That’s one part of my update – and I’m very keen to hear in the comments if you’ve had your own reading slump, and how you got out of it – but the other part is much more positive. I’m starting a short Creative Writing course on Monday! Through Facebook I won a competition run by the Sydney Writers Centre – using this photo to explain how I snatched some little bits of writing time (considering I won’t let the small boy watch TV yet):

… and as a consequence I got a voucher towards the cost of a course. Too good to go to waste, I thought, so I enrolled in their five-week Creative Writing Stage 2 course (online, of course – no Sydney holiday for me!). According to the course blurb it sounds like there’s quite a bit about character development, structuring and scene development, which I’m very keen to think more about. I’m also excited to be doing just a short course (not too much commitment required!) so that I’ll be doing some more regular writing and thinking about writing – I’m sure I’ll find that very motivating, much like when I took part in Sage Cohen’s Poem A Day challenge in January. So keep your fingers crossed for both my reading and writing!

In yet another “the universe throws its stuff at you and you can’t help but notice” moment, voice has been all around me the past week or so. A book-loving friend pointed me in the direction of this rather distressing Christopher Hitchens piece on voice – in which (among sadder parts) he muses on the link between your speaking voice and your writing voice, and again emphasises how important it is to find your voice. A few days later, my writer friend Kristan linked up to a post by screenwriter John August on writing the way you speak which was also inspired by the Christopher Hitchens piece, and said a lot of what I’d been thinking since then, but a bit more eloquently. (So you might as well go and read all that first, then come back. Because I know all you readers have oodles and oodles of free time to go read everything I suggest …!)

So, voice. At the moment, I can’t figure out if I don’t like the fiction I’ve written because it sounds too much like me or not enough like me. How can a writer really read their fiction as if it’s not theirs, and figure out if there’s actually one of these mysterious voices there or not? Putting stuff away in the metaphorical drawer for as long as possible seems to help me a little, but even when I do that and I “enjoy” something I’ve written, I can’t tell you why it works, or what about the chapter or story seems to go together to actually make a “voice”.

Voice works well enough for me (most of the time) when I’m blogging – especially on my travel blog (Not A Ballerina; shameless plug). When I’m blogging I do actually feel like I’m speaking to people, that this is more or less my speaking voice (a bit more casual on my travel blog – like I’m chatting in a hostel, perhaps – and perhaps a touch more formal over here, because fiction writing seems a more academic subject to me). But this is not the voice I want to express in my novels. Or am I trying to be too serious when I write fiction?

… Anyway, I’ve sat on this post for a couple of days, hoping to come to some meaningful conclusions about my fiction writing voice. Alas, I have not. Basically, all I’ve done is identify (for the trillionth time) that voice is important. Whether or not I have a good one remains to be seen. Perhaps the forces of the universe that got me thinking about this topic could actually send me some stuff that resolves it? I will be waiting.

Personally, I didn’t think I had a problem with being rejected. Well, at least, not with my writing being rejected. In most of my more recent work as a blogger, I tend to throw ideas in first and then, although a piece might get a few editorial tweaks, it’s fairly rare that it gets rejected in its entirety, so perhaps I’m a bit out of practice. Before blogging, I used to write articles for travel magazines (print and online) and getting rejected was more common in that process, but perhaps as I was just starting out, it didn’t bother me too much, since I also had enough successes to balance that out.

When I was a kid, I used to submit my fiction writing to a few kids’ magazines here in Australia and had a few published, too. The only rejection slip that ever bothered me was for a story I’d written at school aged about ten which had to be titled “The last bar on the cage gave way”. I wrote a piece about the last bar of the metaphorical cage of living at home with your parents, about a girl who was about to move out and live with a friend from university. (Obviously ignoring the advice of “write what you know”!) When the story was returned by the magazine, rejected, the editor had written this helpful response: “How terrible! I hope that never happens in real life!” To me, that was the worst rejection ever. To not even read it! But to pretend they had! I was mortified.

