Excuses.

My posting has been tardy. My writing days are down to two per week and in the evenings, after either looking after a two year-old or trying to write my novel on queue, I am just too darn tired to think, let alone come up with some erudite topic for blogging.

The writing is going well when it happens. This is my last week with an office at the university - after that I will have to put blinkers on to ignore the shambolic mess that is my house so I don't spend all my writing time doing housework. Lectures started again this week and after dropping my son off at creche this morning I couldn't find a carpark (I used to catch the bus), so I drove home again and have been trying to work in the chaos.

I am hoping that I will be back to my old blogging self one of these days. For now - please bear with me as I adjust to my new routine.

Wait - there is one thing. The lovely Vanda Symon will be in Christchurch on Monday for the Words on Wheels tour on Monday, so I will finally be doing something booky to report back on. Oh, and on Thursday I will be speaking to a class at the Hagley Writers' Institute, where I will be a supervisor this year. I plan to read something from my new work in progress as, to be honest, I am sick of reading from that book about butterflies.

There. I did find some things to post about after all. Just a place-holder post, really. An I'll-be-back sort of a post.

 

Progress. And the importance of different types of readers.

Despite my diminished working time, I feel that I have made some significant progress in the last week or so. You might say that I have broken the back of the novel, although given the mood swings that go with writing a novel, it could have knitted its own spine back together by next week for all I know.

At this point I can see the end, and know just what I need to do in order to get to the end of the first draft. It's just a matter of systematically working through each section that needs to be added (in contrast to the last one, I have not worked from beginning to end, I have jumped around a lot). It's been slow. I have installed a picometer to the right (you may have noticed it creeping slowly upwards), but I have written many more than 42,000 words over the past year - 42,000 is just the number of words that have stuck. And I do tend to revise somewhat as I go, so I don't race through a complete draft and turn around at the end, breathless, to see what I've got. I know what I've got. Now. I say 'now' because a few weeks ago I definitely lacked clarity; clarity which I now have gained. I think. (Hark at her, how certain she sounds!)

I decided it was time to send some out to a trusted reader. Most of my readers are other writers. I will be having a long overdue meeting with my writing group when I go to Wellington in March (I say long overdue, but I have not been ready up until now). But in the meantime, I needed another type of reader. Not a writer-reader, but a reader-reader. So I sent it off to my friend Mary (not Mary McCallum fyi). What is great about Mary is that she is a very careful and intelligent reader. She will not only get excited for me if she is enjoying it, she will tell me exactly what works and why. She is the perfect person to send my first four chapters to because she will ask a lot of questions about what is going on, and then tell me whether or not I am answering them sufficiently.

I got a wonderful email back from her, saying all the things I needed to hear right now to give me the boost to keep on going. And I don't mean just unconditional praise such as you might get from your mum or husband, but useful positive criticism. From a very clever reader's perspective. She added, at the end, somewhat apologetically, that the new novel is more sophisticated and complex than The Sound of Butterflies ("not that there's anything wrong with The Sound of Butterflies," she said). And I wrote back and told her that in fact that was the highest praise she could give me, because any novelist's fear for their second book is that people will say "well it was OK, but it wasn't as good as her first one".

I'm looking forward to my writer-readers' feedback too, which will no doubt be more critical, but for now, Mary has given me the energy to keep going. You could say that she is that elusive 'perfect reader' I have in mind when I write my books. Now that she's given it the seal of approval, I can continue with confidence. Because sometimes a writer can't see the bloody wood for trees, and some outside help is what is needed. Thanks Mary.

A room of one's own no more.

At least, not for much longer. My residency finishes at the end of the month and after that I'm on my own - like most writers. How spoiled I have been! I got a bit of a tatse of my new life yesterday when I was at home with my son. I planned to do some power writing during his usual nap-time (usually about 1 1/2 hours). I put him down, sat at my desk, and after 5 minutes he was yelling to get up. So, no nap for him, and no writing for me. I dread to think that the excitement of having mum home has excised the need for a daily nap. Thank goodness for the times he'll be at creche (which he loves by the way).

I have been extremely grateful for the Ursula Bethell residency this year. It is such a fantastic opportunity: a salary and a quiet, roomy office, which equals time and space to devote energy to writing a novel. The English department at Canterbury is the perfect environment for a writer – it is friendly and very quiet and I have been left alone to get my work done.

I have made good progress on my new novel, tentatively entitled The Collectors, with a huge amount of research and a first draft almost completed. When I began the year I had a vague premise, an idea of where I thought it would be going and 10,000 words. Over the last 11 months my novel has changed into something far more intricate and ambitious and interesting than I originally envisaged. The residency has given me (or, has let me give myself) permission to explore ideas to the full rather than doggedly sticking to a plan and churning out something less satisfying, which is often the case when writing time is limited.

