Second Album Syndrome or Writing Book Two

 

Killcare Beach

You’d like to think that after writing a book that’s picked up by a literary agent, the writing of book number 2 would come easily, wouldn’t you? But second album syndrome is alive and well in my creative neck of the woods.

Having been told to start writing book two IMMEDIATELY, by my agent (pause for a moment while I let the words ‘my agent’ sink in), I did what any self-respecting writer would do; I had a creative meltdown.

It sounded a little like this.

Start a whole new book? How can I start a whole new book when I’m creatively exhausted from writing the first book?  Find all those new words? Again? How can I do that when I have (practically) no idea what the second book is actually about.? Haven’t I done enough? I don’t want to do this again, it’s way too confronting. What if it’s terrible?

Cue – the sequel.

That seemed like an easy straw to grasp, but even that proved to be very slippery to hang on to. But it was something. So, with no idea where it might take me, I wrote a Chapter One, hoping that some miraculous epiphany would occur. It didn’t. But at least I had a chapter.

In a state of mounting panic, which has yet to fully subside, I went away for 4 days at great cost to the family I left behind. My husband, who paid the bill, my 23 yo daughter who became the live-in nanny for my 6 yo daughter and of course the 6yo daughter who doesn’t think her mother should go anywhere without her.

I made the 1½ hour trip up to Killcare on NSW’s Central Coast and made myself at home in a 2 bedroom cottage with a wonderful deck overlooking the ocean. and for 4 days I thought about Book Number Two. Away from the everyday clutter and distractions of my life, I could let my thoughts roam. If I was  being filmed by a fly-on-a-wall documentary team, this is what those 4 days would like.

Me having a leisurely breakfast of yoghurt and fresh fruit on the deck with the view. Then, after a second cup of tea, a walk down to the beach for a trudge along the sand and a swim and a bit more trudging.Tthe trudging would lead me to the local cafe for a coffee and a catch up on all things internet, emails, Twitter, Facebook, the odd phone call. All necessary, no procrastinating here. Then back up to the cottage for a light lunch and some scrawling, or looking through magazines for visual prompts. It was pretty taxing, so I’d have a little nap before some more afternoon scrawling and scribbling. By which time, I was thirsty and needing a glass of wine. Then dinner at the local club and of course uninterrupted TV viewing and book reading.

It might not sound like work, but by the end of those 4 days, I had worked out a roadmap for the story and had the bones of the first 2 chapters on which to hang the flesh of a story. I can’t go away every week, or conduct my normal life like this, but removing yourself from the distractions, giving yourself permission to think, to let ideas form, to listen to your characters is invaluable. And that’s how my first book was written. In the moments when I shut my brain off and let the ideas percolate, brew and take shape. It was written in the writing myself into the story and not dictating from above, basically, by getting out of my way.

How many of the words or ideas will actually make it into the final draft of book 2, I have no idea, but it’s not important now. I have made a start and that is what matters.

Watch this Space…

I was so excited to be invited to contribute to this project and all will be revealed soon…

 

Back in the Saddle

It has been, as they say, a long time between drinks.

So long, in fact, I’ve gone beyond parched and am rapidly approaching shrivelled, dried and the merest touch could see me crumble away. But now I’m just being melodramatic.

I don’t really know why I stopped blogging regularly. Life happened. I followed other creative pursuits, like knitting my husband a sweater and there was, of course, the small matter of the manuscript. The rewriting, the editing, the coming to grips with the rewriting and the editing. The realisation that as hard and challenging as the first draft was, it was nowhere near as hard as the rewriting and editing.

The first draft was like the drawing of young child. Free, liberated, unconstrained – except by my own doubts – it could flow where it wanted to and I was happy to follow it. Now my wonderfully free-spirited child has to be disciplined to suit the genre, the publishable, the marketable qualities that are needed to move my manuscript from being a long held, quietly nurtured dream, into a fully formed reality.

It’s not easy.

My first edit which was meant to see about 20,000 words cut from the 105, 612 I’d written, resulted in about 3,000 words hitting the cutting room floor. And I realised just how brutal I was going to need to be. All those words I’d fought for, gazed out of windows searching for, got up in the middle night to jot down before I forgot them, they needed to go.  Anyone who’s ever been to a writing workshop will be familiar with the term ‘killing your darlings’, and that is what it feels like  and for me it is accompanied with a fear that these may be the only words I ever had. That new words won’t form, find me on the ferry, seek me out in the hushed quiet of the sleeping house or flow from my pen at the State Library. The fear is not so much that I only have one good book in me, but, that maybe, I only have one good draft.