So, that’s my personal history on rejection, in a nutshell. It’s made me realise that perhaps I am a teeny-tiny bit reluctant to have my fiction writing rejected. Because I don’t put it out there. I have a bunch of semi-decent short stories that I could, if I wanted, ship around to some small-time magazines and websites. It would be good experience, to polish them a bit, to get some feedback, to possibly get some more recent fiction publication credits than the Puffin magazine, 1986. Is it really just that I don’t have time to do this, or am I actually scared of having my fiction rejected? It’s certainly a lot more personal to have your fiction rejected than your travel articles. I think I might have to take the plunge.

(Interestingly, I have no problem with putting my fiction into competitions. I understand and accept that there can only be two or three winners, and not being a winner doesn’t dent my confidence the way a rejection slip might. Hmm, double standards!)

What’s your experience with rejections? Do they bother you more than you care to admit (like me!)? Do share … I’m off to examine my folder of short stories and find something to do with them.

1. The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan is a cross between comedy and crime, lots of fun and with a few interesting plot twists. I think it’s the first in an ongoing series, although I probably didn’t enjoy it quite enough to grab the next one.
2. The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins, another non-fiction (but well-written) addition to my list. Scary stuff about the pressure teenagers are under to succeed in high school and college life in the United States.
3. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta – yes, I had to keep reading her stuff after loving Looking for Alibrandi last month. This YA novel was good, but not great – nowhere near as powerful as her debut.
4. Surfacing by Margaret Atwood; I haven’t read any of her stuff for ages but since I’ve been following her on Twitter (she’s a real addict – @MargaretAtwood) I felt the need. This was very well written but a little depressing, perhaps.
5. The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta, again. This is her newest, and involves the same characters as Saving Francesca, but five years on (and it stands alone as a novel). Heaps better than Saving Francesca in my opinion, excellent in fact, although definitely for the older end of YA or even just for fully-grown adults like me! Great Aussie slice of life.
6. What is Left Over, After by Natasha Lester, a local writer who I met at the Perth Writers Festival. This novel won the TAG Hungerford award and I can see why it beat mine. A million times better! It’s got a great storyline about a woman suffering from a tragic loss and much of it is set in the south-west of WA.
7. Land’s Edge by Tim Winton – it’s a memoir, rather than a novel, but is typical Winton – quite mesmerising, especially for a fellow West Aussie like me who can picture the beaches and coastlines he’s talking about. I learnt we grew up in the same Perth suburb, and am hoping that’s a Lucky Thing! My only criticism is it was a little on the short side.
8. Dead Line by Stella Rimington – another in her Liz Carlyle spy series, and yes the only spy author I read – but she’s authentic! And lovely! And I saw her at the Perth Writers Festival a few years ago. I’ve even got another of hers on my to-read pile right now.

The Piper’s Son was excellent and was looking set to make Melina Marchetta the twice-in-a-row winner of my book of the month award but then circumstances had me picking up Natasha Lester’s book from my “read-sometime” pile (all my due-back-soon library books were at the far end of the house and I didn’t want to wake up my little boy by retrieving one). What is Left Over, After then won me over – beautiful characters, a captivating and relevant storyline and a local setting, and great writing. I’m not just saying that because Natasha might read this!

And finally, let me give you my monthly writing update. I’m hoping that voracious reading is a precursor to unstoppable writing; but I actually have made some progress, getting out my third novel idea (the one I refer to as “the Trans-Siberian one”) and doing some really detailed outlining. It seems that with each novel, my planning process gets more and more detailed and I think and hope that will lead to a better quality output! I also think it’s more necessary as I’m needing to write in short, interrupted bursts (thanks to life with the small boy) rather than the long, luxurious days of my first novel manuscript where I could easily write for a few hours at a time without even shifting the position of my bottom. (Hmm, no wonder I need so many physio visits now.) It’s early days but the planning is exciting me, and the idea of writing when I actually know what to write is exciting me too, because I’m hoping that will give me more brain space to make the writing beautiful. Fingers crossed.