I was able to attend lectures on the 19th century novel, which fuelled the story and gave me ideas on intertexuality to create a many-layered narrative. These lectures were a highlight for me, not just for their usefulness but for the sheer enjoyment of rediscovering and analysing books I had read in the past.

Another one of the highlights of the residency has been the access to the university library, which has allowed me to use material that might not otherwise have been readily available to me. I will miss that resource when I leave.

During my time here I have also taught a night class at UC Opportunity (continuing education) and addressed two creative writing classes, and have been available for students to come and talk to me. I have been helping one student in her search to find an agent and a publisher. I also took part in a poetry reading at the University Bookshop on World Poetry Day in July. Spending the year in Christchurch (I normally live in Wellington) has meant other opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have had – helping out at the Christchurch Writers’ Festival and addressing a class at the Hagley Institute for example. I have been very warmly welcomed by the Christchurch writing community.

I will be very sad to leave when my time is up, and I highly recommend the residency to other writers. It is so important that residencies such as this exist as it is very difficult for New Zealand writers to make a living from their writing alone, and these opportunities ensure that good New Zealand books continue to be produced.

Are you a putter-inner or a taker-outer?

Not the most technical of terms, I know. As my first draft starts to move more swiftly and I work out just what I need to write in order to get there, I've been thinking about the different ways people write their first drafts. Some just write and write and end up with many more thousands of words than they need; their second draft, as well as reshaping and rethinking, is a process of trimming and cutting to find the essence and minimise the waffle. Others, and this is the way I seem to work, use the first draft to sketch scenes quickly and end up going back and filling them out and adding more scenes to expand the novel.

For example, in the second draft of The Sound of Butterflies, I remember going over each scene and slowing it right down. Closing my eyes and imagining myself into the head of whoever had the point of view. What were they thinking about? How were they feeling about what they were thinking about? Where were they physically in the space they inhabited? What could they see from their vantage-point? What did the air feel like on their skin?

Of course I don't necessarily put all these details into the scene when I'm re-writing it, but it helps me find what is important to the story and to the characters' states of mind. It fully immerses me in the character's point of view and enables me to write a more authentic scene. The result is often a more sensual experience for the reader I think, and helps create empathy for the characters.

The first half of my first draft tends to move quite slowly as I explore the characters and their voices (and doing research, but that's another post topic altogether), getting to know them to the point that I can race with more confidence through the second half to get the story down, knowing that I'll be coming back to flesh things out at the end when I know more about where things will end up.

The second draft isn't just about expanding scenes. It's also about a structural overhaul, looking at the pacing, adding a scene here and there to develop a theme or an aspect of the story that seems rushed or contrived or just wrong somehow. At this rate my first draft will probably only be about 60,000 long, but ultimately I know that the book will need to be about 75,000 to tell the full story that I need to tell.

How do you work? I'd be curious to hear from a taker-outer.

La Musica Delle Farfalle.

Piemme will be releasing The Sound of Butterflies in Italian very soon. It translates as The Music of Butterflies, which is quite lovely, I think. It is now also available in Greek as Ο ψίθυρος της πεταλούδας.

But enough about me. I'm sad to say that I have not seen Matilda the chicken at the bus stop since that fateful day. I'm hoping she has just found a new home rather than met an untimely end.

I am packing and moving house over the next week, so blogging may be sparse. Have a lovely weekend!

Morgan's Project - Books for Fiji

Hi, my name is Morgan Hayton I am 16 years old. I have spent my winter school holidays for two years in Fiji volunteering at local school as part of my schools mission team. We visited a very remote school that is struggling and has only handful books in the whole school, the teachers there can only dream of starting a library. Have you ever wanted to change the world? But think it is impossible because we are just one person? Me too. But then I came up with this idea. We are going to build a library together, one person, one book at a time. One person can't build a library but if everyone that gets into this group gets a book from their bookshelf (they don't have to be new) and posts it to Fiji we can do it together. We can build a library together.

Head Teacher- Laisiana Tabilai
Namara District School
Box 415
Nausori
FIJI

Please write your a small bit about yourself or family inside the cover the kids would love to know who you are and where to book came from.Look at my page from time to time and I will get some photos next year and you can see your library.

Thank you.

Roger Morris brought this project to my attention and I am sending a signed copy of The Sound of Butterflies along with a stack of children's books. It doesn't have to be a stack - just one will do. I think it's a really lovely idea, and I am fully in support of the redistribution and the sharing of words.

If you're on Facebook, you can join Morgans' group here.

On another note, I have been given this 'inspiration award' by Aspiring Writer.


Thanks Joanne! I'm supposed to pass it on to seven other bloggers but to be honest, Joanne has simultaneously given it to five of my blogger friends, so I'm just going to pass it on to my friend Marianne. It is appropriate in this post about donating books to under-privileged children as Marianne has long been an inspiration to try and make the world a better place. She is tireless in her humanitarian work, the most deserving person to give an inspiration award to.

Today.

