Taking over the Melbourne Writers Festival

It has been a while since I wrote a new post on my blog and I did realise a while ago that I didn’t end up questioning you guys about an issue I was talking about in my uni class. However, it did occur to me that there was so much more to write about than to rant on about copyright…seriously it was going to be about copyright.

So many more important things…like…MEETING SCOTT WESTERFELD
Yes. The photo above you is REAL. I am not that skilled at photoshop!

This week the Melbourne Writers Festival is on! I’d never been before today, honestly because I didn’t know about it until last year, but if you happen to be roaming the city in the next week, please stop by and soak in the literature!

I’ve only seen one lecture so far with Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier and Isobelle Carmody but I can honestly say it is a really great experience to sit in a small room, so close to someone you admire and talk to them about the writing and publishing world.

The lecture I saw was called “Taking over the Grown Up’s Table”
http://www.mwf.com.au/2009/content/mwf_2009_events.asp?name=2335
Surprisingly, it was incredibly laid back and a lot of fun! I was expecting a uni lecture set up, however Scott Westerfeld cracked jokes, the audience joined in on what was discussed and a lot of really interesting things were said.

Some of the issues that we discussed started co-in siding with my course, which was really cool, including covers of books and how important it is to please the audience as we’re the ones who “judge the book by its cover” and decide to pick it up off the shelf.
We also talked about the YA section in general and why its so important to keep the section alive. Which is kind of inspiring in a way because my dream is to open my own publishing company, where I will publish children and YA books. So to listen to these authors telling us how much of an honour it is to write for the YA community, it really made me want to jump ahead in time and start up this publishing company! Though I quickly learnt from this lecture not to grow up too fast!

The fun really began when we all got a chance to meet the authors after. Which meant I finally got to meet Scott Westerfeld! Anyone who has met me before, even for a minute, will know two things about me
I love to read
my favourite author is Scott Westerfeld
So, you can imagine how I was feeling! Clutching my book So Yesterday (the first book I ever read by Scott) I approached the table and realised
“Oh shi- I have no idea what to say! My vocabulary has gone!!”
I even said to Mel as we’re lining up
“Mel…I don’t know what to say!”
I didn’t make a fool of myself too much in the end though…at least I hope I didn’t. I instead told him that his books changed the way I thought about the world as well as mentioning his Uglies series changing the way I felt about myself. And I also had to mention my Food Tech hamper I made for him in year 12 (of course, I’m still ranting about that!) which he remembered and was very appreciative of (yaay!!)

Pictures of the finished hamper once again!

So, to end, I am still so buzzed from the afternoon events and I really do recommend that people come to see SOMETHING. It’s totally worth it, I promise you.

Favourite quote of the day
“Adults are so precious and worry too much about what they should be reading. They’re such wankers about it!” – Scott Westerfeld

Thank you to all authors who take the time out to listen to us rant about how much we love you. Even though you say you appreciate hearing it every time, we appreciate you writing such beautiful tales every time.

Jinx xx

Intro to Fiction Writing (week 2)

Terribly slack of me to post another one of these, I know, but I promise to discuss an issue that came up today in writing class later!
This piece is another first draft. Hope you enjoy it!

I woke in a cold sweat. My breathing was heavy. I lay there slowing my breath trying to focus on something other than the dream that gripped my mind. The stone floor felt comforting against my skin and for the first time in a long time I felt at peace with myself and even with the world, even though all I could see was a dark, grey sky.
When I felt ready to face reality I sat up to observe my surroundings. The Factory was no different to how I remembered it before but it still felt foreign to me. I guess in many ways it was always a foreign concept to me. A place I would never understand and perhaps never wanted to. I said I would never return to The Factory but as most stories go, not everything is what we expect it to be and I guess in many ways, I knew I would have to return one day. To prove it happened if anything at all, even just to remind me, freshen the pain, add salt to my wound or even return to comfort myself. No matter what happened there, it was my home for most of my life.

I started working at The Factory on my 18th birthday. I remember the car crash on the way to my friend’s house. The car flipped and burst into flames with just me in it. I could smell my skin burning as I struggled to push myself around and out of the twisted metal that used to be my dads prized possession. I passed out from the pain of burning and being crushed and when I woke up, I was in The Factory. I will always have memories of the smell. I guess it was to make us believe we were in hospital, to make us believe we were going to be ok. No matter how many needles and funny machinery they pulled out to inject, poke and squeeze into, on and above you, it was still a hospital to us and everyone obeyed. It was only when the others, including myself, left our room, did we realise what The Factory was all about…

Jinx xx

Intro to Fiction Writing (week 1)

Take careful note that this is my first draft but I thought I should post another writing folio piece seeing as I’ve started back at uni now. Hoorah!
Enjoy and please criticize as much as you like!

