Going into the Dark

Good-bye blog!

2012-01-07T20:13:00.001-08:00

I'm moving all my blogs over to www.cattybatty.blogspot.com. Join me there!

Found this interesting quote - young readers take heart!

2011-08-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practise on life itself; which in turns makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. And so on and on. You have only to teach literature to realise that most young readers are poor noticers. I know from my own old books, wantonly annotated twenty years ago when I was a student, that I routinely underlined for approval details and images and metaphors that strike me now as commonplace, while serenely missing things which now seem wonderful. We grow, as readers, and twenty-year-olds are relative virgins. They have not yet read enough literature to be taught by it how to read it.

How Fiction Works, James Wood, Vintage Books, 2009.

for everyone who doesn't think proofreading is necessary!

2011-07-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

Or that courtesy, a certain amount of modesty, the ability to research and put together a grammatical sentence are attributes that all writers require. Check it out.

The Internet, Self-Censorship and Twittering Twits

2011-07-05T23:46:00.000-07:00

There's been some talk recently on the blogsphere about how the internet is creating self-censorship. When people can post rude, vicious and gobsmackingly ignorant comments anonymously on measured and thoughtful commentary, reflections and personal opinion that are authored, then the authors tend to retreat. Why bother opening yourself up to a potential maelstrom of hatred? Why not go back to the private space of your journal where you can write what you like without censorship?

One of the problems with the kind of anonymous vicious commentary I'm talking about is that it does nothing to further intellectual debate or balance arguments. As Ulin says in the The Lost Art of Reading:

This is how we interact now, by mouthing off, steering every conversation back to our agendas, skimming the surface of each subject looking for an opportunity to spew.

David Ulin's books is thought-provoking and well worth reading, by the way.

There is no greater example of this kind of distracted, self-absorbed, ephemeral and self-referential stream of trivia than Twitter. My son, The Biker, put me on to this. Enjoy.

Reality Check

2011-07-05T23:15:00.000-07:00

I find it quite disturbing when students complain if I don't have time to look at their extra work, as though I should be prepared as a teacher to work unpaid extra hours. Often the complaints seem to assume that I - and other teachers - have taken on too many committments - personal or other-professional - if we refuse or postpone this extra work. Like anyone else, my personal life and my other professional activities occur outside the finite number of hours I am employed by the TAFE, as you would expect.

Let me put some facts forward. I'm employed by GippsTAFE to work for a set number of hours and I work that set number of hours. My work is divided into a number of different activities, mostly teaching time, but including preparation, marking, professional development, administrative work and meetings.

Now, while in an ideal universe this set of number of hours would include a weekly allocation to look at extra work from students, to read and research further material appropriate to the courses I teach, to undertake a diversity of professional development opportunities and to learn, develop and utilise new technologies that are appropriate to e-learning, the reality is that I am paid to work a finite number of hours each week and the preceding list doesn't get factored into these. Some of these, in particular wide reading and research and professional development opportunities, I undertake for my own personal interest and am happy for my teaching institution to reap the benefits of my recreational time.

I expect to get paid for my teaching work. I simply wouldn't teach if I didn't get paid. I don't expect an electrician to come and fix something for me for the sheer love of fixing it. Nor would I expect to find Vic Roads open after hours just so they could provide unexpectedly good customer service. So, please, when you approach a teacher to commit to extra work - read over a rewritten assignment which, in a previous version, they have already marked and commented on, or look through a short story you want to submit to a competition, or an article you're hoping to submit to a journal, don't take for granted that they can easily fit this work in to their paid teaching hours. Your revised assignment, short story or article may have to wait until there's a spare moment at the end of whatever is their paid teaching week, or even the teaching term. Exercise patience and courtesy and I'm sure we'll find time eventually.

The First - and second - novel - Part Two

2011-06-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

I hope you do complete your first long piece of writing. When I first started writing novels as an adult, I couldn’t finish them. They were highly derivative fantasy stories written firmly under the influence of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern series.

At the same time, I was writing poetry and getting the odd poem published. The never-ending fantasy stories were an antidote to the brevity and urgency of the very contemporary, laconic poems I was also writing. I loved beginning these stories but couldn’t muster the necessary enthusiasm to finish them.

My poetry apprenticeship had begun years earlier, with active study in one way or another. I’d written them in primary school and memorised, scanned and analysed poems for various Speech and Drama exams. I’d studied them at University with a sense of familiarity because of the years of Speech and Drama but also because of a childhood of hearing poetry around the kitchen table and declaimed over the washing up. It wasn’t hard turning this formal and informal study into a more concentrated writerly examination of poetry when I decided to focus my attention on this form.

By the time I wrote my first complete novel, I'd already had a collection of poetry published. I wrote the novel because I was at home, first pregnant and then with a new baby, and I felt as though I should be doing something more with my time than writing poetry. The best thing about the novel remains the title – My Aunt Sophie, the Clairvoyant. It was, even then, firmly in a young adult voice. It was based on both my imagination and events I had either witnessed or eavesdropped on. The first person character was a feisty but somewhat vulnerable observer. These characteristics haven’t changed much. I now move from young adult to middle or younger reader with a fair amount of ease. I’ve written in both female and male voices but those voices have remained somewhat feisty but vulnerable; observers who don’t always put the information they’re witnessing – the adult world – together in a way that is helpful to them.

That novel has never even been sent to a publisher. And no wonder. The theme was wonky. The plot unbelievable. The dialogue often wooden. The structure was written without any idea of timelines. The characters, while I adored them and their weird foibles, often behaved uncharacteristically. I knew all this. I knew, too, that I’d spent too long on the first two chapters (approximately six months? could that be true?) and rushed the end of it, just to finish the damn thing. The opening of the novel, however long it was polished, nonetheless always took the reader on this rollercoaster ride of backstory and information. A friend said it left her breathless. It was not a compliment!

After my mother (The Editor) read it, she remarked with her usual honesty, 'It's a good thing you're a poet'. That sealed the novel's fate. It was bottom-drawered immediately. But I didn't give up writing novels.

Another novel followed My Aunty Sophie, the Clairvoyant. This was called something like Oliver’s Women. I didn’t even bother finishing it.

Then I started to write yet another, a story I’d been telling myself for years. It was about four teenagers and their intersecting relationships. I wrote it in prose, after all, that’s how you write a novel. I sent five chapters off to a good reader I knew. She sent it back with as much criticism as I’d sent manuscript.

The short version – it was no good.

I was angry with myself for having messed up a story I loved and characters I knew and was fond of. I sat down and wrote it as a verse novel. A Dangerous Girl was published. My first published novel. In verse.

Nonetheless, that novel taught me about prose novels – it taught me about plotting, structure, characterisation and how to hold on to a theme. It taught me about shadowing characters, foreshadowing events and the importance of details. All of these elements I would use in my first published prose novel.

Writing Short Stories

2011-06-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

I once heard Thea Astley at a Writer's Festival talk about how she'd started writing poetry, but that was way too hard. Then she'd switched to short stories which were hard enough before finally trying a novel - a piece of cake in comparison. I'd agree that anything depending on brevity is going to be difficult. Coleridge's definitions of writing was 'prose,—words in their best order; poetry,—the best words in their best order.'

Equally every word in a short story should count.

In order for this to happen you need a good reason for writing the short story - it needs to explore an important theme, to communicate a clear message to the reader. Too often I read short stories by new writers which don't actually have an underlying theme. They may a plot and a few characters, but the theme hasn't been teased out sufficiently.

As the theme largely drives the plot and the motivation and transformation of the central character, you can see how the whole story can be shaky if the theme isn't identifiable.

I could begin two stories with identical characters and a common event as a catalyst, but where I take the story will largely depend on the theme I choose. For eg. my central character is a wife who has decided to leave her husband. She packs up and leaves while he's at work, but he comes home unexpectedly, driven by some instinct or intuition. There's a scene. He breaks down. She drives off regardless.

The theme will dictate how I frame this simple story. If I'm exploring infidelity and betrayal, I might begin the story with the wife's discovery of her husband's infidelity. It might be the final piece of the jigsaw of his indifference she's been slowly piecing together. He's been alerted by a call at work - it's not mere intuition on his part (although, in order that this is kept in the third person limited I would want the wife to guess this, rather than the reader know it from a scene at the husband's work). He breaks down and the wife drives off, not promising to return but not resolved to completely separate, either.

On the other hand if the theme is personal growth, I'd frame the story differently. The wife has felt trapped in her marriage. She's decided over a period of some time that change must happen. It hasn't. One morning she decides she has to reinvent herself or stagnate for the rest of her life. The scene when the husband arrives home is quite different. He tries to convince her that they are soulmates - otherwise how would he have guessed her intentions. She's tender with him, but her tenderness is caused through guilt. She agrees to a break. But the map she pulls out of the glovebox as she leaves gives the reader the feeling that she won't be back.

So the first thing you need to consider is the what theme you want your story to explore. Then you need to limit the cast of characters to as few as possible. You don't want the reader overwhelmed by the number of characters they have to remember. You want the story to retain a strong focus on one central character.

You need to think of the time over which the story takes place. Reduce this as much as you can. It's very difficult for a successful short story to take place over a lifetime. You need the discursive nature of the novel to accomplish this.