But cutting 20,000 words isn’t enough. I need to lose more because there will be new words to add, characters to flesh out, new scenarios to create. Then there will be the  seamless weaving in of the new with the old. At least that’s the goal.

I’m currently on draft number four. How many more I’ll need to work through I have no idea. But I remember the words of author Pamela Freeman – ‘You will only ever be as good a writer as the number of drafts you are prepared to do.’ And I think I am only now beginning to fully appreciate just what she was trying to tell the wide-eyed group of writers, hanging on her words at one of those writing workshops.

Alex Miller Inspiration

I’m reading Autumn Laing by Alex Miller, two-time winner of Australia’s premier literary prize, The Miles Franklin award. He writes beautifully, intelligently and with wit and like all good storytellers he understands how to keep the reader reading.

Last night I was just placing my bookmark into the crease of the page but my eyes flicked across a sentence that immediately kept me reading. I was very tired after a busy weekend, and sleep was beckoning, flirting, but couldn’t compete with the seductiveness of a sentence that had me reading for another half an hour.

‘Something of great importance to me happened two nights ago.’

Really? I asked myself, and of course I had to know. So today’s prompt is this sentence from Alex Miller. I think it’s a great opener, but if you want to incorporate into  your piece, that’s fine too.  Set your timer for 5 minutes or write about 500 words. If you’re looking for specific feedback, please let us know. Otherwise – enjoy the writing.

I chose to set my timer and see where my pen might lead me.

'Two Nights Ago'

‘Something of great importance to me happened to nights ago…

…It was, as these things often are, unexpected. The moon had  hung in the sky, a yellowish orb, casting light across the water. The boat wallowed, inelegantly instead of  skimming over the surface. He sat across from me, nervously pretending to busy himself with a sinker, threading the green prawn along his hook. He cast his line, cleared his throat and then said nothing. A disco boat, all UV lights and pink glow sailed by. The woo-hooing of the women shrill and penetrating. We both pretended not to notice.He glanced across at me as the disco boat rounded Peacock Point, leaving a pink fan in its wake.

‘Patience and quietness are what’s needed for fishing.

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box of blue velveteen and placed it on the seat between us, ‘Good for a wife too.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

Write on Wednesday – Alex Miller Inspiration

This week I have a very special guest staying with me – Write on Wednesday.

I’ve been a Write on Wednesday regular for sometime now, and I’m very happy to be helping Gill out this week. If, you’ve stumbled by here and have no idea what Write on Wednesday is, or why I’m writing about it on a Monday, WOW is an online writing group. A weekly creativity fix that allows writers to share their words and receive support, encouragement and feedback from other writers. Some writers have ongoing pieces and characters they’ve been working on, others use the weekly prompts to flex and exercise their creative muscle.

WOW is normally at Gill’s blog, inkpaperpen, but for a couple of weeks, it’s on a roadtrip while Gill takes some R & R.

Alex Miller's 10th novel, Autumn Laing

I’m reading Autumn Laing by Alex Miller, two-time winner of Australia’s premier literary prize, The Miles Franklin award. He writes beautifully, intelligently and with wit and like all good storytellers he understands how to keep the reader reading.

Last night I was just placing my bookmark into the crease of the page but my eyes flicked across a sentence that immediately kept me reading. I was very tired after a busy weekend, and sleep was beckoning, flirting, but couldn’t compete with the seductiveness of a sentence that had me reading for another half an hour.

‘Something of great importance to me happened two nights ago.’

Really? I asked myself, and of course I had to know. So today’s prompt is this sentence from Alex Miller. I think it’s a great opener, but if you want to incorporate into  your piece, that’s fine too.  Set your timer for 5 minutes or write about 500 words. If you’re looking for specific feedback, please let us know. Otherwise – enjoy the writing.

I’m so sorry – I’ve been ‘Adding’ a new collection when I should have been ‘Creating’! Hope this all works now. I’m so not into blog technology!!

 

 

The Beauty of a True Masterchef

For all of you missing Masterchef, a little teaser, an ‘amuse bouche’. This is only a short film, but it shows Peter Gilmore creating  & talking about a dish inspired by snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef. Gilmore is owner and chef of Quay, Australia’s top restaurant and voted in the world’s top 50 restaurants last year.

I was really taken with the use of the tweezers, the surgical precision used to create something of such temporary beauty and pleasure.