I remember when he came for me at night. I used to wait for him, watching and holding my breath, hoping that perhaps one day, he would stop coming. When he did come, the darkness in my room settles to the earth and he almost glides to my side and whispers the events that happened that day, that year and my whole life. When he departs I used to dive under the darkness that was slowly rising to try and get a glimpse of his feet. The mystery frustrated and frightened me. He told me everything about him, but never anything about his feet. I hated not knowing the full situation, yet I hated remembering. It always made me wonder whether he was really telling me everything, or whether he was leaving something out, like his feet or some very small but significant piece of information I should know about.

My thoughts would fill as the darkness rose when he left and I would wonder every night whether I should ask questions, give my opinion or even demand to see. I never did. I sat, I listened and then waited through the rest of the day until night falls, darkness sinks to the ground and I remember.

When he came for me this evening to help me remember, he was not alone. I dived under the darkness hoping he would not see me, that perhaps on this changing evening, the man that comes for me every night would forget I existed and the man next to him would leave me be. The man standing next to him had a suitcase in his hand and brown leather shoes. When I saw the shoes as I lay on the cold earth I wondered whether this was the night I would be shown something new and not just reminded about the old. The man that comes for me every night glided as usual towards me and whispered the usual information I’m supposed to know about. I sat up cautiously, waiting for something new to be said. But I didn’t hear anything new and after he finished he glided out, the darkness rose and the man in brown shoes disappeared. After the third evening of this occurring, the man with the shoes shook hands with the other man and they walked out. On the fourth evening, I was taken…

Jinx xx

YA Alternate Worlds

Today I decided to ring one of my best friends, Tory and while talking to her about school books and how the novel Dracula explains things in too much detail we came to talking about Scott Westerfeld’s series Uglies.
For most of you who know Tory, you will know she has a very keen eye for finding books that grab your attention straight away. You will also know that she hasn’t read Uglies. For shame!
However, she has given the books a good go and what she found interesting, yet also frustrating was the fact that while being able to create a new world, Scott Westerfeld didn’t explain a lot of contraptions and new technology. She wanted to know exactly what a bungee-jacket was, but for it to still fit into the story, which is difficult, unless you use footnotes like Terry Pratchett.
This made me think back to a recent interview Scott Westerfeld attended with Holly Black and Cassandra Claire about alternate histories and how hard it is to show a story, not tell it.
I often have this trouble in writing classes and I know it will take a few years for me to get the hang of it, or maybe I won’t get the process at all, but for those who are interested in how professional writers overcome this difficult process of explaining little things in the world (like hoverboards, sneak suits, even gloves!) through the eyes of a character who has lived in the world all their life and know nothing different, here is the interview as a linkage

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/?p=1098

To read up on the other authors, Holly Black’s page is here http://www.blackholly.com/
And Cassandra Claires book is here http://www.cassandraclare.com/

I have read Holly Blacks work before (Valiant) so I’m really looking forward to White Cat. And there is of course Cassandra Claire whose book City of Bones I have at home, yet (as I've explained to Tory) is part of my tower of "must read" books.

Enjoy!

Jinx xx

Wolfgang Iser vs. J.K Rowling

It has been a long time, but finally once more I bring to you another post about my world as a reader.
When Harry Potter hit the shelves in 1997 a change in young adult reading was formed. It is all thanks to the wonderful author J.K Rowling. But as you will find from this post, not only do young adults read this wonderful tale, but people as old as 86 can enjoy it just as much

I am talking about my Grandmother. I was having a coffee with her the other day and the conversation started with Cornelius, my cat, and where his name came from. I said
“no he’s not named after the ape from Planet of the Apes, nor is he named after Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter” and she goes
“I thought you would have named it after Cornelius the monkey. [This is a large toy monkey that’s been in the family for 35 years] Are you excited about the Harry Potter movies by the way?”