Do try to avoid the twist at the end of the tale. These worked beautifully at the height of their popularity. They were clever, quite unpredictable and in vogue. These days they are appear forced and predictable.

Don't think you need to explore large, melodramatic events in a short story. Small real things are often the catalysts of change - and easier to write convincingly. Remember, just because it happened, doesn't make your fictional version of an event ring true to the reader. Truth is stranger than fiction and you, the writer, must convince us that your fiction is the truth.

The First Novel - in three parts

2011-05-31T05:07:00.000-07:00

Part One - in which we talk about dressmaking.

I remember the first dress I ever made. It was horrible. Actually, it was worse than horrible. It was weird. I had to sew together two contrasting pieces of fabric into a kind of dress, which then tied in such a way as to overlap the blue (for that’s what I chose) with the red (for contrast). I never wore that dress.

However, it taught me numerous elements of sewing. By the time I’d finished it I could cut out a pattern, zigzag my edges to avoid fraying, sew a straight seam, how to gather, turn a sewn piece of fabric inside out neatly (with the help of a pin for the corners) and edge-stitch the top of it. I could read a pattern. I knew what facings and darts were. I could mark fabric to indicate a dart and a tie. In theory, I could also mark up zippers, buttonholes and pleats. I knew a little about fabrics, but not much.
The next dress I made was a shirtwaister. Boarders at school were allowed, if their parents permitted, and paid, to do an after-school dressmaking course.

Under my mother’s guidance, I chose a shirtwaister and blue-grey pinstriped cotton. I should never have gone pattern or fabric shopping with a woman who exclusively wore navy blue and who, if she found something that fitted me as a child, bought two of the item in different colours but she had the money, so we both, reluctantly, went shopping.

In hindsight the shirtwaister – another never-worn sewing project – was a terrific learning experience. I learnt to cut out a vertically patterned fabric. I had to master a collar, more pin turning, buttonholes and buttons and proper, set–in sleeves. I had to attach a bodice to a skirt, add darts to the former and gather the latter. I had to add a side zip – possibly the most difficult challenge.

By examining the projects other students were making, I deduced that shirtwaister frocks were not highly regarded by the rather more hip thirteen year and fourteen year olds doing the course.

I followed this project up with an eight-gored blue velvet skirt which would have been successful had I actually realised that velvet is fabric with a nap. On four of my eight gores the nap ran one way, on the other four it ran the other way. My mother said this was a pattern. When my mother finally bought a forest green frock, my best friend rang me to tell me she thought my mother was having an affair.

She wasn’t – it was just a persuasive sales woman.

I didn’t wear the skirt. My mother wasn’t that persuasive. But I’ve cut out velvet skirts since and never made the same, humiliating mistake.

What does all this have to do with writing?

Welcome to the first novel.

Narratorial Voice

2011-05-18T05:28:00.000-07:00

A story is narrative. It is either narrated by a third person narrator or a first person narrator. If the third person narrator can see into the hearts of all the characters, rather like believers in god believe he or she can, then we call that third person omniscient narrator. Omniscient means all-knowing. A third person omniscient narrator knows at all times exactly what is going on in the narrative. This narrator can see the thoughts and feelings of all the characters. It is a voice of authority.

However, narratorial voice, even with the third person omniscient narrator, encompasses more than just omniscience. It's not merely a 'fancy' way of talking about third or first person narration because there are shades of difference in narratorial voice in both of these.

So, for example, how do you talk about the narrator of the Lemony Snicket books? It would simply not be enough to say that these books are narrated in the first person, because Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) has used his narrator as a third person omniscient narrator, despite the fact that this narrator speaks directly to the reader as an 'I' character. In this sense, his use of narratorial voice harks back to nineteenth century novels, where the third person narrator, while chronicling the events of the characters, was happy to intrude opinions and editorial comment and is, therefore, often regarded as the voice of the writer, as well as the story's narrator.

If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were intelligent children, and they were charming, and resourceful, and had pleasant facial features, but they were extremely unlucky, and most everything that happened to them was rife with misfortune, misery, and despair. I'm sorry to tell you this, but that is how the story goes.

Reading just this page, you'd be forgiven for thinking this was a first person story. The narrator says, 'I'm sorry to tell you this,' addressing you, the reader, directly. But, although the narrator does intrude in the story, it's fundamentally a third person omniscient narration. I hope you can see here, that if you were offering an analysis or a reflection on narratorial voice in The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (pen name of Daniel Handler), you'd have to go beyond saying simply this books is told by a third person omniscient narrator. This captures none of the charm and cleverness of the narratorial voice Daniel Handler uses, nor does it do justice to the playfulness of this voice, the fact that the narrator digresses from the story, begs the reader to stop reading and is unreliable.

In a different way, The Great Gatsby equally defies a mere first person narrator as a description of how that book uses narratorial voice. Who is the central character of The Great Gatsby? Surely the title gives that question away - the central character is the elusive Jay Gatsby himself. But the book is narrated in the first person by Nick Carraway. We see the events that unfold through The Great Gatsby through his eyes. We're not privy to any other character's thoughts and feelings. (Quite different from the omniscient narrator in The Bad Beginning, who can tell you - and does tell you - exactly what all three Baudelaire orphans are thinking or feeling and the thoughts and feelings of the villains as well.)

So what narratorial voice does Fitzgerald use? He uses a first person narrator as a witness or observer of events that take place to the central characters of the book. Nick Carraway doesn't pretend to know what happens inside the other characters heads - he can only be told, by them, of their feelings. But he can - and does - observe them. Nick Carraway is a useful device for Fitzgerald because he can step into the different worlds of the main characters: Tom and Daisy Buchanan's home, Jay Gatsby's party, Tom and Myrtle's love nest and Wilson's garage. If, for example, Daisy was the first person narrator, how would we see Tom and Myrtle playing house together? This reflection of Carraway as a narrator goes beyond merely mentioning that The Great Gatsby is narrated in the first person. It's a reflection of narratorial voice.

A further reflection might add that the reader believes Carraway because he is outside the main action - we trust that he is a reliable witness as he has nothing invested in the story. Carraway himself tells you at the beginning of the book that, his 'interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men' was destroyed by the events he is about to relate. This further strengthens the power of the narratorial voice - Carraway is a witness and a witness who has been transformed by the events he has witnessed.

With both these examples, the narratorial voice is inevitably linked to the characters created by the writers - Lemony Snicket and Nick Carraway. What about the narratorial voice of the third person objective? Even this is coloured by the setting of the piece,and the characters being observed by the largely-invisible narrator. Hemmingway's cool, detached narratorial voice in 'Hills Like White Elephants' is undercut by the tight timeline of the story and the descriptions of the oppressive heat and the deserted station. The dialogue skirts around the conflict between the unnamed American and the woman, Jig. This is narrator as fly-on-the-wall taken about as far as it can go. Interestingly, this is the story that students often have problems with. Times have changed dramatically since Hemmingway wrote and abortion is no longer a taboo subject. In this sense, third person narratorial voice is inseparable to the view of the world it implies - in this case, the world of travelled and educated privilege.

A writer who chooses to create an unreliable narrator, is playing games with the narratorial voice and it's important to ask what the games are serving. In We Need to Talk About Kevin, a book which uses an epistolary narrative voice, Lionel Shriver has created, while not entirely an unreliable narrator, a narrator who reveals and confesses more and more of her story as she writes letters to her absent husband. You can't talk about the narratorial voice in Shriver's book without linking the slow revelatory nature of the letters to Shriver's unpredictable and skilful plotting.

In third person limited, which is close to first person, the narratorial voice is also tied up with the viewpoint character, that is, the character through whose eyes we are witnessing events and learning about the other characters. The narratorial voice of a novel written in the third person limited point of view which has it's central viewpoint character a visual artist, might be enriched with metaphors and motifs from the painterly world. A novel written from the point of view of an aerialist might use an narratorial voice which consistently reflects the bird's eye view of the performer.

If you're interested in writing metafiction - that is fiction that draws attention to the fact that it is, indeed, fiction - you'll choose a narratorial voice which is self-consciously pointing to the artificial construct of the narrator.

The second person point of view - a voice which seems to be either addressing an earlier self, another side of the self or placing the reader in the position of the 'you' addressed is very rarely successfully used. But it is still a choice of narratorial voice you should be aware of. If you want to try it, start with shorter, rather than longer, pieces of fiction. And try to have your narratorial voice clearly indicating either an earlier version of the 'I' behind the narrative, or another side of that 'I' because otherwise the reader will feel as though they are the 'you'.

Narratorial voice is a complex element of the story and writers need to know as much about their choices as possible. Of course, initially, you might just want to settle on a choice between first person or third person limited - and allow the narratorial voice to grow organically from this choice. Never be scared to re-write in a different point of view - this radical revision approach has saved manuscripts!

Marking creative writing

2011-05-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

It’s a subject of some concern to most writers who work in the teaching industry – how do we actually mark creative writing. (The other subject of concern is, of course, can you teach creative writing? – but more of that, perhaps, in another blog post.)

Warwick University covers itself thus:

Students as well as academic staff, at Warwick and elsewhere, often ask the question as to how one marks creative writing. Indeed, they often wonder if it is even possible? Surely, they say, this is a subjective response, a matter of taste? After all, what mark would one give to The Divine Comedy?