At the Perth Writers Festival, quite a few writers I heard speak (particularly, it would seem, women of around my age who are now published novelists) had studied creative writing at postgraduate level. And some of the publishers I heard speak, when asked how they picked up new books beyond just agents and (rarely) the slush pile, mentioned that they quite often had manuscripts referred to them from university lecturers who recommended some of their students. So, as you can imagine, I was leaning back towards the “maybe I should study …” camp.

Until agent Lyn Tranter came on the stage and said, admitting that universities hated her for saying this:

Creative writing courses are cash cows for the universities.

Apologies to Lyn for quoting her on this but it really rang true for me. Having always had an interest in university courses (I did work at universities for years, remember), I’ve certainly noticed a dramatic increase in the number of creative writing courses being offered. There must be several thousand Australians doing a Masters in Creative Writing right this minute, or perhaps even more (I know three of them without even thinking longer than a second!). Obviously, not all of these prospective writers are going to go on and get published (except my friends, of course! Their books will adorn my bookshelves any day now).

I have no doubt that I could learn heaps from a creative writing course. More than anything, it would make me write more frequently. And for me, that’s the point. I do believe that practice makes perfect, along with some input on technique (I read books and follow websites to help with this), and then do lots of reading and lots of writing. I’ve come to the conclusion that’s a better use of my time for me than studying. But – there’s still a niggling voice in my head wondering if I’m wrong. So, writing friends, to study or not to study? Please, PLEASE tell me your experiences in the comments.

In any case, I have to say that my experience with the Poem A Day Challenge exceeded my expectations by far. I really got heaps out of it, including:

• I definitely did get back my affinity for beautiful words. When you are writing a poem it seems incredibly important to pick exactly the right word. I certainly used a thesaurus a lot more often, or just stopped to think about words. I want to remember to do this for my regular fiction writing as well – why should the words be any less important just because there are more of them?
• I discovered all kinds of interesting themes that I would like to write more about. The highly varying prompts which Sage used meant I wrote on many different topics and a lot of them I could imagine expanding into at least short story form or incorporating them into a novel. I can also imagine using poetry writing in the future as a kind of brainstorming process for my fiction writing, to explore ideas a bit more thoroughly in a form that seems to give rise to all kinds of extra creativity.
• I remembered that writing as part of a group can be really rewarding. Although the format of the challenge meant that none of us had much time to provide feedback on each other’s work, even the short comments I received were very encouraging, and just the fact that I knew other people would be reading my poem (and possibly – although they probably weren’t – waiting to see that I actually wrote one every day) gave me both the motivation to do it and to make it half-decent.
• And I confirmed my suspicion that I can concentrate well for a month at a time on one thing – but probably not a whole year. Which means my 2011 plans might just make for my most successful writing year yet.

So, thanks heaps Sage, I really did get a lot out of this month! In case you’re inspired I just saw that she has scheduled the class again for April – it’s too cheap at $50 – so I highly recommend it for a creative kick-start – and you certainly don’t have to be a poet to join in, because I’m not, and I loved it. (And I don’t get paid anything to say this!).

If you’re still reading, well, as promised earlier this month, I will share a couple of the slightly-less-than-atrocious poems I wrote in response to some of the prompts.

Here goes … only for the brave readers!

What My Father Saw

Wife beside me,
screaming intermittently.
Woman on the road ahead,
perfectly still.

I had to stop the car.

Dressed in flowing white,
she lay across Vincent Street
not far from the North Perth Hostel.
I checked and
yes she was breathing.

Screams from the car.
I fished in the centre console
for change, explaining
in vain to the screams,
dashed to the phone box on the corner
and dialed emergency.

We drove on to the hospital
and you were born.

On that day, your birthday,
I was of course overwhelmed to
hold my first-born
but I still called the police station
four times, unable to find out
if the woman in white
had lived or died.

