Becoming A Fiction Writer
One girl, one dream … and a whole lot of procrastination
February 17, 2010 by amanda

Writing in the pool and finding another “Shower Thinker”


You might remember how my mother solved my “shower thinking” problem by finding me some waterproof notebooks which I can use to jot down ideas that come to me while I am in the shower. Well, there are now two more things I have to tell you today about waterproof notebooks. Who would’ve thought it was such an important topic?

First off, I’ve discovered yet another great use for waterproof notebooks for fiction writers. Or for any writers, I guess. Thanks to some lovely pregnancy-related dramas (pelvis problems and leg swelling, if you must know) I currently need to spend a fair bit of time in our swimming pool, but I’m not allowed to swim, in fact I just have to stand there in the middle (this photo’s an old one!).

This is not always too exciting, as you’d imagine, and I’d wondered what else I could do while I’m in the pool. And suddenly it hit me: waterproof notebook! Just recently in the pool I wrote several pages of notes for the planning stages of my new novella (more details on that soon). It makes my stay in the pool a lot more interesting and I love that I’m also getting something productive done at the same time. I highly recommend it to anyone – I really have a theory that being in water helps make you more creative, so try hopping into a pool or the ocean with your waterproof notebook next time you need some inspiration!

Second, I came across someone else who’d had the same idea as me, but unlike me, is making money out of it. Whereas my mother sourced my waterproof notebooks from a forestry supply shop, there is actually a company that is marketing their AquaNotes waterproof notebooks as being perfect for “shower thinkers”, just like myself. Smart work.

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February 13, 2010 by amanda

Books on the beach, what a great combination

Books are not usually the stars of cool photos, but this is really an exception. Recently at Bondi Beach in Sydney (oh, how I wish I could have popped over to Sydney and seen this in person!) a furniture store (one I like, but nonetheless won’t plug on my blog) set up this display of bookshelves and organised a “book swap”. You could bring your own books and swap them for ones on the shelf, or just take a book and give a gold coin donation, with proceeds going to the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation. Isn’t that a neat idea? I just love the idea of going for a swim or a surf then strolling up the beach to browse all these book shelves. Heavenly.

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February 8, 2010 by amanda

For fun and inspiration: People who talk in their sleep


Sara, one of my cats, who doesn’t talk in her sleep

Inspiration for fiction writers can come from all kinds of places. I’m always on the lookout for quirky stuff that might just set my creative juices flowing when I’m not feeling in such a creative mood. And there’s nothing like a bizarre website like Sleep Talkin’ Man to inspire you.

Apparently this British guy talks in his sleep pretty much every night, and his American wife records what he says (not sure when she sleeps!). She then blogs it the next morning so that the world can find out what kind of crazy stuff he’s been saying. A lot of it needs a censor (so don’t send your children to read this site) but some is just plain hilarious. A few samples:

I want to be a cowboy. I don’t want to be a panda.

I’m baking pillows. Burn them slowly, keeps them fluffy!

Give me back my hands! Limb thief!

And so on. Apart from just getting a good laugh out of this (and worrying a bit, because I’ve been told I also talk in my sleep – usually, thank goodness, not in a language anybody seems to be able to understand), it’s something you can go to if you’re stuck for something to write and would love a bizarre writing prompt to get you going. Much better than just telling you to write about your last summer holiday.

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February 2, 2010 by amanda

Florence’s doorbells inspire me in the short story direction

Just before Christmas, a colleague of mine excitedly recommended a book she was reading (thanks, Kath!): The Doorbells of Florenceby Andrew Losowsky. It’s quite a special book to look at – a small hard back with nice quality paper, full of colour photographs, graphics and an attractive font. And it’s not only attractive physically, but the whole idea of it is absolutely adorable.