We would attest that it is a matter, certainly, of experience and wide reading. And that we all, as readers and critics, "mark" creative writing every day in the act of reading and the act of criticism or writing reviews. That, even as we talk about books and authors in our seminars and in our daily lives, we are making judgements. We are placing a metaphorical "score" against our experience of reading. And, while it would be wonderful and humbling to have Dante sign up for the Masters in Writing, we are aware that writing of that level and focus is rare. Exceptionally rare.

When I first started teaching Professional Writing and Editing at TAFE, we marked students only as Competent and Non Competent – meaning that if a student was marked as Non Competent, they could always return to the module/unit and repeat it until they were deemed Competent. Under this system students could focus on the comments they received on their writing, rather than on a graded system.

Of course, you could argue that graded systems abound in the publishing industry; best manuscripts awards, awards for emerging writers, umpteen best book of the year awards in every category and the ever-present best-seller list. There are also readers’ reports, editors’ comments and reviews.

Aside from all this are the casual remarks from innocent bystanders:
‘You’re a writer! Have I heard of you?’
‘Oh,’ says the nearly-famous one, a little chuffed, ‘perhaps. I’m X’
‘Hmm. No, no, I don’t think I have. Unless – you didn’t write for that comedy show on Chanel 10 – or was it 7? Or am I thinking of the actor? I might be thinking of the actor. You have the same kind of stubble as the actor. That’s what it is. Of course. Except he’s much more…well, he goes to gym. I guess you’re not so much in the public eye.’ (said in a kindly tone.)

or (at a Festival)
‘Oh, you’re the bird who wrote the vampire story?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘The one that was complete drivel, right? No shred of truth in the #$%^ plot, it was simply wish-fulfilment from start to finish?’
‘Well, I’m not sure about that. I mean, sure the plot may have been…and the characters were...but I have readers who…’
‘Yeah, that’s what I mean, love. There wasn’t any truth in it. Trust me, I know.’

I’ve worked as an editor and, in one publication where I worked, we had four piles: Over my Dead Body, No, Maybe, Yes.

The Maybe category often received a fulsome rejection letter – by fulsome I mean longer than a pre-typed letter: ‘Your submission may be perfectly acceptable elsewhere, but for a variety of reasons we cannot publish it in our publication.’

A fulsome rejection letter may have contained something like the following:

‘We loved reading your story but queried the narratorial voice in which it was written. Third person omniscient seemed like too large a voice for a very short, highly contained short story chronicling twenty-four hours in the life of a bedridden invalid. Was it strictly necessary to include three voice from her past, the voices of her three siblings and the (imagined) voices of the holy trinity? Perhaps if you revised this so the reader could focus on the poignant shift from past to present you’d have a stronger central character and a more credible plot.’

As a Prof Writing and Editing teacher I’m not allowed to return assignments marked simply Over My Dead Body (not that I did as an editor, either!). I have to justify my marks. So, I assign certain marks for certain elements of the writing piece and hope to balance the more subjective elements with the objective.

Before you become carried away that marking Prof Writing and Editing may be too subjective let me refer you back to the opening comment from Warwick University:

We would attest that it is a matter, certainly, of experience and wide reading. And that we all, as readers and critics, "mark" creative writing every day in the act of reading and the act of criticism or writing reviews. That, even as we talk about books and authors in our seminars and in our daily lives, we are making judgements.

The subjective elements, tempered by my years in the industry, working as a writer across a few forms and genres, as an editor and a long-time organiser of writing-related events such as festivals and spoken word venues, relate to style, language, charcter choice, plot and theme.. The objective relate more to the mechanics of writing and editing – proof reading, use of grammar, syntax and punctuation, character and plot development, structure, and use and understanding of writing techniques, such as narratorial voice, use of simile, metaphor and symbolism. Necessarily these overlap.

The marks, however, are just marks. If you want to learn more about writing, you need to pay attention to the comments – both on the overall comment, the marking criteria, and within your assignment. Please don’t make the mistake one student made which was to equate one comment with one mark lost. There will be some assignments I might make ten comments on – all in reflection of something you’ve said and that student might have an 18/20 mark, other papers might only attract five comments and be marked 10/20.

In the end, I think it pays to read the comments carefully and try to learn from them. When I receive a reader’s report, I might disagree vehemently with some of the comments from the reader but I’ve learnt over the years that my initial response is often too hasty and too defensive. If I let the report sit for a week or so while I do other things – walk the dogs, knit, cook soup or work on a poem – I can come back to it with my editor’s hat on and see where the reader is coming from. Sometimes I still disagree, in which case I take it up with my editor. I take it up without being aggressive. This is quite important to me. I prefer to be as courteous as I can when dealing with anyone other than telemarketers. An aggressive approach to my editor erodes the trust and friendship we’ve built up over the years and, in the end, achieves nothing.

It’s a similar process with reading reviews. After my initial, defensive reading of a review, I prefer to leave them sit for a while – sometimes months – before returning to them to see what I can learn from them.

I know students don’t have the time to let an assignment sit for months but what you can certainly do is try to overcome your initial defensiveness before you approach a tutor for explanations and you can approach tutors with courtesy. We’re on the same side, after all. We’re trying to make you better writers which is why, presumably, you’re doing the course. Working together we can achieve our common goal. Hostility, defensiveness and rudeness stand in the way of what we all want –a piece of writing which is as good as it possibly can be.

The wisdom of P. G. Wodehouse

2011-05-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I'm telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it. It's a thing you don't want to go wrong over, because one false step and you're sunk. I mean if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere as they call it, and that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.

Get off the mark, on the other hand, like a scalded cat, and your public is at a loss. It simply raises its eyebrows, and can't make out what you're talking about.

P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves, Project Gutenberg, 2007

Want more info on P. G. Wodehouse?

Creating a submissions calendar

2011-05-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

One way of making sure you remember the dates of potential publishing opportunities, is to create your own submissions calendar.

The Victorian Writer's Centre newsletter contains information about competition and publishing opportunities and, if you're not a member, you can always see it at your local library.

It's an easy enough task to set up an excel spreadsheet listing the dates of various competitions, word lengths and genres of submissions and any other information you need to know before submitting. Some of this information will be valid from year to year, so you might want to headline big competitions at the beginning of the month, as well as note the exact date.

Submitting work regularly also reduces your own anxiety about whether or not a work is accepted for publication or shortlisted for a competition. If it becomes merely another administrative task for that month, you buy yourself some distance from the event - and that can be an important attitude to establish and maintain. It prepares you, too, for the editing process which can be quite fierce. You will have started to view your own work with more objectivity.

A busy calendar of submissions should keep you on track with both writing and revising. If you receive written rejections from publishers or journals, do read them and listen to what is being said. It's difficult not to be disappointed when your work isn't favourably received. We all fear rejection. But you don't want that fear to overcome your love of writing or your ability to revise. So try to cultivate a professionalism that distances you from your work and allows you to revise and self-edit rigorously. Do listen to comments from others and learn to sift through them and work with the ones that ring true to you.

Talking about talking

2011-05-04T01:04:00.000-07:00

What does speech say about a person? The language a person uses in their everyday speech can tell us a lot - it can sometimes tell us the geographical origins of a person. Queenslanders often end a sentence with 'eh?'. In N.S.W. togs are used, rather than bathers. In Queensland, cocktail franks are called cheerios. In Sydney you drink schooners, in Melbourne, pots. Dialects are extreme examples of this, although it's not a great idea to litter written dialogue with dialect - it can make the reader impatient. Dialect can often be suggested in written dialogue through the placement of words, rather than a literal rendition, a more elegant approach.

Language can indicate age, education, status and gender. If a fifty year old man uses the word 'awesome' in its current colloquial sense, this could tell us that he's a little try-hard in the popularity stakes - useful for conveying the character of an insecure teacher, for example. Or, he might be using it ironically, again, useful for conveying particular kind of person, possibly a little pedantic, perhaps a little pompous? A teenage girl who uses text speech as actual speech in dialogue belongs to a certain set. Many teenagers abhor the use of 'lol' and 'rofl' as actual words.

A writer can show shifts in status through language. A once confident phrase can become pleading - and it's repeated use can add to a scene. A phrase used by a character can also be used against them, again adding an ironic twist to a scene.

Above all, dialogue needs to sound as though it can be spoken. We never write dialogue as it is said in real life - it would be full of repetitions, pauses, filler-words and noises. Below attempts to replicate that kind of dialogue.

'I was like, um, you know, just there, when he, um - gosh did you see that? Wow, that was awesome. Yeah, well like I was saying, I was just, you know, um, hanging out...'

'Hey look at those shoes!'

'Yeah, cool. You know my mum, she's like whatshername? You know, she was, I don't know, rich or something.'

'I didn't know your mum was rich?'

'No, not my mum. You're so stupid, you know. You don't ever - anyway, it was this other bitch.'

'You just called your mum a bitch.'

'Oh piss off. You're a biach'

So, by the time you come to the end of that, the plot is lost completely!

What a writer needs to do is to create authentic-sounding dialogue that stays true to the characters. So you need to think of age, education, gender and status. You also have to direct your dialogue so it stays focused.

