Shelter
August 23rd, 2010
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The Black Demon on the Writer’s Shoulder - flick him off or not?
August 16th, 2010
Over the last few days I attended a writer’s conference interstate. The taxi driver who drove me to the airport yesterday afternoon asked me what I’d been up to. I told him and he shyly confessed to me that he was writing a book. He was tertiary educated, presented as very intelligent, outlined the story he was writing but revealed that he could not overcome his own fears regarding his ability as a writer and was stuck gathering research material for the book rather than writing, editing and submitting. I’d hazard a guess and say that his manuscript probably had much to recommend it. The story certainly appealed to me – a family saga starting in Poland and moving to Australia. But he couldn’t get over his fears and thus was unable to complete the book and move on to the submission stage.
I understood immediately what he was feeling. I know several sensitive and wildly talented writers and artists who do not have the inner resources (or external support) to overcome these crippling anxieties. Their work remains undone or obscured by those who can cope with the emotional demands of creative work. A great pity.
I understood what he was telling me because I’ve felt those fears as well. I’m toughening up every day, but when you are starting out as a writer the self censoring, the constant self doubt and worry that you are just wasting your time and will be humiliated if you show someone your work can be crippling. But you cannot move forward unless you let go of the fear. You cannot develop unless you open yourself up for constructive criticism, as my friend Pete Morin says in his blog. You cannot drag the same manuscript around for ten years, tinkering here and there but refusing to submit. Burn it or shred it or dig a hole in the garden and leave it there wrapped in plastic for a few years, but let it go and write something else.
Or stop writing and do other things. Draw a line under that part of your life and move on, because hanging around when the magic has gone is a living death.
The decision to move onto something else is not an easy one, but nor does it signify failure. You have to ask yourself do I want to do this – with all the attendant agony, or do I not. Because if you do, you must find ways of dealing with the angst so it doesn’t hold you back. If you don’t want or need that pain in your life, let it go. Walk away and find a more soothing and rewarding occupation.
I walked away from the stress of the art world – and if you fear public humiliation and exposure as a talentless wannabee do not venture into that world - into a private world of growing vegetables and cooking. I got very good at the cooking; I made all sorts of Italian preserves, pasta, gelato, and foods from all around the Mediterranean – French, Lebanese, Spanish. I read their cultural histories and the history of food and ingredients, I grew heritage seedlings, scoured seed catalogues, haunted growers markets and French cheese shops, and it was a very soothing and creative period in my life. Constantly praised for my cooking skills, no one ever said ‘re do that bit’ or ‘cut that chapter’ or rejected what I offered. When I felt it wasn’t enough anymore, I decided to try writing. Now I just throw meals together because I’m consumed with what I do now. It’s probably the antitheses of the speedy modern life but that fallow period of almost ten years was vital to my journey back to public creative work.
I need the intensity and challenge of a creative mountain to climb. If I don’t have it I build that mountain in my head, and as anybody knows, it’s painful having a mountain inside a human skull. If I could walk away from it all and be happy I would, but I know it’s not possible for me. It is for some others and sometimes walking away is the healthiest thing to do.
So my taxi driving friend, what do you think?
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Dan Holloway on (life:) razorblades included
July 2nd, 2010
Dan Holloway is a contemporary writer who I truly admire. I read and re-read his work and I’m always left hungry for more. He possesses a phenomenal energy, intelligence and generosity of spirit and his commitment to independent publishing is matched by his actions in starting the Year Zero Collective and in publishing his own works through various independent publishing outlets.
We ‘met’ in the over heated world of writers online and are both members of the ethereal Grey Havens, a small, online, raggedy crew of writers with other lives in law, PR, journalism, child rearing, academia, writing and teaching.
Dan has recently released (life:) razorblades included and kindly agreed to talk about the work on my blog.