And now it begins

When I started reading Harry Potter I leant them to my Grandma and we both got really into them! But she never wanted to see the movies because she didn’t want the image of Hogwarts being ruined for her. Her idea of Hogwarts was something she knew would be different to the director’s point of view because it’s his opinion of what it should be. When explaining this to me she then said
“What do you think makes a good story? One that can pull all ages under its spell, but how does it do that?”

Usually my answer to this question is good language AND slanguage (slanguage being the colloquialism to suit a certain age group) but of course, how can J.K Rowling write such a story that suited both my 86 year old Grandma and me, an 18 year old teenager.
I paused and thought back to what I learnt in my course trying to search for a clue to how authors seem to be able to do this. And finally I came to Wolfgang Iser. I said
“It’s being able to ask not what the text means, but what the text does to the reader. To you and I, we both picture our own Hogwarts, our own Harry, our own magic world depending on the life we’ve led so far. It’s what the text does to the reader like you and I, and not what J.K Rowling tries to pull out of the text for us. It’s just like Wolfgang Iser said, we have to create our own implied reader to gage what to expect in a story individually”

Think back to all the times you’ve read a story and leant to someone older or younger than you. Did they enjoy it on the same scale as you? What were their expectations compared to your expectations?

Jinx xx

Sex, Scrotums and Librarians

There is a new issue that’s floating around the news recently that I believe should be talked about here, right now…on this blog. I say this because many authors have become very defensive over this issue and I think it’s high time that the young adults of this world shed their view.

I read about this issue ages ago on Scott Westerfeld’s blog about books being banned or moved from the young adult section because of its bad content; whether it be talking about sex or even implying sexual connotations. The post is here http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/?s=scrotum

So, understandably these authors must get pretty damn frustrated. I mean, they write these beautiful stories that touch the lives of some particular groups of young adults, and librarians decide to destroy it by labelling it “racy” or in simple terms BAD and therefore ban it. Not to mention the fact that a lot of money goes into publishing the one story, and now it’s not allowed to sit – rightfully - on its shelf.

But, that post was written ages ago so let me update you.
If you haven’t already heard, Maureen Johnson has recently been accused of having “racy XXX rated content” in her book The Bermudez Triangle. Only this time it’s not the library staff that are complaining but two mothers.
The story in simple terms is:
The daughter of one of the mothers picked up two random books off the young adult section in their local library. One was Maureen’s book, another Gossip Girl (EW!) While flicking through the pages herself, the mother found some of the topics “racy” and decided to call the library and ask not for the books to be banned, but for them to simply be removed from the young adult section to the adult section.
Youtube video linkage for more info and also Maureen Johnson defending herself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8aLRBhNUmo

Ahem. Cue young adult point of view

We all know that the young adult section has often been confused with different people thinking it’s for different ages. As far as I’m concerned I try to keep the young adult section for ages 14 and UP! But, obviously the age is dropping and now young adult is aimed at 12 and up, which is where the problem has started. I think what we should be doing is not banning books just because they sit in a certain section that might be appropriate for one audience and not the other, but changing the sections age group completely. The reason why I think this is because young adult writing for certain ages is so specific with language for different ages it would be silly to move it to the adult section. While a 12 year old (or her mother for that matter) doesn’t want to learn about teenagers having underage sex and it being ok, adults don’t want to read about it either so why move it to the adult section?

I can see both sides to the story. Mothers don’t want to have to monitor what their child is reading, they already have to monitor what they’re doing on the internet! But to defend the authors for just a moment I should make the statement that I agree with Maureen Johnson. Someone who doesn’t read the section, should not be allowed to make such a big statement like “MOVE THIS BOOK TO THE ADULT SECTION.” Or “BAN IT!! DO IT NOOOW!!” It is exactly the reason why I am writing this blog because, as an 18 year old young adult reader, I think the opinion that needs to count the most is people like me who actually read the section and analyse it ourselves.

What kind of young adult book doesn’t talk about boys and sex and anything dirty that comes to your mind? The reason that those topics are written is because we (teenagers) find it interesting! We talk about it with our friends and authors know this and therefore like to capture our language because their characters are meant to be us, so they must mirror our behaviour.

My dad was saying before (while I was ranting to him about it) that when my sister was in the early stages of reading young adult, he was very worried about the content of the stories. My sister used to read books like Chain of Hearts by Maureen McCarthy and Peeling the Onion by Wendy Orr. Both contain content like suicide, accidental death and self harm. He stopped worrying, however, when he could see how happy she was reading these sorts of issues in novels. They opened up her eyes, kept her intrigued and plus, she was reading! So my dad wasn’t about to call a library and ask to ban the book when he finally found a way for her to read something!
Interesting, because my sister was 14 at the time and so had a fair idea what suicide meant, could handle issues with self harm etc.