One of the best ways to test dialogue is to read it aloud. Can you read it without stumbling over words or phrases. Does it sound stilted? A trap for new writers is to avoid contracting verbs, but we use these contractions in our every day speech unless we want to convey a certain emphasis.

'Did you hear what I said?'

'Sorry, I wasn't listening.'

as opposed to:

'Did you hear what I said?'

'Sorry. I was not listening.'

(See how I've emphasised the tone change in the second example by putting a full stop after the word 'sorry'.)

The other tip I'd like to give here is not to over-use dialogue tags. We've all read articles or stories where dialogue tags have been over-used and come away with a feeling that no one in them actually said anything. Characters whimpered, screamed, considered, pondered, wept, sobbed, sighed, whispered, shrieked, wailed and even cogitated but never once said anything. Your dialogue should indicate to the reader how your character is talking. Dialogue tags should be used sparingly - that way they retain their power. To avoid over-using 'said' - allow the proper placement of dialogue on the page and enough observations between lines of dialogue to indicate to the reader who is speaking.

'I don't know what you're talking about.' Michael was bored with the conversation. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes! They'd been talking around the same topic for ten minutes. Unbelievable.

'I just think you take me for granted. You're not even listening to me now. Look at you, checking the time. Do you even know how often you do that?'

God. She had that look. Honestly, he loved Lara. But after she'd been with that mother of hers she was impossible. 'Honey?' He tested the word but Lara shook her head stubbornly.

'What did I say, then?' she asked.

'That I don't respect you.' he said.

'And?'

'That I take you for granted.'

Of course, the best way to study dialogue is to go forth into the world and eavesdrop! Good luck.

New online magazine!

2011-04-05T14:05:00.001-07:00

This issue specifically addresses self-censorship in memoirs, so read on...

How Not to Respond to a Review - or a workshop critique!

2011-03-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

Check it out! Now, when someone workshops or critiques your work, think back to how uncomfortable you felt reading the author's repeated defenses of her own work! A much more professional approach is to make note firstly of the good things that have been said about your work. And I do mean make a note! It's very easy to hear what people thought could be improved and much harder to remember the elements they enjoyed or thought worked. So, make a note in your writer's journal 'X said my characters were well developed. Y liked my writing style. Z felt my descriptions were vivid.'

Then, calmly and professionally make a note of the areas that need improvement - and notes to yourself on how this might be accomplished. This should help put you in the mindset of revising, rather than defending your work.

1. Opening para needs work - can I introduce the character straight away involved in some action which will show the reader who they are rather than tell them?

2. Mrs. B is too cliched - maybe I should model her more on Aunty May - give her A.M's mangy German Shepherd rather than the spinster cats? She could walk past the local school muttering to it. Kids think it's called Adolf? When really it's Alf?

3. Middle section needs more action - think about it, but there are possibilities to use the best friend situation more. (Or the breakdown in the marriage?)

4. Ending too weak. I'll think about that. Is it too throw-away? But what I emphatically don't want is a too-neat, every tied-off ending. It might be weakened by other problems - partic. the middle section. Leave this revision to last.

Part of being a professional writer is being able to distance yourself from criticism and the editing process - it's not personal. Any critiqueing, whether it's from an editor, a workshop group, a writing tutor or a friend-reader should be about making the work itself stronger. It's one of the hardest lessons to learn, but if you can learn it in your apprenticeship, it will save you from appearing unprofessional. The golden rule in publishing is, of course, never reply to a review unless they actually have a fact wrong - and even then, think a long time before you send the email! Too often you'll simply look whingey at best, unhinged at worst.

Reading as a Writer

2011-02-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

I first started my journey reading as a writer when I was on my poetry apprenticeship. I began looking at how poets put a poem together, the images they used, the way motifs or images piled up in a poem, the way line breaks worked - or didn't - and how and why a certain poet was recognisable.

It took me a long time to take this slowed down reading to prose - partly because when I picked up a novel or a short story, I was immersed in the story - reading to discover what happened next.

Reading is one of the most important tools for better writing, however, and when I started to write novels, I began to read novels in the same way as I read poetry. Ahha! That's how that plot element is introduced! That's how the central character is first introduced. This dialogue has a subtext the characters aren't aware of, which enriches my reading experience and furthers the plot. Oh, and how beautiful this passage of descriptive writing is - but look, it's not just describing a setting, it's also adding to my understanding of a character. Sometimes these observations were more about the nuts and bolts of writing - why has this author chosen a multiple point-of-view over a limited point of view. Why have they written in the present tense. If I go through this piece and change it to past tense would I lose anything? Wow - there's an historical inaccuracy! And so on.

Textual analysis is often shunned by new writers - and new students. They 'did' it at school. It ruined the work for them. Writerly analysis will never ruin a work for you - it should, rather, enhance your reading experience and enlarge your writing knowledge. You need to be able to discover and analyse how an author puts together a piece of writing - what tools and techniques he or she is using.

This year - as with every year - I'm keeping a reading journal. In that journal I make notes about important aspects of the books I read - sometimes I'll include quotations from the book to illustrate what I've noted. Sometimes I'll list other books by the author that I'd like to read or interesting biographical notes. A reading journal my mother bought on sale recently also has a section that asks what the reader was doing when she or he was reading the book - I quite like that as re-reading an entry with that chronicled can bring back a specific time and place, so I'll be adding that to my reflections.

Most of all this year, I'll be reading slowly - I got an e-reader for Christmas and I'm in love with the ability to make annotations on it. Having grown up in a secondhand bookshop I hate the idea of writing on an actual book - and highlighting a text? Never! But the e-reader gives me this opportunity without actually wrecking any pages, which is wonderful. It also allows me to easily look up any unfamiliar words - and I want to improve my vocabulary this year. As you age, your vocabulary narrows unless you're quite attentive. In this field I can't afford this to happen so I'm going to be vigilant about learning and using new words.

I'm also going back to memorising poems - I did this in 2009 and part of the way into 2010 and it was a wonderful way of analysing poetry - I had to really think about the order of the words and lines of each poem. There were poems I had loved which I loved less after the experience of memorising them - reading a poem over and over again made me very aware of any weaknesses in it - but there were also poems that became talismanic. Poem-amulets to hold against hard times.

Finally this year I'm also learning French - I learnt French throughout school and into university but I've gone back to the very beginning. My daughter and I are studying it at the Alliance. Learning a different language makes you much more aware of grammatical rules, the sounds of words and the structure of language. So I'm sure this experience will also influence the way I read. When you read texts in a language you are learning, you must read slowly - so it's a good reminder to slow down in English as well. The other advantage is that you must often read aloud - to hear the words. I'm taking that back to English texts and reading some passages aloud - even if it's only to the dogs! I read all my own writing out loud - it's a wonderful way of hearing what I haven't got quite right. Reading other people's writing aloud will help further develop my critical ear.

Last night I finished Shane Maloney's Stiff - his first Murray Whelan book. Maloney's dialogue is spot on - the world of Labor politics, grass roots and power-mongering gives him a rich canvas of different voices and jargons and he exploits that beautifully. The plot is nicely convoluted and although you never quite believe that Whelan can be as stupid as he often is, Whelan's a sympathetic character, sceptically idealistic and dealing with his own problems throughout. Good holiday reading! And also useful for anyone who wants to delve into mystery writing - Maloney is so obviously at home in the world he's portraying that there's no faltering in his voice of authority.

Must go and write up my reading journal!

Almost another teaching year!

2011-02-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

Well - it's almost the beginning of a new teaching year and I'm making my teaching resolutions.

1. Anything done on line, from emails to facebook statuses and IMs can lead to communication misunderstandings. I'm going to try harder than ever this year to make all my communications with students crystal clear.

2. Students - like everyone - suffer anxiety about submitted work. This year I'm trying harder than ever to complete marking within a fortnight from submission date. This, of course, only works with assignments that are submitted on time.

3. I'm always urging students to read widely, attend writing and reading events, take themselves on artist's dates and generally immerse themselves in a reading and writing world. This year I'm urging myself to do all these extra curricula activities as well. It's very easy to feel swamped by work - particularly online work as it oozes over to evenings and weekends - you don't close the office door at 5.00 pm and go home. Sometimes, however, that swamped feeling is actually relieved by going off and doing something for your writing self - and that's what I intend to do this year.

4. Use the audio facilities on the Blackboard more - it's fabulous being able to leave voiceboards and podcasts and I was delighted when I discovered how easy they were to set up and use. But my enthusiasm waned as the year got underway and time seemed to vanish. This year I hope to post voiceboards and podcasts more regularly.

5. Explain more clearly how I teach - and how that teaching might change throughout the year as I expect more from students - this is related to Resolution One but I think it needs a separate resolution as it's an area that I don't think is always clear in the online environment.

6. Keep up my own writing! All teachers in the Professional Writing and Editing worlds struggle for a balance between their teaching profession and their writing profession. It's very easy to lose the writing self in the teaching self, but I'm working on two major projects this year and I can't afford to lose sight of them.

7. Keep up with blogging - I'd like to use this blog and the picture book blog to post extra exercises for you, as well as alert you to events, books or information about writers you might find interesting. Again, the year starts off with great intentions, but during crucial times - usually the marking season - the blogs tend to drop off. I hope this year is a little different.

Welcome brand new teaching year - and here's to making it an uber one!