“My writing has been called bleak, dark, and bereft of joy and hope. The first two of these I will readily concede. The latter two, never. In a world where the default setting is vanilla, acceptance, expectation, normal; in a world where the tragic few who wrestle with life full-on and fail are condemned when it is not they who are too sick for the world, but the world too sick for them; in a world where the grey, suited swamp of the billion walking dead is revered; in this world, anyone or anything that celebrates the full, damaged, despairing, fucked-up and spectacular reality of life is a shriek, a shout, a holler of joy to pierce the eardrum of death.”
From the introduction to (life:) razorblades included.
Dan, you say your work has been called dark and bereft of joy and much of the work here is what you call ‘confessional art’, that is art where the author wears their heart on their sleeve, takes us into the darkest corners of their lives, writes the painful and the personal, and lays it bare and in our faces.’
How is Skin Book ‘confessional art’ if you are writing from a fictional character’s point of view? If it is fiction, then how do you see it as confessional?
For me confessional art is simply taking what is in your head and externalising it in the way that makes the very best sense. I don’t think questions of autobiography or “veracity” need come into it at all (although of course much confessional art IS autobiographical, like Tracey Emin’s Everyone I Every Slept With 1963-1995). As writers we happily accept that the “truest” way to convey something may be a metaphor, or a myth, and that’s how I see confessional art - it’s simply choosing the vehicle that is the very most appropriate one for whatever you are trying to scrape out of your head and onto the page. What’s particularly important for me is that an author never loses fidelity to the absolute relativism of truth (paradox intended). The moment we try to convey to a reader something that is true to them we are lost in the world of the impossible, in generalisation, in things beyond our reach. It’s only the absolute specificity of what’s inside us that we can hope (possibly without real expectation of success) to convey. And, ironically, it’s in that specificity that our only real chance of reaching out to other individuals lies.
To come back to the fictional character’s point of view - I think we need to separate out point of view from circumstance. I’m not a 17 year-old lesbian growing up in Hungary, never have been, and possibly never will be. Nor am I a 30-something woman who killed her abusive twin and flayed him to make a journal from his skin. The details of their lives are not the details of mine. But their point of view is mine. As a writer it’s my job to create the details that can best house and display that point of view, that best give it the grist to play out the questions that form the incessant noise in my head. The fiction is in the detail. The truth is in how characters deal with those details. I think art probably has to have both. Art fails when the truth is in the detail and the fiction is in the point of view (which is why autobiography is no more confessional than a novel); or when there is fiction in both - not because I don’t like escapism - I do - but because there is, I think, something inherently dishonest in pretending that we can create a point of view outside of our own.
What process does your writing undergo from first impulse through to the beautiful crafting?.
It really varies a huge amount from piece to piece. My stories always start with a picture of a character. I tend to follow them around, and watch what happens, and then the story comes out pretty much fully-formed. At that stage I’ll edit and edit to cut it down.
Most of the time I edit for sound if that makes sense - as a reader I sound out what I’m reading in my head (that sounds really daft, but I used to do competitive speed reading, and apparently, we sub vocalise at up to 1500 words a minute, which is about 4 times as fast as the usual reading speed, so it really is something for writers to think about), so as a writer what really bothers me is how the sentences sound. I want the cadence to be exactly right, and the rhythms to work – even if sometimes that means my punctuation’s wonky, or I say “s/he said” too much.
For poetry, it tends to be the other way round. I start with a skeleton and work up, building sentences in. I have a very bad habit of writing lines that are hard to resolve (going back to the sound thing – it’s really old fashioned, I know, but I like my sentences to “resolve” the way a musical phrase will resolve), so I often run on and on and that needs to be edited really toughly otherwise it’s impossible to perform the poems. I do a lot of live readings, and whilst my breathing technique is OK, I don’t want to set myself an impossible task!
Simon Beckett said artist’s need to find ‘a form that accommodates the mess.’ I read on your blog that Skin Book was meant to be a Flash Novel not a poem. You were emphatic that it was not a poem and yet it reads as a verse narrative. Why was the form so important?