Basically, it was inspired by Losowsky’s random decision to photograph a bunch of doorbells in Florence. Fortunately, Italian doorbells are a lot more beautiful than my rather uninspiring doorbell, shown above. Anyway, once he had his bunch of doorbell pictures, usually including the names of the various tenants who occupied the building, Losowsky let his imagination run wild and he wrote short (usually very short) stories to explain something of the lives of the people living in the building. And that’s what is in this book. It’s perhaps a little hard to explain, but it’s just gorgeous and you should see it for yourself.

When I went to read a bit more about Losowsky and his doorbell project, I discovered that he’d first published parts of it on Flickr (the web home to billions of photos) as “Flicktion” – that is, a collection of Flickr photos which have a piece of fiction attached to them. It’s worth having a browse through the Flicktion tag over at Flickr to see what else other people have been doing. In any case, this book has got me totally inspired. I want to make my own! I’ve got so many ideas for what kind of objects I could “collect” to inspire some stories. And one day I’ll do it – just watch this space, okay?!

(In the meantime, if anyone can concoct a good story to match my uninspiring doorbell, I’d be most impressed. I don’t think I can do it.)

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January 27, 2010 by amanda

A summary of my Bratislava novel

Well, the deadline has arrived, and I haven’t even procrastinated too much, because I have already submitted my entry for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for 2010: the novel now titled Bratislava. Three cheers for me! Interestingly, in the process of my revisions I went through a folder I had labelled “Bratislava novel” and found a most interesting file which seemed to be the very first idea I ever had for the novel, and it went like this:

I’m not quite sure what, but I really want to write a novel set in Bratislava. I think it would be one of those slightly chaotic stories with lots of different characters whose stories eventually all intertwine. I guess because Bratislava seems to me a chaotic city with so many stories and different histories.

Now that’s exactly how it ended up, with three characters telling their own stories which eventually intermingle, but to be honest, I had no idea why it was like that: now I know! And I still agree that it’s an appropriate way to tell a story set in Bratislava.

Some of you have been wondering aloud about what the novel’s actually about, and since I have had to write a short summary as a pitch for the ABNA contest, I thought I might share part of it with you here:

Bratislava: A Novel

It’s a decade after the demise of communism and three young people stand in the town square of Bratislava: a Slovak, a Korean and an Australian. Bratislava follows the story of how they met, what this multicultural friendship means to them and how it helps them to find their next steps in life. With fried cheese lunches, art gallery excursions to Vienna and shirtless tram drivers, this mainstream fiction novel reminds us that cultural differences are no barrier to friendship, and that regardless of where you come from, people face the same challenges in life.

Bratislava is set in the Slovak capital of Bratislava while the country is trying to find its Western feet, in the years after the Berlin Wall fell. This unique setting of a city being invaded by Western companies provides the impetus for the arrival of Rebecca, an English teacher helping Slovak employees get up to speed with a language only slowly replacing Russian in their curriculum, and Hyun, a Korean student who is lured to Bratislava by a girl, but stays after falling in love with the Slovak language. Raised in eastern Slovakia, Alenka moved to Bratislava to pursue a teaching career, but abandons this when the salary makes it impossible to pay the rent. With alternating chapters told by Rebecca, Hyun and Alenka, Bratislava follows their journeys as they battle with the usual questions asked by twenty-somethings about settling down, finding the right career and dealing with the ups and downs of love.

Let me know what you think: would you want to read this novel if you read this summary? I really hope so!

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January 24, 2010 by amanda

Choosing a novel title: Procrastination or lack of imagination?

Snow outside my building in Bratislava

I’ve had a lot of trouble choosing a title for my current work in progress, the one I simply refer to as my Bratislava novel. But I finally have, and I thought I’d share how it came about, although it’s nothing to be particularly proud of and you probably won’t learn any great tips from this story: although you might empathise, perhaps. Here goes:

Choosing a title is both an important and a nonsensical business. As I understand it, publishers change the title of a novel to one of their own choosing extremely frequently … but it’s still important to have a decent, memorable title in the meantime. I was really struggling with this and here is the true, slightly embarrassing story of how I came to pick the current title. For the ABNA contest, I needed to submit a 300-word pitch explaining the novel, and of course, the pitch includes the title several times. I wrote the pitch using my dumb “Bratislava Novel” working title as a place holder. My pitch came out to 303 words. Three too many. I tried to edit other bits of it but I liked it as it was. I realised if the title, mentioned four times, was just a one-word title, I’d be fine.