I celebrated my wedding anniversary here a couple of years ago and enjoyed a gorgeous lunch on a sparkling Sydney Spring day, overlooking the Opera House and Circular Quay .I still remember the warm, friendly service and the small details that created dishes that were delightful to look at as they were tenderly placed in front of us onto the crisp linen table clothes and the melt in your mouth, exquisiteness of the delicate flavours. A perfect lunch.

It comes courtesy of nowness.com, one of my favourite websites for art, fashion and the fusion of beauty and ideas.

Enjoy.

To My Bright Star

The Write on Wednesday Spark: Dear…
This week’s writing exercise is to write a letter. Write an open letter or write to someone more specific. Write a letter between two fictional characters or write a letter into a fictional piece you are already working on. Think  about how differently you write depending upon who you are writing to. Your content in an open letter may differ to content in a private letter.

Wherever the prompt takes you. Keep your post on the short side: up to 500 words OR a 5 minute stream of consciousness exercise. Link your finished piece to the list and begin popping by the other links. Oh, and enjoy!

The linky will be open each week from Monday to Friday. If you are playing the game, try to visit the other linkers, at least three of four would be nice. Encourage, critique and support your fellow writers.

You can find the link at inkpaperpen

 

Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider as Fanny & Keats in Bright Star

Tess,

My Bright Star, I wish I could write you a love letter like the poetry of Keats, but instead I’ll steal from Wordsworth – If I could fill this paper with the breathings of my heart, it would be infused with a love which has refused to dim. It would whisper of years lost because of my arrogance. It would be spotted with tears wept because I lacked your courage. It would be folded in an envelope of hope that you might yet give me another chance.

Really, all it needs to say is, I love you still and always.

Jake

 

Keats wrote the beautiful poem, Sonnet, to his lover, Fanny Brawne. It’s their relationship that is depicted in Jane Campion’s film Bright Star.

Bright Star, would I were stedfast as thou -art

Not lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task,

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores.

Or gazing on the new sot-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors.

No- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair loves’s ripening breast,

To fell for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest.

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever -or else swoon to death.

 

The Wordsworth quote is ‘Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart’ and is on the wall above my desk to remind me why I write.

Taking the Risk for Creativity

Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon

 

‘follow passion, encourage talent, be creatively opportunistic’ – Graeme Murphy and Janet Vernon

Over the last few months, I’ve been to a number of theatre productions. Stage, ballet, contemporary dance and music. Some have been extraordinary. The boundaries of creativity pushed, where  an engagement between the performer and audience beyond a passive show and tell experience, has been demanded. Others have pushed, taken risks, but not quite achieved that perfect intersection of ideas, performance, design and delivery.

One of the productions that didn’t quite work for me was Graeme Murphy’s production of Romeo and Juliet for The Australian Ballet. The set design, costuming, performance and much of the choreography were spectacular. But the central drama, the emotion of the narrative, was lost amongst the busy-ness. Murphy’s desire to convey the universality of the story and themes overshadowed the poignancy and tragedy of the ‘star-crossed lovers’.

Romeo and Juliet

And I say that as someone who has admired Graeme Murphy’s work for nearly 30 years (ooh – that hurts! But I was only 2 – okay 20, when I first fell in love with his Cupid skateboarding down a ramp in the Sydney Dance Co.’s ‘Daphnis and Chloé). Murphy’s reworking of Swan Lake is hauntingly, heartbreakingly beautiful and still moves me to tears when I watch the DVD.

Murphy is not only a sublime choreographer for ballet, musicals and film, his productions for Opera Australia are also fabulous, sumptuous and original. Going to a Murphy production will always be interesting, will always have moments of breathtaking genius and creativity. Even the productions that are not ‘successful’.

As a writer I am inspired by Graeme Murphy and his partner and creative associate, Janet Vernon. They are risk-takers, willing to explore and experiment, to gamble with the possibility of failure in a very public sphere. It takes courage, commitment and a belief in your ability and talent to allow yourself to be so publicly vulnerable. It is easy to be ‘safe’, to write without challenging yourself or your reader; to adopt an attitude of ‘settling for’ rather than pushing through.

And for me, much of my procrastination centres on the knowledge that ‘settling for’ will not satisfy me, and yet, pushing through, the risk-taking, can be a daunting prospect.

I’ve yet to bulldoze my way through the envelope, but I have stepped through and then retreated. Working on my 2nd draft, the editing and re-writing of my novel I realise that now is the time to bulldoze.

Wish me luck!

Watch the skateboarding Cupid, danced by a very young Paul Mercurio.