I was a teenager in the 80s and a student in the 90s so I grew up with Young British Art and the whole text thing, which has left a lasting mark on me in terms of how I present things
I’ve read a lot of collections of work recently for review purposes, and by and largely I’ve been hugely disappointed in them because they’ve been just that – collections. For me a collection should give you something more than you’d get by reading the pieces separately. The way they’re placed should lead you through, should make you see things in each piece you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. In the case of razorblades, I want to take people on a long dark night of the soul and out the other end.
I was emphatic it wasn’t a poem because I still somehow feel I don’t “get” poetry, and I don’t think of myself as a poet. It’s like cooking – I love cooking anything savoury, especially coming up with sauces and reductions that take weeks because there are so many layers to them. But it’s all by feel. And I get really nervous around puddings, because there’s this aura around them that they’re exact, there are rules. I feel a bit the same with poetry. Poets do all these weird things with indented lines and placing stuff on the page and I feel like I don’t understand it, so I can’t really be a poet. And SKIN BOOK has the full structure of a novel – I’ve spent years railing against classical ideas of structure (I hate rules – like I say I always feel like I don’t “get” them) in novels, and I wanted to show I could actually write one if I tried – albeit one that’s only two and a half thousand words.
I find puddings intimidating as well. I’ve had to stare down quite a few.
Life can be a living hell for some people and I firmly believe there are worse fates than death. It takes an incredible act of will to embrace the life you speak of in the introduction. an you talk about the introduction and its importance in locating the following works?.
In terms of the actual content, I think there’s a lot of glibness about life. Choose life is a phrase that’s wheeled out again and again (especially that awful ending to Trainspotting), and that’s just such a cop out. What do people mean choose life? By and large when someone tells someone to “choose life” they see them walk out the door and give a big sigh of relief that the person’s off their conscience, and that really sucks as an attitude. Life is HARD.
Telling a suicidal person to choose life has consequences, and if you’re not prepared to see them through the consequences, and explain that choosing life is more difficult and more painful than choosing the opposite you should butt the hell out. I think there’s such a simplistic attitude to suicide and death, and life, and I wanted to challenge that. I wanted people to realise what they’re doing when they talk about choosing life. I find the idea that deciding to live means you’ll be happy ever after really offensive. “To live” means a lot of things. It’s fine to tell someone “to live” but that has consequences. Consequences that in some cases may be immoral and utterly unacceptable to the majority. But if you’re not prepared for that you should shut up. That’s why I ended with SKIN BOOK. It’s about two characters who are beyond acceptability. One character is a sex criminal, and the other killed and skinned her brother as a child. Together they’re happy. There’s no comeuppance or karma. They chose to live.
reading (poem)
cinched in the waist of a wholesome window
five streets from soho
ohso proper doorways
and strangers in sunhats with san miguels
and they’ve all got drinks and kisses
and they’ve all got slickety laughs
and they’ve all got smiles and cigarillos
and just enough friends
and just enough coke
and just the right words
and just the right names
and in streamers we tattoo the streetlamp black
and in velvet our tongues streak the glass
and we’re all strung out for the smell of piss
and all the beers are someone else’s
Dan Holloway
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Hazardous Activity
June 15th, 2010
Repetitive Strain Injury appears to be an occupational hazard for writers. Consideration must be given to where you write and how you sit when you write.
I did consider it, and then promptly forgot as I slouched, tensed, lolled, stayed at the keyboard for hours on end and did just about everything a writer shouldn’t do. And so I have RSI from my shoulder down to my wrist.
I’ll be limiting myself to important emails and very short writing sessions for now - all blogging activities have to cease until the injury heals.
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The Cool Girls
May 20th, 2010
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Azra Alagic:Fellow Traveller Number 6- Hachette/QWC Program
May 16th, 2010
In twenty words or less tell me why you write
I write because I have to. Writing really helps me to quieten the little voice in my head!