Today is not 37 degrees. Hooray! Yesterday was so hot that I confess I retreated inside, closed all the curtains, doors and windows, set the heat pump to its cooling function and lay around groaning. Tomorrow will have a high of 17 degrees. It seems that in Christchurch there is no middle ground.

The bus stop where I catch the Metrostar to work has lately been home to a little chicken. I call her Matilda. She usually just hangs out under the seat, but sometimes she can be seen scratching in the gutter. She is very sweet.

Today there was a pile of chicken bones at the bus stop. Granted, it was rubbish-collection morning and a dog or cat could have just got into someone's rubbish to drag out the remains of a roast. Or perhaps Matilda has met her end. She wasn't at the bus stop this morning, but maybe she took the chicken bones for a Blair-Witchesque warning and has stayed away. Poor Matilda. I hope they weren't her bones.

Because I missed my bus, I sat outside my local favourite cafe (for once it was cooler outside than in) and had a coffee and did some writing in my trusty moleskin. I got chatting to a guy at the next table, and at the end the conversation went like this.

Him: "I thought I might write a book one day. It's an easy way to make millions."

A ha. Seriously.

Me (with hint of sarcasm): "Yes, it's really easy to write a book."

Him: "Oh, I know you have to do research."

Me: "And it's quite hard to make a living out of writing books, let alone make millions."

Him, with a look of incredulity: "But what about all those people who get rich off it?"

Me: "You mean, those two, JK Rowling and Dan Brown?"

Him (with a look that says they were exactly the writers he had in mind): "So if you can't get rich, why do you do it?"

Me: "Because I love it. I can't do anything else."

Him: "Exactly."

Huh?

But what about the writers?

I am an optimistic sort of a person. Apart from the odd moment of irrational fretting, I tend to think that everything will turn out in the end. So with everyone banging on about the state of the economy and the looming Great Depression #2, I have either decided it won't be that bad, or buried my head in the sand, whichever way you look at it.

Today I just had a pause for thought. With Bookman Beattie re-posting a Telegraph story about the closing of the famous Murder One bookshop in Charing Cross Road, and indeed Charing Cross Road's status as a beacon for booklovers being threateneed, and with that story coming after lots of other stories about stores going under, publishers (local and overseas) making massive cutbacks on staff and parties etc etc... I just thought: but what about the writers? Where does that leave us?

Because I don't think I've read anything about that. Does this mean that the books we are slaving over will get turned down by publishers? Will publishers stop publishing all but one or two block-busters per year? I heard Laura Kroetsch saying on Radio NZ National the other day that literary fiction will be the big loser on the day, but again, she was talking about the sales of the books themselves, rather than the authors of those books and where that leaves them in terms of whether their books get published at all.

This leads me on to all kinds of ghastly questions I might ask but suddenly I feel the urge for a nice sand-bath.

Thoughts anyone?

No rest for the wicked.

Or, in my case, the slow and lazy. In other words, dear reader, I won't be having much of a Christmas holiday this year as I only have two months left of my contract as writer in residence at Canterbury University (read: two months left of my office and salary). Next year, from March, will involve a lot of juggling - childcare, earning money to feed my family (hubby going back to study), finishing my novel. No pretty office of my own. No salary.

So I think you can undertsand why the next two months are critical to make as much headway as possible. I intend to finish the first draft of my new novel (working title The Collectors) in the next two months, which means around 5000 words a week and much more concentration than I have been able to muster all year. I think it's achievable. The reason I have been slow of late getting words on paper (apart from monstrous distractions) is that I have been immersed in research and planning, so the time has not been wasted. In fact, it was time well spent, because it means I am now in a position to put my head down and churn out the rest of the story. In theory.

This novel has so far been a constant source of surprise, delight, irritation and frustration. The Sound of Butterflies knew what it wanted to be right from the start. The Collectors did not. That is, it thought it did, which is why I bashed out 30,000 words in the first few months of my residency, but then I had to stop and re-think the whole thing. It necessarily got more and more complicated, and ambitious and wild, and just when I thought I was getting a handle on it, last week it decided it wanted to be something else entirely (same characters and basic plot, different raison d’ệtre). I have stopped being surprised by this novel and am going where it takes me.

Previous to writing this novel, I would have said I was the kind of novelist that more or less has a plan when the novel starts, but now I know I am not any one kind of novelist and every book I write will have a different process (just as every child one has is different I suppose, despite the same basic recipe). This first draft has been very much the 'exploratory draft' as described by the wonderful Laini Taylor in Not For Robots.

So I wish everyone a great Christmas break, but I will not be joining you, apart from maybe a couple of days to stuff myself with delicious food and drink. Already I seem to be the only one haunting the English department halls, and I quite like it. Watch this space.

Brown paper packages tied up with string.

I think the thing I love most about Christmas is wrapping presents for my extensive family. Here's a pile going off today to one branch who are off overseas for the holidays...