Another list of books ....

2010-10-20T16:23:00.000-07:00

A good list for summer reading! I was delighted to see that my reading crush of the moment figures!

Read all about it!

2010-10-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

The Slow reading movement - join today! I suggest you buy a notebook and record what you read, writing out interesting quotes and passages, contemplating the way a novel or story or poem is structured and what that structure means to you as a writer. Get into this habit and improve your own writing in leaps and bounds!

What have we lost?

2010-09-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

I've been reading over the past couple of days - beginning with The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. Jansson is better known internationally for her children's books chronicling the surprising adventures of the Moomin Family. The Summer Book, however, is regarded as a Scandavian classic - and with good cause. I'm not going to review it because I already have on my personal blog. But what stays with me after reading this book is the way Jansson makes what is unsaid as important as the actual conversations between the two central characters, Sophia and the Grandmother. Their interaction is subtly nuanced, the tensions and tendernesses resonate with their shared loss, but also with the reluctant knowledge that while Sophia is entering her life, the Grandmother is leaving hers.

I've also been re-reading Gerald Durrell's The Bafut Beagles. And while there may not be any immediate similarity between Jansson's quiet exploration of a shared summer and Durrell's far rowdier, crowded and eventful chronicles of animal collecting in West Africa, there actually is. It's a respect for language, a slower pace of writing and detailed observations of the surrounding world that gives both these books their authority.

It makes me wonder whether the contemporary emphasis on minimalism is really working for me as a writer. I'm going to spend some time over the next few months honing my own observation skills, extending my vocabulary and revising to strengthen images.

I suggest you join me in a holiday activity. Spend some time closely observing something you'd normally regard as ordinary - it could be new tulip leaves pushing their way out of the earth, or puppy antics or the way a member of your family concentrates. You might want to go further afield - take yourself on an observing excursion. Make notes. Then write a beautiful, measured page bringing your reader into the event or scene you've described. Revise it until each word is exactly the word you need. Consult your thesaurus. Consult your dictionary. Use at least one word you'd not normally use. Luxuriate in the slower pace.

Ask yourself afterwards whether or not you feel richer for the experience. Don't tell me it was 'awesome' or 'cool' or any other shorthand word!

Reading Jane Smiley's Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

2010-08-30T18:52:00.000-07:00

and so I thought I'd quote some passages over the next few blog posts for you to ponder.

As every novelist has a style, so every novelist has conviction, which is a type of emotion, not an act of reason. It may take draft after draft to achieve a perfectly natural style. It also may take draft after draft to write with sufficient conviction. This conviction can be about anything - a specific theory of human nature, a particular analysis of a single incident, a simple certainty that the writer knows what is true and has to tell it....

The most basic conviction of every novelist from Lady Murasaki on, though, is that things are not as they appear; this conviction can be added to or modified in accordance with the novelist's particular perceptions. Of course, poets and dramatists frequently express the same conviction, but novelists must express it, because narrative point of view inherently delineates the contrast between what one person thinks and what others around him think. Literary artists who are driven by the feeling that appearances are deceiving and that they know what the truth really is are drawn to the novel for this very reason.

To think about: what is your conviction in the novel you are currently writing?

Mid-year blues

2010-08-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

I think everyone in my household is suffering from mid-year blues. I feel as though I haven't yet got a handle on balancing my life-with-teenagers, teaching life and writing life. Guess which is suffering? Yes, you got it. The writing - because that has the quietest voice. Well, the quietest voice on a daily basis.

Teenagers are loud and pretty insistent in their demands - drive me here, please. Feed me now, please. Teach me to knit now, please. Come and see this. You'll love it. Let's have a dvd night together. Let's go out. Let's make a chocolate cake. Take me for a driving lesson, please.

These are all good things - and fun things (apart from the driving lessons which are exercises in facing death calmly). Teenagers should be heard - they won't stay teenagers.

My teaching life is equally demanding and loud - mark these assignments, answer the discussion boards, write these emails, participate in this meeting. There are good reasons for teaching which must be respected - and it's not all about the money.

My writing life whispers. You haven't been good to us. You have neglected us. We are sulking. It's easier to ignore this whisper. It's easy to say, well, never mind, you don't make much money, anyway. You didn't get shortlisted this year. You can wait.

But the whisper and the sulk are insistent. If they are ignored for too long, depression sets in. It's like a poison which spreads to everything - the teenagers, the teaching, the cooking - even the dogs. I become snappy and impatient. I become overwhelmed and lost. I lose focus, a sense of who I am, a sense of who I can be, a sense of purpose and most of all, a sense of joy.

So, this week I'm returning to the kind of schedule I used to keep when the kids were young and it was seemingly impossible to do anything that didn't involve strict routines. I'm returning to carving out an hour or an hour and a half, or even half an hour from my working day in which to honour writing self.

I'll begin by doing my morning pages a la Julia Cameron.

I suggest, if you have the mid-year blues, or are feeling overwhelmed by life and work, or underwhelmed by joy, you think about honouring your writing self.

Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way is an okay place to start. Or pick up a copy of Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones. Set aside your writing time as strictly as you'd set aside eating or exercising time. Think of it as food for your soul or exercise for your writing muscles. Honour yourself as an artist. It's quite possibly less time that you'd spend watching television, or ironing, or checking out Facebook. You can do it. You're worth it.

Holiday exercies! - better late than never?

2010-06-30T16:49:00.001-07:00

A standard plot introduces an outsider to a community - each shakes up the other. The community can be as small as a family or as large as a small town. Introduce a stranger to your community. What impact will they have, who will they influence - and will it be beneficial or detrimental?

This is as true for life writing, of course, as it is for fiction. What has happened in your own family when strangers have come into it. The strangers could be birth parents, in-laws, spouses, adopted children or foster children. For some people the stranger could even be a new baby.

Go on an artist's day - or do something new this holiday. Something you have never done. This could be as simple as eating a food you've never eaten, or learning a new skill. Even going to a new place can be refreshing and energising. Make a firm decision to refresh your writing self!

This holidays I made glass beads with my son - he bought a beginner's lampworking kit after watching people use them on YouTube. We went to my mother's place - she has the largest shed in the world - and learnt how to melt the glass around a thin steel rod coated with bead release. We learnt how to roll the glass in fritt (spelling?) and roll the bead on a graphite pad to shape it. It was so much fun doing something completely different. And, of course, it's a skill I can pass on to a character!

When you've done your new thing - write it up. If it's something new you've eaten, write about what it tasted like, what it smelt like and the texture. Think about the colour. How did you eat it and who, if anyone, was with you? Describe the setting. If you go somewhere new, do the same thing.

If you learnt a new skill, write it up twice - first notes on the skill - technical notes, so that if you ever do give it to a character, you're speaking with authority. Then write it up imaginatively - again, using all your senses. You might choose to do this by passing it on to a character.

Happy holidays. Oh, and check this out!

Isabel Allende

2010-05-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

Has just published a new book - Island Beneath the Sea. 'With the violence, the mad wife and the torrid sex, the ingredients are all in place for a bosom-heaving blockbuster, but Isabel Allende brings to her storytelling another dimension altogether.' Dianne Dempsey, The Age.

Note if for your holiday reading if you enjoyed The Sum of Our Days!

new book

2010-05-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

I've just read Robert Olen Butler's From Where You Dream: the Process of Writing Fiction. He's got great chapters on writing from the cinema of the mind and sensory detail, one of which I'll photocopy for next semester's resource book. Terrific book if you happen to see it on your local library system. I'd particularly recommend it to anyone contemplating novel writing or the advanced writing project.

Limited Third Person explained (hopefully!)

2010-04-21T17:26:00.000-07:00

A lot of students managed to establish their limited third person viewpoint without taking advantage of that. Once you’ve established a viewpoint character, even if you’re going to alternate viewpoint character from chapter to chapter, you can give your reader direct access to their thoughts and feelings. This avoids unnecessary repetition of pronouns or your character’s name. It also leads you to less telling and more showing.

Here’s an extract from Christos Tsiolkas’ Slap. It’s told from the viewpoint of Rosie, the mother of the child who has been slapped. See how Tsiolkas establishes the viewpoint character and then speaks directly from her voice. Can you also please notice that this is told in the simple past but we it read as the fictional present. The immediacy is created in the writing, not by the tense.

…Hugo had already watched it [Finding Nemo] right through earlier in the day. It had become his favourite over the last few weeks and now she too almost knew it by heart. Sometimes she would pretend to be Dory to his Nemo. She wished he could be in the bath with her (except it would be too hot for him, the little fella). They could pretend to be Dory and Nemo, under the water, in the pretty sapphire world underneath the sea. She’d pretend to be Dory, forgetting everything he told her, trying not to giggle as Hugo got more and ore excited and frustrated.

Her eyes flung open. Damn. It was around lunchtime that she received the letter, just after she had come back from the park with Hugo. Rosie had gone pale as she read the dry words stating the date and time for the hearing to be held at the Magistrates Court in Heidelberg.

Submitting work

2010-03-31T21:52:00.000-07:00

I am amazed at the number of students who don't actually read the assignment submission information and are still submitting work as .docx rather than .doc. If this was a magazine requesting submissions, you do realise that no matter how good your work was, it would simply not be opened by the editor and therefore not looked at, let alone considered, for publication.