Do you have any formal training in creative writing? And how long have you been writing?
I have been writing on and off since I was a teenager, but didn’t really explore the option of getting serious about writing until about six years ago when I started writing my first book NOT LIKE MY MOTHER. I have a communications degree and worked as a journalist for ten years. I also have a Masters degree in Creative Writing.
What do you consider to be your successes as a professional writer?
I have had a number of short stories published, and have obviously been published as a journalist, but I feel my real success has been in actually completing my first novel NOT LIKE MY MOTHER which took me five years to finish (yet to be published!). It’s about something very close to my heart, the injustices of the Balkan wars. I really wanted to try to convey the horrors of what happened through fiction to try to create awareness in a non-confronting way. It tells the story of three generations of women who experience love, war, displacement and loss.
You were selected to take part in the QWC/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Programme in 2008. What were some of the highlights? What impact did it have on your writing and professional development?
The highlight of the program really was getting to sit down one-on-one with a Hachette editor and get valuable feedback on my manuscript. Bernadette was so positive and supportive, and really made me realise that I am a good writer. While Hachette’s marketing team ended up deciding the time wasn’t right to publish my manuscript (apparently people don’t want to read about depressing things like war in the middle of a GFC!) I was really honoured that Bernadette loved my work and fought hard to try to get it across the line.
What do you really love about writing?
I feel a real sense of comfort and peace when I write, and so while I get really chuffed when people read and like what I write, it is a purely selfish past time.
Rejection comes with the job of writing, so how do you get over it and keep going?
I developed fairly thick skin back in my days as a journo, but when I got my first rejection letter for a short story I had written I was devastated. It gets easier every time you get one, and I really try to stay very humble about my writing. If it gets accepted and published then that’s a bonus, but in the meantime I take great joy in writing and nurturing my creative side.
What are you working on now?
I’m working on the first draft of my second book THIRTY SOMETHING AND SINGLE AGAIN. A chic lit novel that regales the tales of a woman who finds herself back on the single meat market, after having been married to her high school sweetheart for twenty years, and discovers it’s not quite like it used to be.
What books are you reading and where is your favoured reading spot?
I tend to have numerous books on the go. Currently I’m reading Wild Lavender by Belinda Alexandra, Commited by Elizabeth Gilbert, Ben Naparstek in Conversation – Encounters with 39 Great Writers, and Starting out in Shares – The ASX Way.
My favourite reading spot is curled up in bed under the doona on a rainy day.
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The Aesthetic Rapture
May 10th, 2010
One of my very first educational experiences as an art student took place at the feet of a lecturer - we sat on the carpet and he sat on a chair - assigned to aid the First Year’s transition into this strange new world. He’d been a sculptor and conceptual artist but had moved into art theory and history. On our first day he told us that art, sex and religion, were the only areas our society sanctions as being legitimate spheres in which to experience ecstasy.
Wow. I really was at art school.
I’ve never forgotten his words - they intrigued me when I first heard them as much as they still intrigue me now, many years later. Discussions along these lines took place every day. I was expecting a little more emphasis on the technical side of art, but this was the early eighties and conceptual art had slouched into the nation’s art schools, an unfiltered Camel between it’s fingers and a copy of Baudrillard under it’s arm. Learning to paint was simply a matter of being tossed into a white cube studio space with the necessary materials and being left to figure it out in between tutorials on Julian Schnabel and Jeff Koons. So where was the ecstasy?
I’m not talking about the satisfaction of acquiring skills, or being overtired and spinning out on coffee and cigarettes or even completing a painting or other artwork to general acclaim. I never knew what that lecturer really meant until a couple of years later, when on an ordinary day, I stapled some paper to the wall, picked up a stick of charcoal and began to draw. About half an hour later, while totally absorbed by what I was doing, I suddenly understood what he’d been on about. I find it hard to explain but extinction of the self comes close, extinction of self and unity with the act or idea.
