, yes?

Usage and Abusage of Second-hand Bookstores

There are many different reasons why people go into Second-hand Bookstores. For me, a reader, they are an adventure, where hidden gems are waiting to be uncovered when they were neglected some time ago by a precious owner. But as I rummaged through the piles in Brunswick St (careful to not get too excited in front of Ben when I saw Sex and The City novel for only $11.00, yet not so careful when he pointed out ISBN-10’s just to get me excited) I wondered why normal bookstores haven’t gone out of business because of so many Second-hand Bookstores around. But as I looked further I realized that if you aren’t careful, those hidden gems aren’t as polished as you think.

A few examples:
I’m trying to drive myself to read more literary works, particularly those that challenge the way I think, feel and see the world outside my own. I know that many books out there do that, but I think I need a little more boost to my comfortable reading system. So I decided to look for another Helen Garner book. I’m reading The First Stone at the moment but I wanted to get a fiction to change it up a bit. So I found two versions of Monkey Grip and thought “oh jackpot” but realized…one of the copies was $20.00 and not even the correct book. In fact it was a proof, a copy or ‘practise run’ of what the interior of the book might look like. Proofs don’t even have covers, they’re meant to be free things to give to booksellers to market the story before it's released. Perhaps some people might find this a gem, a rare, but obviously special piece…but $20.00 for something that used to be free? That just didn’t seem right to me!

So I kept looking. I then came across a literary reference book I ordered in from my bookstore a while ago but was intrigued as to how they would price this gem. The book is called Usage and Abusage by Eric Partridge, and I ordered the Popular Penguin Classic. I picked up the third edition and was flicking through to see the differences in text when I noticed the pencilled price, $15.00. I immediately shoved it back on the shelf and felt sorry for some people that just don’t do their research. If some poor soul wanted to buy that, without noticing its an older edition and much more expensive than the $9.95 one, then they’d be wasting 5 bucks and maybe only realize AFTER they purchase it what a mistake they made.

But whose fault is this? Who decides the price of a second-hand book? Really, I would love to know! Is it the bookkeepers job and they are just naïve to the fact that its cheaper elsewhere and in Monkey Grip’s case, not the book at all? Or is it part of the adventure to find the deal as well as the story?

When I got home from my fantastic day in Brunswick St I had bought two books. One is Monkey Grip, for $11.00 which I’m thinking (and hoping) is the cheapest I can get without consulting Book Depository. The other, which Ben bought for me (because he’s awesome) is The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick for $22.99 from Brunswick St Bookstore. Yes, an independent bookstore. And I couldn’t be happier with my choice. I figured after searching and enquiring in any second-hand bookstore I visited these holidays (which was A LOT) for ANY Philip K. Dick books, I wasn’t really missing out on a bargain. Though in some cases, bargain can be the wrong word.

When I came to class yesterday for first week back I voiced this to my classmates and one said that it happened to her at one of those Dirt Cheap Books outlets. One that is notorious for cheap books!

Do your research people, if you are as tight with money as me (I’m a student I’m allowed by the way) you would do the ground work before you spend $20.00 on a free book.

On a side note, my five faves of the week (which I haven’t really been doing but feel very in the mood) are:

• Zucchini Slice
• Pipsqueak Cider from Little Creatures Brewery in Brunswick St
• Tuesday nights like tonight when Ben comes over
• Chewy chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes the simplest cookies are the best!
• Sex and the City boxed set. I’m still only up to Season 4! But I must watch them before the second movie comes out.

What are your five faves of the week?

Yours,

Jinx xx

Something To Write On

I needed a quick fix to my writers block. So I logged onto Meet Me At Mikes (my favourite page to visit http://www.meetmeatmikes.blogspot.com/) to get inspired. As always, I was!

For a quick and very helpful writing exercise to stimulate your mind, go to http://www.flickr.com/ THEN type in a year you like. For me it was 1889.

