Moving Forward

My novel in my mind and on paper is moving forwards. I am really keen to get a first draft done of this novel, and then start rewriting. I am reading The Dirty Beat, by Venero Armanno. A great book full of beauty, empathy and strong characters.

There is something mysterious in art, a piece of work that takes people to a different place, like the Heart of Darkness did to me when I was a teenager, transported me, mesmerised me, and like the Snows of Kilamanjaro did to me at university and the Unbearable Lightness of Being, Cry the Beloved Country and many other books. They draw you in and change you. They affect you and remain with you for the rest of your life. Well that's what good books do to me, profound books. Not just a book that is enjoyable but ones that affect you for the rest of your life.

Some books I enjoy their style and structure and I admire the way the novel is written but there are other books that remain forever dear to me, close to me, intimate friends. Music can be the same, intimate. I would love to create something close to this.

Novel is moving

This morning I am so pleased and thankful that my novel is moving forward. Some great themes and plot and character developments are forming, in my head anyway. I have also decided (thanks to some of my friends in YON) that I am going to set myself a deadline of February for a complete draft of the novel. There has been a cloud over this novel for a little while now and I am grateful that it is lifting. Just keep going until the draft done and then be prepared for many revisions.

Veny said in the last YON class about how Peter Carey wrote ten versions of the Ned Kelly book in different points of view until he completed the one he was happy with. I can understand starting from scratch because sometimes it is hard to just move words around, sometimes you need to totally reconstruct the scenes and action etc. Anyway, that's sometimes how I feel.

I am just going to keep moving forwards. Work, life and doing things for other people in our lives take up a lot of our time so when the creative flow starts to move, we should hold on tight and ride it like a white water rapid, until we reach the end of river.

Reading, writing and inspiration

Once again I have quiet for a few days. Last week was noisy, but nice. I revel in quiet in my house. In fact, I feel the need to keep working rapidly because I know this time may not last forever.

I am reading Veny's book The Dirty Beat. It is rivoting. I am half way through and I only started yesterday. It is great to read something that I can't put down, some books I find exceedingly difficult to read. I went to the book launch of The Dirty Beat the other night, that was enjoyable.

I thought I would post up a picture of the forest in my backyard - because as it is getting warmer I am going to write more of my novel from my back veranda which looks out over this beautiful forest with black cockatoos cawing and wallabies standing to attention in gaps in the foliage.

Silence, listening, reading...

This post is going to be a little rambling, as sometimes my posts are. I have not had silence for weeks and maybe months and most people in their daily lives do not have a lot of silence. I think writers need more silent times than other people. These are the times when we are thinking, creating, dreaming and hearing the voices of our characters or seeing our characters lounging on their couches, or arguing with their partners, or crying or laughing, basically, and weirdly, they are living.

I love this quote from Kate Eltham from the QWC (I am loving what she writes on the covering letter every month, I never used to read them and now I always read her musings.) which says:

"... writers who understand. They understand that I'm staring vacantly out the window because I'm thinking about my story, and not because I am a bit funny in the head. They understand that it is normal to have conversations (out loud) with my characters when I'm driving to work. They understand because they, too, are writers." (July QWC Newsletter).

Hemingway talks about listening to Gertrude Stein rant and rave about other authors and writing, even though he didn't agree with her. He just listened anyway. Listening is a lost art, I think. People exchanging ideas and politely listening until others have finished.

An inheritance that I hate the most from television, videos, games, music, modern culture is the way we don't listen to each other anymore. It's like our attention span is zero! That is what I notice about the current situation. However, there are people who listen well and these people are less exhausting to be around. I like to hear about other people's lives and stories. We will not learn anything if we lose this art altogether. It will just be about our own opinions and views on the world and there is not exchange of relationship or ideas. There is nothing interchanged between the people in conversation unless they both listen at some point to one another.

I had a great trip to Brisbane on Monday, in which I met with my friend Jenni Messina. We chatted about writing our novels, our occasional impatience with the process and our writing styles. It was wonderful to be with another person who feels the same as me and listen to her experiences and finding they were similar to mine. This is always good.

As a side point: I was extremely chuffed by Veny's comment about my chapter from my novel that it was: "extremely evocative."