Three years later I had a similar intense experience, again while drawing. I don’t know the physiological basis for it; there were no paint or turps fumes around, nor chanting or drumming. I don’t want a reductionist explanation of it nor do I see it as having any mystical significance. But last week, after a long, hard day of writing I experienced a similar feeling. No, it wasn’t hysteria or relief or a lifting of pressure – although maybe that lent an edge to it - but more a rightness or unity, a submergence of the self in a creative act. It verged on the sublime. Three times in twenty-five years of creative work. Maybe I haven’t been working hard enough.
Those three occasions, particularly the last, reconfirm my own belief that whatever the outcome of the finished work, whether it hangs on a wall or whether it gets published, all the royalties and sell-through and rights sales and reprints and reviews can only stand in the shadow of such transformative creative moments. It’s why we do it, and keep doing it – nothing comes close, except, as my long ago lecturer said, maybe sex and the religious experience.
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Monique McDonell:Fellow Traveller Number 5 - Hachette/ QWC Program
May 9th, 2010
In twenty words or less tell me why you write
I write to bring to life the characters that live in my dreams and to see what hey want to tell me.
Do you have any formal training in creative writing? And how long have you been writing?
I wouldn’t say I have formal training. I did a minor in Creative Writing at University but the teacher was so nasty I didn’t write again for ten years. I’ve always written. As a child I wrote books and books of poetry and I have many half started novels. I began writing again in earnest about five years ago and have written a book a year since then.
What do you consider to be your successes as a professional writer?
I don’t really consider myself to be a professional writer yet because I am not making money out of it. I think I would say that any success I have had has been due solely to persistence.
You were selected to take part in the QWC/Hachette Australia
Manuscript Development Programme in 2008. What were some of the highlights? What impact did it have on your writing and professional development?
For me, just being chosen was a highlight. It was very affirming. The opportunity to sit down with Vanessa from Hachette and get her feedback on my novel was completely wonderful. I found Kim an inspiring lecturer and I got so much out of what she told us, especially with regard to plotting.
The chance to spend the week with seven other writers from around the country and just focus on writing and sharing ideas was invaluable. The gift of the ongoing friendship with those writers is a total bonus and a delight.
Being part of the program gave me lots of confidence which has led to me throwing my hat in the ring in other competitions and I think it made me feel legitimised in my writing – that it was more than a hobby.
What do you really love about writing?
I really love starting a new story. It’s like I’m heading off on a wonderful journey with new friends and we have so many opportunities to get to know each other better.
Rejection comes with the job of writing, so how do you get over it and keep going?
I’ve had plenty of rejection. I consider myself a bit of a writing bridesmaid – as in “always the bridesmaid never the bride”. I am much better with rejection now than I used to be because I have come to understand that it isn’t personal and has almost nothing to do with me at all. I have to say a standard rejection letter or e-mail doesn’t even affect me anymore. I do find it harder when I get very close and still can’t quite get over the line. To help me get through it I go to the second-hand bookshop and read a book by an author in my genre, usually one with two or three books, and preferably a book I don’t love and I think “Somehow he/she got over the line so there’s no reason I can’t too.” (You don’t want to choose anything too awe inspiring in these situations because that just fuels the feelings of inadequacy!)
What are you working on now?
I’m working on some women’s fiction with romantic undertones. At the moment I’m about 2/3 of the way through a novel.
What books are you reading and where is your favoured reading spot?
I am reading lots of chic-lit and women’s fiction because that’s what I write. Apart from that I just finished Barbara Kingsolver’s, The Lacuna which I loved and The Elegance of the Hedgehog, which I didn’t. I have a wing chair in my living room that I love to read in. I snuggle in there with a cup of coffee and float away.