And then let your mind go wild with ideas with the amount of images you can find. For some reason I was staring at this one for a while and can come up with hundreds of stories!

I'm asking so many questions! If it's a wedding photo why is she wearing black? Isn't tradition white? Or was that introduced later? Who are they?

Oh the fun you can have!

Procrastinatingly yours,

Jinx xx

Don't Always Judge a Book by its Cover

Do you judge a book by its cover? Don’t lie! I bet you do! It’s natural, we all do it. And publishers know this. But the publishing industry is becoming more and more involved with the marketing side of things and really wanting us to judge even if it has nothing to do with the book.

Let me explain further.

I was reading Scott Westerfeld’s blog http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2010/04/from-russia-with-covers/ (surprise, surprise) and found it quite interesting what his publisher said to him. And I quote from Scott Westerfeld’s page:

Everyone in marketing says that the most important thing a cover can do is sell the book to someone who knows nothing about the novel. In other words, a cover is merely advertising space, and doesn’t need to be true to the text, just eye-catching.

And that is why the third cover release of his Russian Midnighters covers looks like they are about vampires. Observe:

Stupid “creating a new genre” BS

Anyway, so it got me thinking about what I could put on the cover for my journal. Seeing as it’s going to be a different theme every season and therefore a new cover, I would really have to think about what is eye catching, and whether I want to go with the approach of luring my audience in thinking my journal is something it is not.
Which I really feel uncomfortable doing…am I the only person who thinks this is wrong?

Without sounding too biased, I completely agree with Scott Westerfeld. He argued that a cover should connect with the reader AFTER they read the book. The cover should reveal little things about the book, but keep to the idea of what it’s about. For example, symbols that appear in the story, characters and what they look like (not blonde and blue eyed freaks when the character is clearly written to be a red head) which might appear fussy and a bit boring to the publisher, but I believe it will appeal to the audience more.

And being an anal person with my covers (seriously, I paid 15 dollars for a Margaret Atwood book I could easily have gotten for half the price because the cover was my favourite out the lot) I’ve done the leg work. The best covers out there are usually US covers. Sorry Australia! But we’re pussies when it comes to being controversial.
So it’s an overdone example, but we all understand it well so I’m just going to go with it. LIAR by JUSTINE LARBARLESTIER:
When the US first released the cover, there was a white girl on the cover. And the main character is very clearly written as a black African American girl. Shit hit the fan, publishers argued and it slipped through their fingers to the media and told that “people don’t buy books with black people on it”
So, it was exactly what Scott Westerfeld was saying above. Even though it’s not about a white girl, people will pick it up apparently over a black girl on the cover. So it was changed and, oh look, something way cool!
See, US has done it again. It reveals small things about the book in the cover without it being filled with spoilers! See, it’s not that hard to do, so why is it such a hard thing for publishers to do.

Oh and in case everyone forgot, this was Australia’s cover…

So, like, let’s not be controversial and be safe and put nobody on the cover and just have bloody writing. People will like that…and let’s not forget to use the worst colour ever to put on a book jacket, WHITE!
But I shouldn’t bag my country too much, sometimes they do get it right. For example, Nick Caves new release The Death of Bunny Munro. Australia were the only people I have personally found that used an actual person for their front cover. And ok, it was legs spread on a bed, but, ummm isn’t Bunny Munro some kind of womanizer who goes crazy after his wife committed suicide? And not an actual bunny like what every other publishers implied? Just saying…

So, again, I do agree with Scott Westerfeld. Why are we so afraid of covers? Why do we judge so much and why do publishers think they have to lie in order to appeal to our taste? People who read vampire books usually wouldn’t read Midnighters so if you want to keep readers reading and continue to try and get young adults reading, my advice to the publishers is not to deceive us, but to give it to us straight so we know what we are getting into. It’s always nice to know what a books potential can be before turning the pages to find something truly special.

Thoughtfully yours,

Jinx xx