I can't begin to emphasise how important it is for new, emerging and established writers to be able to read simple instructions. If you were applying for grants, for example, you would need to read the submission information very carefully - maybe twice. If you were unsure of any detail in that information, you would have to go to the grant website and see if it was available in a more comprehensible form. As a last resort, you might decide to phone the grants officer - but only as a last resort because you wouldn't want to look unprofessional.

If you are still unsure of how to submit .doc, rather than a .docx do what you would have to do as a professional writer - read the instructions and then, if all else fails, use an internet search engine so you can solve your problem!

Common errors made by new writers.

2010-03-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Sentences that begin with gerunds are often weak sentences as they are frequently in the passive voice:
check out this lesson in gerunds:
Check out dialogue tips and punctuation here.
Repeating monotonous sentence structures - there's a good example here of Stephanie Meyer's monotonous sentence structure.
Joining two independent clauses without using correct punctuation or sentence modifiers - here.
Over-reliance on adjectives and adverbs rather than verbs, which are the muscles of writing - this is simply a matter of going through your own work and highlighting adverbs and adjectives and seeing which ones you need.

Do go through your work with these problems in mind. Happy Easter!

Patrick Ness

2010-03-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

I've just got back from hearing Patrick Ness talk at the local library. He is the author of the Chaos Walking trilogy which has won such great acclaim, particularly in the world of young adult fiction. The first book of the Trilogy is The Knife of Never Letting Go.

There's a great review of the book here. Interesting, too, what Boyce says about cross-over fiction.

Thoroughly enjoyed watching another author strut his stuff. There were two school groups there and Ness engaged them with an easy, laid-back talk on writing and a clever demonstration on just how much life experience we all have that can be turned into fiction.

This reminded me of my Great Big List of Everything I Know exercise. Grab your writer's journal and begin a list of everything you know - start with at least fifty things:
I know how to be a daughter, a mother, an only child, a wife, a girlfriend. I know how to be betrayed and how to betray. I know how to ride a horse and a bike, and how to ride pillion on a motorbike. I know how to spin yarn, knit and crochet. I know how to sew. I can darn socks. I can make soup, bread and pasta. I can throw a pot on a wheel. I can say I love you in French and sweetheart in Spanish. I know how to train a dog and how to look after tropical fish. I know how to get my own way, most of the time. I know how to go camping, if I have to. I know how to mix a good cocktail. I know how to make risotto. I know how to make a pizza from scratch and how to make a pizza oven. I know how to send a child overseas without crying at the airport. I know how to say goodbye to someone who is dying. I know how to be a step-mother. I know how to give birth and how to sit in a hospital with a sick, maybe dying child. I know how to argue - with lovers, husbands, children as well as people I don't know. I know how to surrender. I know how to write a haiku. I know how to juggle finances and overspend. I know how to pack books for a move. I know how to pack up an entire house for a move, but I never do it properly. I know how to price secondhand books and how to sell them. I know how to put together a rare book catalogue. I know how to research and all that entails - footnotes, bibliographies, tumbling piles of books on the library desk and hours spent chasing tails down the rabbit hole that is Google. I know how to be a good friend. I know how to be a bad friend. I know how to end a friendship. I know how to be loyal. I know how to tell a lie that will go undetected.

Wow! What a lot of material I have that I could use in my own writing! (Pity I'm not doing any at the moment...)

The Word Tree

2010-03-04T00:41:00.000-08:00

flowers again! This Saturday, 6th March @ 3.00pm, $3.00/5.00. Our featured reader is David Gibley from Wagga Wagga. Should be a treat. Burrinja Cafe, Burrinja Gallery, cnr Matson Drive and Glenferm Road, Upwey.

Found a great article on memoir writing

2010-02-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

Or rather my mother did. So I snaffled it and photocopied it. Here's a quote:

Style is one way to corral unruly memories and, at the same time, acknowledge that the most interesting thing about them may be that they do not cohere. In the 20th century, Marcel Proust provides the model for this way of writing an autobiography, so that many of the best memoirs read as much like modernist novels as acts of self-revelation. Nabokov's Speak, Memory is among his most intricately patterned and deceptive books. Its motifs recur with exquisite tact and timing; a particular slant of summer light, a child holding his father's hand in the park. But despite its perfection, the pattern fails to reconcile the author's idyllic Russian childhood and his exiled adult self. Or take Roland Barthes's peculiar critical study of his own life and career, entitled Roland Barthes, in which he reflects on fragments of his past: family photographs, medical records from his time in a TB sanatorium, lists of his likes and dislikes. 'It must all be considered,' he writes, 'as if spoken by a character in a novel.'

'In Memoriam' by Brian Dillon, in 1000 Books to Change Your Life, Time Out.

Today - just those phrases - a particular slant of summer light, a child holding his father's hand in the park - made me tumble back to some of my first memories.

Tell me a story - who held your hand in sunlight? How old were you? Where were you? What were you wearing? What were you called and who called you? How did you feel?

500 - 1000 words - post your stories as doc attachments to:
catherinebATgippstafeDOTvicDOTeduDOTau
Best entry wins a small prize! (This will not be money, don't get too excited!)
This competition is open to all blog readers, not just gippstafe students. Make sure your entry is your own original work, has your name and address on it and does not exceed the word limit. Closing date: 25th March 2010. Good luck everyone!style="font-weight:bold;">

A new year begins -

2010-02-23T21:27:00.001-08:00

Well, okay - we've had the New Year and the Chinese New Year and now it's the Teaching New Year - I think some celebration should mark this beginning - fireworks? champagne? No? Writing resolutions! Yes!

A number of students, a great number of students, have listed procrastination as one of the bad habits they have, time to write as something they lack - or will to write when there is a little time. What are ways to combat these very much self-inflicted but nonetheless real problems all of us grapple with?

Let's start with procrastination. There's a great tendency among all the writers I know to do anything other than the writing itself. We find ourselves making pickles, ironing the sheets and tea towels or cleaning the bath with a toothbrush - anything rather than sit down to a day's writing work. Deadlines speed some people up, but paralyse others.

One way I've found useful in stalling my habit of procrastination is to actually reward myself when I sit down to write. So, for example, I'll select a stack of cds to listen to - but only when I'm sitting at my desk writing. That can be incentive enough some days.

Timing your writing to coincide with the completion of a different task or event can work, too - I used to write while my children, then toddlers, watched Playschool. To this day, the music from Playschool makes my fingers twitch! For a long time I wrote every day after I walked the dogs - and that produced a definite start time for me. It was a good habit to form because the act of walking the dogs, allowed me to do a lot of pre-writing thinking and that meant that by the time I arrived home, I already had ideas about what I wanted to write.

Sometimes it's just simply making writing the first thing you do every day. Julia Cameron recommends this in her book, The Artist's Way - she calls this writing 'morning pages'. This can be difficult, particularly if you have small children, but the extra effort can reap benefits.

If it's simply too hard to write every day, you can try designating a particular day of the week your writing day - many people teaching within Professional Writing and Editing try to do this - it may seem hard to stick to this, particularly if you're working or parenting full-time, but to carve out even a regular afternoon a week is something. Then, for the rest of the week, you can make quick notes, jottings that will keep you on track when your writing day comes around.

It can help to have a writing buddy - you can make a writing date. Go somewhere together to write - a cafe, gallery or a park. You don't even need to share your writing at the end, if you don't choose to - though sometimes having someone's instant feedback can be gratifying.

If you live somewhere more remote, you could make an online writing buddy - maybe someone from this course. At the end of a writing session, you simply email your writing buddy - a message could be as short as 'I've done it! How about you?'

Creating a writing date for yourself can also be useful - again, this need not be anywhere special - sitting down in a park for half an hour, or a food hall, or even on a train, providing you use that time to write and observe can present you with interesting and unusual material - sometimes simply because you're out of your normal place of working. Local libraries often have desks for people to work on - and some (this could be a trap!) even offer wifi.

Try to treat your writing time as a joyful job. Don't answer the phone, if you can avoid it. Don't answer emails. Don't log onto the TAFE blackboard. Tell children, partners, parents and friends that you will be available only after you've done your work. Usually people are pretty good about this, particularly if you give them an actual time you'll be finished. Some writers I know offer visual clues to their families - they wear industrial earmuffs or work behind a closed door with a Keep Out sign.

All these might sound difficult but what you need to remember is that you won't ever be a writer without writing! So - writing resolutions, anyone?

I'm planning to work on short material this semester - just play around with some ideas I have, revise some material as well. My writing life will be curtailed by the hours I'm teaching but I'm carving two regular writing times out of my teaching week - I'm putting aside Thursday afternoons and Fridays for writing - or at least a part of each of these days. I'm also planning a regular artist's date with myself - whether that's catching up with fellow writers or visiting the gallery or a market - all with my notebook in hand.

Write on!

Book Launch

2009-11-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

My third collection of poetry, Marriage for Beginners, is being launched by Aileen Kelly at La Mama Theatre, 205 Faraday Street, Carlton on Sunday, 22nd November at 3.00pm. Light refreshments will be served and the book will be available, of course, at the special launch price.

I'd love to see everyone there!

Come over

2009-10-02T02:44:00.001-07:00

to the dark side and read about Peter Bakowski - tomorrow's featured reader at The Word Tree.