Yep, that’s one of the reasons this novel is now simply called Bratislava. It was a convenient choice. But I didn’t just settle at that. First, I stopped over at the Lulu Titlescorer and keyed it in – Bratislava scored a 45.6% of becoming a bestseller (according to their algorithm), which is nearly as good as Kanako’s Foreigner and heaps better than lots of actual bestsellers. I mean, it can’t be too bad a title. And finally, when I stopped and thought about it, and re-read my pitch too, the actual place of Bratislava is important, almost like a character in this novel, and so it’s really quite appropriate. That, and nobody else has called their novel Bratislava yet, well not that I can find anyway.

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January 22, 2010 by amanda

Creative couples: Having a partner who understands your creative itch

I just read an interesting post at Christina Katz’s Prosperous Writer blog about creative couples – husband and wife/partner teams who are both working in a creative area. Christina mentions that her husband also works in a creative area (in theatre) and they’re able to provide each other with mutual support, which is pretty important.

Which made me reflect that I’m lucky, too. My husband actually works as an engineer (some might argue they make some creative building decisions, but he would definitely not say that it’s a particularly creative job) but he also trained at art school and contemplated life as a painter. He decided that the career prospects were too shaky and that life as an artist might rule out other normal aspects of life like having a family (and if I’d been around at the time, I would have debated that, but in some ways he’s probably quite right), and chose to keep painting as a hobby and work as an engineer.

However, even if he’s not a full-time artist, he totally gets the creative process and that’s a big help for me. He still paints semi-regularly, and when he does it tends to be in day-long bursts where I know there’s no point interrupting him – although in fact I never want to, because I’m always happy to see him at his easel. This means that if I’m working on finishing a novel or something, he’s also very understanding about the time it might take up for a while.

We also get to have a lot of interesting conversations about how creative people think. They tend to start off with something like, “This person at work said/did/thought this, how is that possible?” and when we break it down, it often turns out that as a non-creative person, their priorities and philosophies are just really different to ours. Having a creative purpose in life, which for both of us is more important than many other purposes, makes us different from the people who seem to be focused on making money or retiring early or whatever, and sharing this view certainly helps both our relationship and our creative endeavours.

If I was married to a “straight engineer” who didn’t have a creative outlet, I think my writing life would be a lot different. I can’t say for sure, but I’m guessing my writing would be looked at as “my little hobby” and I’d be really struggling to prove myself. As it is, my husband believes even more than me that I can be a successful published writer, and that belief certainly helps me move forwards. I guess a picked a good one!

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January 20, 2010 by amanda

The novel is drafted, the revisions have begun

Two weeks ago I told you I was on a roll with my Bratislava novel draft; before that I promised to finish this novel to enter it in the Amazon contest soon. Well, it looks like I’m well on track. It’s been finished for a bit now, and I’ve got into the revisions and editing, and although another month or two would be great, I think I can still make it with a pretty decent version of the way I’ve always imagined this novel turning out.