13 Ways of Looking at a Small Boy

1.
Podgy but strong, skin softer than
his cuddliest toy
I bury my nose in his just-washed hair
and breathe in.

2.
The cat walks by,
his favourite toy, and breaks
the moment. He drags his plumpness
down the hall, never quite speedy enough
to catch the cat
unless she wants to be caught.

3.
Placed on this earth
for me to fall inescapably in love.
He blows sloppy raspberries on my belly.

4.
Other small boys have crossed my path
and I have loved them too
but they were not mine
nothing is the same
as your own.

5.
A multi-coloured tidal wave
has entered our tasteful house. But
because the small boy loves
the red blocks
the blue bear
the yellow and green ball
I do too.

6.
His grunts mimic the black crows
outside the bedroom window;
when he cries in the night, it is with
the urgency of ambulance siren.

7.
He laughs like Mama,
looks like Papa,
but mostly is just
his own little boy.

8.
In a previous life,
numerous priorities lined up for
my attention.
Now there is only the small boy.

9.
When can I swim, he must wonder.
When can I walk, when can I talk.
So much to see and do and say,
but he must wait.

10.
Sitting on the carpeted floor
in the too-quiet, too-big library, he glances up
to check on me, shrieks when he sees me,
then chews on his water bottle again.
Nobody glares in our direction, so I keep browsing.

11.
From an economic standpoint, this small boy
is a poor investment
and cost us both dollars and emotions
long before he was born.
I’ve always had a soft spot for bad investments.

12.
He loves Mama, needs her
adores Papa at each homecoming
and remembers to smile and laugh
at his cat-sisters each morning.

13.
A fireman, a doctor, a painter,
a pianist, a swimmer, a truck driver.
Oh to be so young again, and to have
so many choices and paths to follow.
I shiver with the responsibility of his future.

1. Twenty-Somewhereby Kristan Hoffman
2. Dexter Is Deliciousby Jeff Lindsay
3. The Still Pointby Amy Sackville
4. Dancing In The Moonlightby Raeanne Thayne
5. Indelible Inkby Fiona McGregor
6. In the Wakeby Per Petersen

And the clear winner for January’s book of the month for me is Fiona McGregor’s Indelible Ink – not just because I’m being patriotic about Australian literature but because it was the most interesting novel for me, one where I enjoyed every character and wasn’t quite sure where things were headed.

As for writing, my January focus was on writing a Poem A Day as part of a community of writers undertaking the challenge together. Today is January 31, and although I haven’t yet posted my final poem in the community forum, I have drafted it, and I have 30 other poems all finished as well, so I’d say I’ve successfully completed January’s goal. Not only that, but I think my writing will have all kinds of benefits from this month of poetry writing, so many in fact that I’ll tell you about them in another post (where I’ll be brave enough to share a poem or two from my new collection of them! – most of them are very average though so don’t get your hopes up).

This month-by-month focus is definitely going to work better for me I think – my goals are in a manageable size and shape, so to speak. I’m already itching to get going on my February task of revising Kanako’s Foreigner.

How are your goals or tasks going so far in 2011? Do let me know, a problem shared is a problem halved – and we can celebrate any success together.

I’m really feeling like 2011 has got off to a great writing start. Is it the daily poetry that’s got my writing juices flowing? Is it the rush of a new year, new goals and new resolutions that hasn’t worn off yet? Or perhaps the fact that I’m super-super-busy, with new consulting work, courses to run all over the place and of course a small boy to take care of, and the old “if you want something done, ask a busy person” adage is kicking in again?

It’s probably a combination of all three, I think, but I’m certainly feeling enthusiastic about writing and squeezing in quite a lot of it. In the last week I managed to enter to short fiction contests. Okay, one was really REALLY short, but still took quite a lot of thought – I mentioned recently that I entered the Tweet Me A Story contest in which I had the chance to write three 140-character stories using the word “searching”. The great news is that one of my stories made the cut to the second round (top 25 out of 150 stories, I think) – my successful story was this:

Old Mr Gibbs was searching the death notices when the maid came up behind him, newly-changed will in one hand, heavy saucepan in the other.