Check out -

2009-09-15T02:19:00.000-07:00

Radio National, The Book Show - Ramona Koval interviewing Lloyd Jones about his short story collection, The Man in the Shed. Jones' comes up with a slightly new definition of the short story in this interview - but listen for yourselves - it's interesting to hear an author talk about short stories and the writing craft required by this exacting form.

Also have a look at children's writer, Kirsty Murray's, blog about ceramics, history and parallel importation.

It's been a long time

2009-09-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

between blogs! But I'm back with some news. First of all a blog to watch. Secondly - for those of you who don't know, my novel, The Wish Pony, was awarded CBCA Honour Book, Younger Readers. The winner was Glenda Millard with Perry Angel's Suitcase and Morris Gleitzman was the other Honour book with Then. The awards ceremony was held at Sea World on the Gold Coast, oddly appropriate for me as that is where my latest sequence of poems ends!
Thirdly - Jane Gardam has a new novel out, The Man in the Wooden Hat. Yes, it's a companion novel to her masterpiece, Old Filth. How wonderful! Can't wait to read it.

Hey there

2009-07-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow in Myth and Symbols we'll be looking at Sherman Alexie's wonderful short story, 'What You Pawn, I Shall Redeem', so Nicki, Denis, if you're reading this it would be wonderful to have you along - and anyone else who wants to brave a 9.00 am class.

Poem of the week - learning, 'The Cinnamon Peeler's Wife' by Michael Ondatje. I thought it was about time I learnt another love poem and I particularly like this one. Dorianne Laux wrote a poem, obviously inspired by it, with a female voice - 'The Shipfitter's Wife' and I wrote one 'The Auditor's Wife' inspired by Laux's poem. The Year of Learning Poems continues....

Workshopping tips

2009-07-21T23:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote these for Writing for Children, Picture Books last year and have rediscovered them after some prompting from my Gippstafe colleagues.

Different people have different approaches to workshops and are capable or want to give different levels of feedback. The biggest rule is really to respect the material the writer presents. It's not up to the workshop to do a massive structural edit, rewrite the story or, indeed, to do a close line-edit. Participants in the workshop make suggestions - always acknowledging the story as presented. These suggestions should have the common aim of wanting the material to live up to its best possible potential.

So, for example, comments on grammar could be just 'check your grammar, there are some wonky bits' as opposed to anyone going through and doing a line-edit on the story. Structural comments could include, 'it seemed to me that the resolution was a little too open-ended' or 'the characters seemed a little flat and could have been better developed'. Those general comments should be backed up by more detailed explanations: 'I think it would be wise to have the resolution stem from the actions of your protagonist, rather than by chance' and 'Perhaps some more details about how your character identifies with their family would help us understand her more.' It's always a good idea to go from the general to the specific as people tend to comprehend that more readily.

Check out the Year of Learning Poems

2009-07-21T04:50:00.000-07:00

over at my other blog.

Bad news for writers

2009-07-14T18:17:00.000-07:00

check it out here

Good opportunity for novelists!

2009-07-14T04:39:00.000-07:00

Check it out here!

The Word Tree

2009-06-30T06:15:00.000-07:00

I think I'm just lurching forwards at the moment, from Word Tree to Word Tree - that will soon settle because I've had to take leave without pay from Box Hill Tafe just to fill some of my own work commitments. So, look for more writing-related and reading-related posts soon.

In the meantime - The Word Tree leafs again -
Saturday 4 July, 3.00 - 5.00 pm
featured reader - Kristin Henry - ideal date as Kristin was originally from Chattanooga and has been described as having a voice like slow molasses.
Burrinja Cafe, 351 Glengern Road (cnr of Matson drive, Upwey
melways 75 B12
Limited open section
$3.00/5.00
Look forward to seeing you there.

Great news from Liz!

2009-06-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

Liz Corbett's short story, 'Beyond the Blackout Curtain', made the shortlist of twenty stories in the Bristol Short Story Prize. There were 1729 entries! The shortlisted twenty will be published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology.

'Beyond the Blackout Curtain', has since been picked up by a small start up Melbourne literary magazine [untitled].

Liz's short story, 'Silent Night', was short listed for the Allan Marshall Short Story Competition.

Congratulations Liz!

Sick!

2009-05-24T16:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone - I've picked up some cold/'flu thing in Sydney and have been sick ever since I got home. I won't be in to teach tomorrow. Sorry about that - I hate missing two weeks in a row, but really can't manage teaching yet.

We'll catch up with all the workshops, book reviews and short story analyses next week. In the meantime, think about archetypes. Can you choose one of the following archetypes to write a story about - or move them from one archetype to another during the course of a story? Or, alternatively, can you name or use one of them in your novel?
1. The Innocent
2. The Orpahn
3. The Warrior
4. The Caregiver
5. The Seeker
6. The Destroyer
7. The Lover
8. The Creator
9. The Ruler
10. The Magician
11. The Sage
12. The Fool

These are from a book called, Awakening the Heroes Within - Carol S. Pearson. You can read more about the archetypes here. But you can also use your own intelligence and intuition to think them through - and think about their dark sides, as well. It's often the dark side of someone that pushes the story through into the light.

Grammar tests and information

2009-05-13T17:27:00.000-07:00

I know, I know - grammar is booorrrrinnnngggg! But, really, it's simply a tool of communication. And it's essential to know the rules before you break them so you've got a good idea why you're breaking them and what it is achieving for your writing.

Here are some fragment exercises.

Read this on active and passive voice.

Read this on parallel construction and do the test at the end.

Read this on subject/verb argreement and then do this quiz.

Write lots!

one of the new faces of publishing -

2009-05-05T02:33:00.000-07:00

the internet has opened up a myriad of different publishing opportunities for writers. Instead of the old photocopied broadsheets handed out at various poetry venues, there are now ezines. check this out. Amazing new publishing worlds...

Interesting where the humble blog can go....

2009-04-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

Here's where one went!

Watch and be inspired. The Julie and Julia bit of this began life as a cooking blog. Julie cooked. To be more precise Julie cooked her way through Julia Childs' classic, The Art of French Cooking.

Be inspired.

The Word Tree - on again!

2009-04-29T23:12:00.000-07:00

Yes - at long last, The Word Tree is on again. Saturday 2 May, 3.00pm @ Burrinja Cafe, 351 Glenfern Road, Upwey - cnr. Glenfern and Matson Drive. Featured reader, Michelle Leber and a limited open section where you can strut your stuff. Enjoy an afternoon in the Hills and some damn fine words.

Synopsis guidelines

2009-04-16T17:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry this has gone up so late. I've been ill all week an unable to do anything much at all. On the holidays, too! Check out this article for good synopsis guidelines.

Hope everyone had a great break and see you all next week.

Protest!

2009-04-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

Every reader, writer, teacher, librarian and Australian should be writing to the Productivity Commission, the Prime Minister, Education Minister, Minister for Culture and the Arts (do we still have one, do you think?) and anyone else you can think of to protest the dim-witted changes the Productivity Commission want to make regarding removing the restrictions on the Parallel Importation of books. This directly effects everyone.

Cheaper books are one thing. But the changes suggested by the Productivity Commission in all its stupidity will destroy Australian publishing, the potential of Australian authors to earn money and the potential of our culture, heritage and unique literary voices to be lost to the reading public.

The Productivity Commission has not taken in to account the Children's Book Industry at all in its Discussion Draft. So a huge reading public, with no political voice - our children will be disenfranchised if the parallel importation restrictions are removed. The Australian Children's Book Industry is a healthy one. Marginalised - as in, few reviews, little recognition and so on - but healthy in terms of readers, sales and writing talent.

The end result of the lifting of parallel importation restrictions for the Australian public would mean that we'd be swamped with remaindered books. That is, books that haven't sold because no one actually wanted to read them much. This in return for fewer opportunities for Australian authors, no opportunity for first time authors, the demise of a number of small publishing houses, a lack of representation of Australian culture and history in the books being published and far less Australian books being published. Jobs would be lost in the publishing industry.

Is this what you want?

A very good breakdown report of the whole issue can be found here. Read it and protest by writing letters - these must be received by 17th April. Get your typing fingers flying! Please note, that though the Commission prefers to receive submissions by email, it's better to send hard copy letters to the Prime Minister et al. They are taken more seriously than emails.

If you need more information on how to submit,this is directly copied from the government webpage:

Copyright Restrictions on the Parallel Importation of Books
How to make a submission

This is a commissioned study and the Commission invites interested people and organisations to register their interest and make a written submission.

Each submission, except for any confidential information (see below), will be published on the Commission's website shortly after receipt, and will remain there indefinitely as a public document. Copyright in submissions sent to the Commission resides with the author(s), not with the Commission.
Preparing submissions

The following notes may assist in preparing submissions:

* There is no set structure for submissions and participants may comment on any matter they consider relevant to the topic. This could range from a short letter outlining your views on the topic to a more substantial document covering a range of issues. Where possible, you should provide data and/or documentation to support your views.
* Under certain circumstances the Commission can accept material in confidence, including commercially sensitive material. Any such material should be provided under separate cover and clearly marked 'IN CONFIDENCE'. You should contact the Commission for further information and advice on this matter.
* Each submission should be accompanied by a submission cover sheet (which includes the address to which the submissions can be forwarded). The Commission prefers to receive submissions by email. However, submissions can also be accepted by post or fax. Track changes, editing marks, hidden text and internal links should be removed from submissions before sending to the Commission.
* For submissions received from individuals, all personal details other than name and state/territory of residence (e.g. home address, home phone number) will be removed from the submission before it is published on the website to comply with privacy laws.