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Simon Groth:Fellow Traveller Number 4 Hachette/QWC Program
April 28th, 2010
In twenty words or less tell me why you write.
I started writing because I had a yen to do it. I continue to write because I am a writer.
Do you have any formal training in creative writing? And how long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing stuff since high school. Fortunately, I started writing stuff I was prepared to share with the world almost exactly ten years ago. I have no background in arts or humanities (I did health sciences for reasons I am still grappling with), but I did a postgrad in professional writing, editing, and publishing a few years back so I would have such a huge discrepancy between what I did in sunlight and what I did in the wee hours. I started a proper Masters in Creative Writing too, but I didn’t get far. I’m not sure if or when I’ll get back to that.
What do you consider to be your successes as a professional writer?
Background stuff. I have to say this, because (to use fishing terminology) I’m yet to land the big one (whether in writing or in fishing). This will sound wanky and it’s quite accidental I assure you, but I seem to be awfully well connected these days. A big part of this is longevity: I keep turning up. As a result I have lots of people in the industry whom I know and who in turn appear interested in what I’m working on. I figure one of these connections has to pay off eventually. My job is just to keep turning up. It’s worked for me so far.
You were selected to take part in the QWC/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Programme in 2008. What were some of the highlights? What impact did it have on your writing and professional development?
The most valuable thing I took from the MDP (can I call it that?) (yes, you can, ed.) is a cohort. Writing is a lonely profession, especially when the people around you are sick of hearing about your latest plot development or character trait. While the eight of us from 2008 are scattered throughout the country, we still keep in touch and share each other’s triumphs and disappointments. It was especially important for me since, almost immediately following the program, I relocated away from home with nothing but a pair of small children and a whippet for intelligent conversation. A motley bunch of writers at the end of an email address was in incredibly valuable source of sanity.
The other important thing I took away from the program was a far more mature approach to the business side of publishing and an understanding that a good author-publisher relationship is a partnership, not a hierarchy. That single piece of knowledge has served me well through the rollercoaster of the last eighteen months.
What do you really love about writing?
I don’t know of anything quite as satisfying as nailing a sentence. Really nailing it: every word in its place and no fat. I think to achieve any kind of longevity as a professional writer, one has to really enjoy the nuts and bolts. You might have a crappy day at the keyboard, but if you nailed one sentence, you’ll go to bed content as a baby.
Rejection comes with the job of writing, so how do you get over it and keep going?
I’m not sure rejection gets any easier over time. The tragedy of rejection is the mismatch in expectation. As the writer’s expectations rise, so the rejections become harder and harder. To be honest, the rejection that has most upset me—the one that absolutely skewered me—arrived just this year. It’s not a case of getting over it and moving on. You move on precisely in order to get over it. And some of them you never quite get over. You work on and try to forget it happened.
What are you working on now?
Two things: a non-fiction anthology (as co-editor) and my fourth novel. Both projects are related to rock music and Brisbane. The anthology will most likely be published at the end of this year. The novel will be published, I hope, before I die. I’ve just made the call that I intend to write a chapter of the novel each day until it’s done. Tonight is my first night and instead I’m writing this. Good start, huh?
What books are you reading and where is your favoured reading spot?
I wish I had a favourite reading spot other than bed, but young children make the act of languid reading outside of bedtime impossible. I figure I’ll find one again in a few years when they are able to entertain themselves. I’ll set up a comfy chair on the deck maybe. At the moment, I’m reading The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson: non-fiction about US imperialism and militarism. This is my light reading while I take a break from the second half of Lolita (I like it, but it’s intense). I’ve got another six or seven books lined up after those. Probably my favourite reads from the last six months or so: Disgrace by JM Coetzee knocked me sideways (and I now refuse to allow the film to sully my picture of it) and Devil May Care, the new James Bond book by Sebastian Faulks was so much fun I read it in a few days.