If you like it, you can vote for it, although public voting only accounts for one of the five writers who get to advance to the next round later this week, where the successful tweeters have to put their 140-character thinking caps on all over again.

I also managed to get another entry in to the 24-Hour Short Story Contest that Writers Weekly runs on a quarterly basis. Regular readers will know I’ve often entered this contest, mainly because I love the idea of being “forced” to write a short (short) story (always under 1,000 words) within a 24-hour time period. A friend of mine who blogs at Because I Said So also entered with me this year, so it was great to be able to compare our stories and see what different ideas just the two of us (who have a lot in common) came up with from the same prompt. Of course, I’m never particularly happy with the story (or let’s be fair, the draft of a story) I come up with during the contest, but at least it adds to my collection of “to be edited” fiction and of course, keeps my brain and fingers in the writing mode.

For me, thats the main benefit of entering writing competitions – some pressure to keep writing. Do you often enter writing contests, and why or why not?

I’m more than satisfied with how this month’s writing resolution is going. Having a daily task which is both interesting – Sage Cohen’s daily prompts are incredibly varied – and not too arduous – a poem isn’t a novel, and it’s just a draft, really, nobody’s expecting me to come up with a properly publishable poem each day – is proving to be a very successful strategy. It’s giving me routine, rhythm and motivation, and the rest of my writing life is benefiting. And there’s the hoped-for bonus of me paying more attention to writing beautiful words, because writing poems certainly has me searching and thinking for just the right word, and that’s a skill I’d like to transfer to my fiction writing.

One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that my poetry is extremely personal. I looked through my 15 poems for one to share with you, but discarded all of them, either because I don’t think they’re really good enough to share, but mostly because they’re about really personal topics, and I don’t feel comfortable putting them out there for the whole wide world to see. (Interestingly I have got used to posting them on the online forum used by my Poem A Day classmates, whereas the first couple of days I had to pretty much close my eyes and click “post” to be able to put them up there). I’m curious about what I should learn from this use of the personal. Is it a poet’s thing? Do poets suffer from the “oh did that really happen to you?” questions even worse than novelists? Does poetry lend itself to me wanting to express really sensitive things? Or should I be using these same themes in my fiction (I guess I do, in some cases, but in a more disguised form, using invented characters and scenarios to get the same point across). I’m still thinking about all of this.

But I do hope that by month’s end I have a poem or two I feel willing to share with you all – not least to just prove that I actually have been writing all this poetry!

As you might guess, this contest insists that you write a story within the limit of 140 characters, the length of a tweet. Until recently I would have probably ignored such a contest, but you may recall I enjoyed reading a collection of hint fiction recently – containing stories in 25 words or less – and this is about the same length as a tweet. Given that experience I felt I both had a better idea of how to form a story in such a short space, as well as seeing that something worthwhile actually could come out of almost no words!

The Tweet Me A Story contest has something like a thousand entrants (it’s free but you have to register and they only take the first thousand) and in the first round, which I’ve just completed, the writers are randomly divided into twenty groups. Each group is given a (different) single word which must be included in their story. I was in Group 1 (I took this as a lucky sign!) and our word was “searching”. Unfortunately I had a quick look at the email then took care of my little boy, eventually put him down for a sleep, went off to have a shower and then remembered to think about the stories I might create, by which time I thought the word I had to use was “spreading”. At the time, I’d also been chatting with a friend about her upcoming ocean swim and the shark attack risk, so I came up with this awful story:

The blood was spreading faster than Alan could swim. Fortunately, the shark was still distracted by his wife’s hands and shiny wedding ring.

When I sat down at my computer and discovered I should be writing about “searching”, I realised scrapping the shark idea was probably a good one! As the contest hasn’t closed yet (you have about five hours to get your stories in – you can submit up to three) I can’t share my entries yet, but I will later on. It’s fun to think about how to write sparsely and how to suggest an entire plot in just 140 characters, but it does make me look forward to getting into some novel-length work again soon!