I realised that while watching these youtube videos with library staff having their say, adults who host TV morning shows, mothers and authors also having a say, that not once did they ask the daughters point of view. Sure she’s 12 years old but how do you know she was even phased with the idea of sex being mentioned? I know I wasn’t when I read about suicide in Chain of Hearts when I read it at the age of 12 - my sister recommended the book to me.

To recap, the library staff and bookstore staff should rearrange the age group of young adult sections and perhaps bring in another section labelled “tweens” and then “teens” instead of young adult period. This will be so kids don’t get confused between a book like Twilight (friendly no sex before marriage book) and The Bermudez Triangle (lesbians and underage sex being the norm) while also keeping mothers happy because their daughter/son is reading material that is safe and appropriate for their age.

In the words of Scott Westerfeld:

SCROTUM

Ha. Destroyed your mind!

Jinx xx

The Serpents Kiss

This is the final edited piece of writing for my fantasy section. The original piece before editing is here: http://book-unfinished.blogspot.com/2009/03/writing-and-publishing-week-5.html
Tell me what you think!


I tried to sit up to check my surroundings but I realised that simple task was harder than expected. I was chained. I lifted my legs and pain forced a halt. Straining my eyes I could just see ahead of me. Bruises covered my whole body, blood spilled from my slashed skin and I guessed the obvious. I was defeated…
***
“Fucking hell” I yelled “that really hurts. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to hit a woman?” feet walked towards me. The body attached to the feet was a man I once knew and even with all those years of knowing him, I still couldn’t tell whether he was really going to hurt me.
“But you’re not a woman are you Charlie?” the man laughed and kicked my bruised thigh. I jumped and both my ankles and wrists cried in protest.
“No but I resemble everything there is about women. The mind, the appearance, the strength… everything. Except— I replied with clenched teeth
“Except the fact that you are not a woman. You are a genetic fuck up of what is human. One element of woman…yet one element of something else. Oh, rather, you aren’t human at all now. Therefore you are neither man nor woman but merely the shell of a woman that once existed. I would like to negotiate with you now, my life is far too busy to keep you held for much longer.” The man swung his leg over me and sat down on my stomach. He was light for a man of his size, but then again, I remembered, he wasn’t as strong as he looked. His mind was his strong point, I always knew that and no doubt his loyal dogs gave me these bruises and scars, not him. No wonder I was defeated, I was out numbered.
“Fuck you! I will never negotiate with a man who lies! And who are you to say what’s human and what’s the shell of a human? You made me what I am today. You aren’t human yourself. What makes us human? At least I can admit to being a beast...at least I can remain stronger than you’ll ever be!” I stare straight at the sky too afraid to look at his face, not because of what his true form held, but because if I looked at his face I was afraid upon looking in his eyes, that I would cave in, just like last time when I first saw his face in my village. He sighed heavily and shifted his weight on me making me wince at the pressure on my bruised, slashed body.
“I never lied to you Charlie; I only protected you from the truth. Why don’t you look at me anymore?” he touched my face lightly catching a tear “protecting your village is like me protecting your heart” he unlocked one chain and let my hand slide out of the cuffs. I took the opportunity to lash at him, but his hand locked around my broken wrist and I cried out in pain
“Ah ah ah” he tutted at me “naughty girl, be gentle or the cuffs go back on” he laced his fingers through mine and leaned forward blocking my view from the sky so I was forced to look at him. His eyes, I thought I can see them again. My body froze up and my mind shattered, too afraid of the information held. I could see everything that happened when the destruction of my village began. The lives I killed, everything that I destroyed, it was all there. He stared unblinking at me until he was satisfied I saw enough. The man I once loved and whom I killed for was punishing me.
And now he must finally die…

The claws of the beast within me lashed at the ground. I undug the chain that were buried deep in the earth and swung them towards his face. I heard a crunch and scream as he fell back. My claws extended further the more anger and pain shot through my body, and slowly transformed me to my chimera form. Shattering the chain, I was able to stand once more. I looked upon his face one last time as my memories showed through his eyes
“My dear you’re looking more beautiful than ever,” he said, shedding his skin and revealing his snake shaped chimera form…



Jinx xx