Please lodge your submission with us by Friday 17 April 2009 so that we can make full use of it in our final research report.

Quotation

2009-03-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

"I like all forms of writing, from articles to motion pictures, but of them
all I prefer the novel. In a day of increasing taboos, I think it may represent the
final redoubt of a truly free enterprise. I like the feeling that it is up to me,
that make or break, it is all mine." - Bud Shulberg

What are your taboos? Write a list of all the things you wouldn't write about.

(Yes, I know that means you're actually writing about them. That's the point, silly!)

if you missed it the first time...

2009-03-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

here's the link to a great article on punctuating dialogue

Writing exercise for Monday:

Begin a story with a prophecy. (This can be a funny prophecy, made by one friend to another, a serious prophecy, a light-hearted prophecy...completely your choice.

Saki Quotes

2009-03-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this page for some great Saki quotes. I particularly like:
'A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.'

All you ever wanted to know about world building

2009-03-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

but were afraid to ask! Here. Have fun.

Links to Lorrie Moore

2009-03-02T19:40:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Melissa who provided these links to Lorrie Moore. And this one.

A note on formatting - when you hand in (or submit) short stories or excerpts from novels, make sure that you have a running footer that states your name and the name of the story. It's very easy to pages to come loose and out of order and this saves a lot of confusion. Also make sure you number your pages - it is surprising how many people forget to do this!

ha!

2009-03-01T20:48:00.001-08:00

Just finished the editing on a small 2500 word story for a new imprint, Aussie Gems and guess what? Had to correct nearly every bit of dialogue punctuation. I clearly have got into the habit of putting a comma after my dialogue tags whether or not it's the end of that sentence! So, don't despair - just keep on checking that you're doing the right thing.

Welcome to any Gippstafe students!

2009-02-24T21:39:00.000-08:00

Hi there - Gippstafe students officially started their online courses this week - welcome to any who have stepped across to check this out.

I know I had a list of things to blog for everyone, so I'll make a little start on it.

Check out www.goodreads.com for a quick n'easy way of keeping track electronically of your reading. This also connects you to a larger reading network. If you've succumbed to the procrastination machine that is facebook, you can do a search for all your reading friends.

For punctuating dialogue check out this article.

Thanks to Stewart and Denis for being the first up to workshop in Novel 2! Good to get a handle on what you both are writing. And for everyone who participated in the character chair exercise - thanks - great to hear about your central characters and I hope you learnt something more about them, too.

Writing exercise: (for your writer's journal)
Write a letter to your character's younger self from one of their parents. You know those letters that parents sometimes write to be opened on yoru eighteenth birthday or whatever? You can make it quite specific - it could be a letter written after an argument, for example, or before a big event. It could be a celebratory letter. It could be a pull-your-socks-up letter!

Happy writing...

First one to comment

2009-02-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

gets a prize! come on guys, comment! Hope you are all having a happy writing week.

Writing Exercises

2009-02-16T00:19:00.000-08:00

Create a character who is obsessed by something - firearms, D & D, family history, collecting china, travelling. What would it take for them to give up their obsession? Who in their lives might resent their obsession? Explore these potential conflicts.

Your character goes home after being away - for a wedding or Christmas, a funeral or an anniversary or to celebrate a birth. During this weekend, an old family feud erupts.

What is your (fictional) family's secret? Who finds it out and how? What are the ramifications of this?

Your character is stuck somewhere with someone she/he doesn't like. Gradually over the time they are together a different story emerges...

Novel 2A students - can you please all choose a chapter from a favourite novel - one that you feel has taught you something about the writing craft. Photocopy the chapter for the next class and write a half a page on what it's taught you. Thanks - these will form part of next semester's resource book.

Okay people - the rain (yes, you heard me correctly!) has cleared so I'm off to buy noodles. I'm sorry I couldn't magically wave the clouds in victoria's direction....

Townsville

2009-02-15T03:33:00.000-08:00

is hot and humid. I walked for over half an hour to find a supermarket which closed the instant I approached the doors - 5.58pm is the closing time of North Ward's BiLo on a Sunday. How bizarre! However, on the way back to the hotel I was rewarded with a tree full of the most beautiful little birds - chlorine blue backs, green breasts, rufous under-wings and a bright yellow around the eye. They had honey-eater beaks, I think. There were about thirty of them. Also some of the big black cockatooes that eat the palm nuts down on the Strand - they look shabby until they take off, revealing a huge bright orange V on their wings.

But I'm not actually writing this to tell you about the bird life of Townsville but to alert the crime readers amongst you to a wonderful book -
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. I daren't start the next one of his Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, because I won't sleep until I finish it.

Larsson was a Swedish journalist. He delivered the three manuscripts of the trilogy to his Swedish publisher and shortly after that died. He was only in his early fifties. The book features a wonderful team Mikael Bomkvist, an investigative journo and Lisbeth Salander - a feisty and mysterious computer hacker. The plotting is brilliant as two stories unfold side by side. Read it!

Not daring to start the next Larsson, I've begun reading Qiu Xiaolong's When Red is Black. Qiu Xiaolong is a Chinese poet and crime writer living in America. I met him at the Brisbane Writer's Festival a few years ago - that's how I was introduced to his work because the Festival sends you copies of the other panellists works. Although I don't find his books unputdownable, they are fabulous, too. There's a lot of commentaary about China and politics, official hierarchies, customs - historical and contemporary, food and his Chinese police detective (a poet) quotes Chinese poetry throughout. What's not to love?

So there you are, crime fiction lovers - head straight to your nearest bookstore!

Homework!

2009-02-12T16:48:00.000-08:00

Short Story 1 students - read Peter Goldsworthy's List of All Possible Answers. Create characters using your own lists - a list of To Do's on the 'fridge, a list of loves and hates on MySpace, a list of fears, a wishlist, a hit list. Read 'How to Get Ideas' in the resource book. There's an interview with Peter Goldsworthy talking about his new novel, Everything I Knew, here.

Novel 2A students - read the piece from Peter Carey's His Illegal Self. Again this is a piece which switches point of view, though it's written in the third person. Also read 'Plot and Character' (page 23). Answer the questions on p. 22 regarding your character/s. Read the interview with Peter Carey here.

The Poisonwood Bible

2009-02-10T16:13:00.000-08:00

I'm so pleased The Poisonwood Bible got such a good hearing in Novel 2 - it is one of my all-time favourite novels, ambitious in scope and hauntingly memorable. Just checked my copy and the mother, Orleanna Price, does haver her own sections:

Listen, little beast. Judge me as you will, but first listen. I am your mother. What happened to us could have happened anywhere, to any mother. I'm not the first mother on earth to have seen her daughters possessed. For time and eternity there have been fathers like Nathan who simply can see no way to have a duaghter but to own her like plot of land. To work her, plow her under, rain down a dreadful poison upon her. Miraculously, it causes these girls to grow. They elongate on the pale slender stalks of their longing, like sunflowers with heavy heads. You can shield them with your body and soul, trying to absorb that awful rain, but they'll still more toward him. Wihout cease, they'll bend to his light. p.217.

Read an interview with Barbara Kingsolver here. It's interesting what she says about handling the five different points of view.

Here's a more recent inteview with Bill Moyers.

For students in Short Story who want to read a review of Swallow the Air, try this link.

I'll be putting up homework and work for the week I'm away later this week, so watch this space! It might be slightly erratic over the next few days as I'm battling a computer virus. Grrrr.

Dust off those short stories...

2009-02-05T01:03:00.000-08:00

for the Alan Marshall Short Story competition. Closing date 20th February - you can do it, you know you want to.

Flash Fiction!

2009-02-04T15:07:00.000-08:00

This looks like an interesting site - publishing both out of copyright stories, genre stories and pieces by new writers. Check it out here.

This is a clever idea.

And an article about how to write it.

A success story from the UK.

Science Fiction flash site - with some good submitting rules.

Hope you enjoy looking around!

Welcome everyone

2009-01-26T22:53:00.000-08:00

Hi people and welcome to the brand-new writing blog. I'll be posting regularly to this - competition details, web-based writing resources, writing exercises and oher snippets of stuff relevant to the writing life. If you're new to the world of blogs, you don't need to be a blogger to make a comment.

I love the beginning of the teaching year - it's nerve-wracking to walk into a classroom full of new faces or log onto a discussion board full of new names, but it's also invigorating.

I hope you all learn lots this year, do a whole heap of writing and reading and have an enormous amount of fun along the way. Do comment on the blog - but keep it nice, please. I particularly love it when someone actually puts a writing exercise in the comments! Looking forward to meeting everyone next week (for on campus classes), cyber meeting students from GippsTAFE at the end of February and renewing any old acquaintances.

Exercise - what do beginnings mean to you? Are you someone who has a new year's ritual? Do you celebrate chinese new year? Write about beginnings for ten minutes. Go!