I’ve been meaning to post about this for a while, but better late than never – as part of my revision process I made a checklist of stuff I wanted to do. The list includes these tasks:

  • Double-check the timeline. Especially with one of the characters, I got a bit muddled as I wrote as to how long events had taken, and how long he’d been in Bratislava, and whether it all adds up. I have to check this again.
  • Do a proper scene listing (sometimes I might have scenes that merge together or should just be cut, etc.) and check that there’s some kind of conflict in each scene. In general, check for sufficient conflict. Maybe between the main characters there should/could be more?
  • Make each of the three  voices more consistent. You  might remember I have three main characters, and they each take turns to tell the story, chapter by chapter, all in first person. I’d like the reader to be absolutely clear about who’s “speaking” without having to check the name in the heading of each chapter. One of the characters is distinct and clear, but the other two, I fear, have merged a little. I want to go through and read only all the chapters from one character, and try to fix their “voice” a little, then do the same for the other one.
  • Add a bit more poetry. Not in an arrogant way, I hope, but I was sometimes over-focused on getting the plot out, and not doing it so beautifully, and you know I love “beautiful” writing.
  • Check the dialogue for redundancies, for dumb tags (“she exclaimed”), for too many tags, for too natural, for not natural enough, for voice, and so on … yes, dialogue concerns me, and there’s a lot in this novel.
  • Put some more of the setting into the story. The setting, Bratislava, is an essential part of the story. Way back when, I got a bunch of my photos from Bratislava printed and intended to hang them up where I could see them as I wrote (including the one above – the view from my flat, which actually looks into Austria and Hungary! I always thought that was pretty cool.). I want to dig them out and see what else is important from the setting to add to the novel.
  • Check the arcs of the character development for each of the three main characters. I didn’t plot this out beforehand (I’d like to, next time) but I have a hunch that the development is more or less “naturally” there, but I need to take a closer look.

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January 12, 2010 by amanda

Quiet early mornings and a good view inspire my writing

We recently spent a couple of days staying with my father at his property about an hour and a half away – way, way out of the city. Being a much earlier riser than anybody else there, I usually had about two hours of free time in the morning before anybody else in the house got out of bed. This was perfect for some uninterrupted writing time – and this is the view I had to enjoy while I did it. Complete with birds, (unwanted) rabbits and lizards to observe, this inspiring view out the window certainly helped keep my writing fresh. I wonder how much writing I could get done if this was my view every morning? Perhaps I’d get sick of it. It does make me want to freshen up my pin-up board with some more inspiring pictures, though.

Do any of you writers out there have a fantastic view to enjoy while you write? Please share in the comments if you do, so we can all get jealous!

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January 4, 2010 by amanda

“I’m no quitter” – not of writing, not of chocolate

It’s almost a fortnight since I updated you on the progress I’m making with finishing off the writing of  my Bratislava novel, and I’m proud to say I’m still on track to have it fully written and even pretty well revised and edited in time for the ABNA contest. (Obviously, completed edited with heaps of time to spare would be better, but life just isn’t always like that).

One of my students (thanks, Val!) gave me this mug recently, courtesy of our Margaret River Chocolate Factory – in case you can’t see the graphic, it says:

I’d give up chocolate but I’m no quitter.

Absolutely true for me in the case of chocolate, although in other areas my tendency to procrastinate sometimes means I do end up quitting (or simply not finishing). But this time round my motivation to continue writing every day seems to have no limits. Originally, I set myself the goal of 1,300 words per day to finish off the end of the novel; I’ve been achieving this so easily that I’ve increased it to 1,500 words per day, so I’ll end up with some extra editing time. Many days I’ve done a little more anyway.

Interestingly,  I’ve begun to be tempted to write substantially more each day, because I’m on such a roll, but I’ve deliberately stopped myself. I found that when I did, my writing wasn’t so fresh, and it was harder to start again the next day. The idea of finishing the day’s writing while you’ve still got plenty to say is one that really works for me; I might stop mid-paragraph but leave notes of what I have in mind to write next, and that makes the next day’s beginning very easy. And when I’ve felt like I could just keep on writing, I’ve used that motivation to write other stuff I need to write (you know, like the stuff that pays the mortgage!) so it’s been pretty useful.

So far so good, I’m no quitter when it comes to finishing this novel. Stay tuned to – I’m sure – hear me tell you that I’ve finished it and am loving the editing process!

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