MDP cohort minus one
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Edwina Shaw: Fellow Traveller Number 3 - Hachette/QWC Program
April 19th, 2010
In twenty words or less tell me why you write
I write to examine what it is to live and because it’s more fun, challenging, infuriating and satisfying than anything else.
Do you have any formal training in creative writing? And how long have you been writing?
I’ve kept a journal for over twenty-five years. It started as a way to remember what I did during my wild days. I did a BA in literature in the eighties, thinking it would teach me how to write, but it only taught me how to be critical.
Since 2002, when I wrote my first novel ms., I’ve been serious about writing and have spent a few hours practising every day. In 2005, I completed a Masters degree in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland.
What do you consider to be your successes as a professional writer?
Finishing my Masters degree.
Twice runner-up in the Josephine Ulrick Literature Prize, once for memoir, once for a short story.
Publication of short stories in reputable Australian journals such as Griffith REVIEW, Island, Idiom 23 and Hecate
An international publication in Asia Literary Review.
Being awarded Griffth REVIEW’s prize for most promising new writer in 2008.
Having an illustrated excerpt of one of my short stories published in The Courier Mail.
Signing a contract on my novella Thrill Seekers with Ransom UK (due for release later this year).
Winning a spot on the QWC Hachette manuscript development program in 2008.
Finishing three full length works to a decent standard!
You were selected to take part in the QWC/Hachette Australia Manuscript Development Programme in 2008. What were some of the highlights? What impact did it have on your writing and professional development?
A definite highlight was connecting with so many wonderful writers and maintaining that connection. Having editorial feedback from a professional editor like Bernadette Foley was also invaluable, as were Kim Wilkins’ editing workshops.
It helped me see my work as a commodity more than an artwork, and to understand how the publishing industry works.
Surfing with Favel and Chris was the non-writing highlight, as was our reading night.
What do you really love about writing?
I love to stay home and play with words. I love losing myself in the story, time disappearing. I love being shocked when my characters say or do something unexpected. I love the huge puzzle a novel becomes, the challenge and joy of working it out. Best of all - unlike when I imagine something I’d like to draw or paint and it turns out looking like a two year old’s attempt - I love writing because the vision and the resulting work are more or less equal.
Even when my writing drives me crazy, I still can’t think of anything else I’d rather do.
Rejection comes with the job of writing, so how do you get over it and keep going?
ARGH! Rejection hurts. But sometimes it’s for the best. I try to release a piece of work once it’s done, send it out into the world without any specific expectations, and re-draft and re-send it tirelessly if it returns. I have to trust the work will find the best home and audience, at the right time. Unfortunately, waiting for that time is sometimes very long.
Rejections are writers’ badges of honour. The bigger your pile of rejections, the closer you are to a YES! As Mickey Rooney once said, “You always pass failure on the way to success.”
What are you working on now?
I’m working on a new novel set among the cane fields of Far North Queensland in the late nineteen-sixties, tentatively titled, “The Farmer’s Wife”. I found a Joan Crawford quote to use as a sub-title – . “Love is a fire. But whether it’s going to warm your heart or burn down your house you can never tell.”
I’m also keeping a blog at http://www.edwinashaw.wordpress.com
What books are you reading and where is your favoured reading spot?
I’m reading The New Diary by Tristine Rainer to reinvigorate my journaling practice, and Open Secrets by Alice Munro. I recently discovered Marge Piercy and have two of her novels sitting on my bedside table. Lefty stories about women – with sex! Love her. Margaret Attwood’s The Year of the Flood is also on my list of books to read next.
I recently read MJ Hyland’s This is How. Very clever but rather grim.
I’d like to say my favourite reading spot at home is the window seat with the Poinciana leaves brushing the sill, but I rarely sit there. So I’d have to say – bed. I love reading in bed. I love books.
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Categories: Hachette Australia/Queensland Writers Centre Manuscript Development Program | Tags: creativity, culture, publishing, writing | 1 Comment
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