Possessing Beauty – The Collection

The Write on Wednesday Spark:  Possessing Beauty
Write about a collection. Write about something you or ,someone you know, collects. Think about the “why” behind the collection – why is it important to collect this particular thing? How does it make the person feel to add another piece to their collection? Is the group of objects there to be seen, to be studied or simply kept together? Write a real life story or a piece of fiction. Wherever the prompt takes you…Keep your post on the short side: up to 500 words OR a 5 minute stream of consciousness exercise. Link your finished piece to the list and begin popping by the other links. Oh, and enjoy!

The linky will be open each week from Monday to Friday. If you are playing the game, try to visit the other linkers, at least three of four would be nice. Encourage, critique and support your fellow writers.

Write on Wednesday is hosted by – inkpaperpen blogspot

 

My fingers run across the fabric, reading the texture as if it’s Braille. The delicate, fragile appearance hadn’t prepared me for the ridges of hand-cut lace and the stitched thread weaving its way across the plain linen. A cloth that has spread across tables of meals and conversations; protected, adorned and then forgotten. Folded away in a drawer or boxed in a cellar until finally released.

The cloth, with its secrets, its yellowing age spots, is piled with layers of other people’s lives, other families’ stories like the books on the table next to it. And why choose this one and not the one under it or the one that covered it. Often I don’t really know. Perhaps the design of the embroidery, or the texture of the fabric whispers to me in a way the others do not. Maybe it reminds me of a cloth that belonged to one of my grandmothers or my mother. But whatever the reason, this is the one that I need to take home. To carefully launder, clean of the fusty antique shop smell that clings to its fibres.

But it isn’t always old material that I take home to my bower. Fabric shops lure me in with the same siren call. I buy lengths of fabric for the beauty of the design and colour and then wonder what I might do with them.The irony for a lover of textiles, a hunter/gatherer of cloth, is that I’m not a great seamstress. Although I’m always optimistic that my basic ability will flourish into a yet to be revealed talent.

Some pieces I frame, so instead of decorating tables or worn as a scarf, they on my walls. A Japanese handkerchief, traditional Lao embroidered collars, a silk wrap from an Art Gallery. Fabrics too delicate to wear. Fabrics that I want to look at, dream and reminisce with.

I don’t know why I’m so drawn to textiles. Could it be that I hanker for a time of substance, when materials were kept and treasured, not made from disposable fabric with the intention of being used once only. Is it from peering into cupboards as a child and searching out my favourite doilies, tablecloths and linen hand towels to use at my grandmothers’? I don’t really know, other than it’s a way of bringing beauty, colour, and design into my life. Of mixing the old with the contemporary. An expression of my personality and the incredible satisfaction and happiness of finding an object beauty.

Writer’s Back

 

Most people wouldn’t think of writing as a physical activity. It’s a solitary, sedentary activity accompanied by the tapping of keys or the scratch of pen across paper. A strenuous brain activity, a mental exertion. Although, those who don’t write assume that it’s not hard for those of us who do write, a natural talent that comes, well, naturally. If only that were true. And if only my back didn’t tell me that my bouts of writing are also a physical exertion that takes  it toll.

There are periods of time (sometimes as long as a month) when my back doesn’t bother me at all. Usually this is a good indicator of the amount of writing I’m doing – not much. And then there are times when my back and neck ache, tighten, send pins and needles down into my wrists and leave with me headaches which a dose of codeine and a sleeping tablet are the only cure.

I walk, stretch, use heat packs and have a close relationship with my osteopath. I do yoga and ballet all to help my back and neck from totally seizing up, but the best thing I could do to relieve the pressure and strain on my spine is to stop writing. But that just isn’t going to happen.

Last weekend I had a massage, something I’ve looked on as a bit of luxury, time-wise and budget-wise. Before I completely spaced out, as the hot stones were placed along my backbone and the aroma of goanna ointment filled my head, I realised two things. Firstly, the mental space, the dream-like world you enter in such a nurturing environment, frees your creative thoughts and it’s amazing how many tricky problems can be resolved in quite unexpected ways. Secondly, that having the tender, tight muscles along my back, across my shoulders and into my neck so soothed by the massage is so beneficial, it should be deemed an occupational workplace safety feature, like Blundstone boots on a film set.

So, just as I try to regularly nourish my creativity, I am now going to have regular massages for my writer’s back. I’m not going to consider it a luxury, but a necessity for the longevity of my writing career and the communal sanity of those near and dear to me. I have too much writing and rewriting to do to be blocked by my writer’s back.