Peter Carey, Paul Auster, Ian McEwan

I really enjoyed watching Peter Carey, Paul Auster and Ian McEwan on ABC recently being interviewed by Jennifer Byrnes.

It was great to hear the perspectives of three men who have written for many years. I have followed Peter Carey's writing for the past few years, especially since I was able to interview him and after studying some of his work at university.

Anyway, it was great to see what Paul Auster was like, his thick accented deep voice with a slight lisp (I think), his New York perspective, his giving and unassuming personality. Ian McEwan and his story about getting into writing because he never wanted to get a job.

The thing I was really encouraged about was when they all agreed that every book they come to write is a NEW challenge. I would've thought that once you had written ten or fifteen books your techniques are there or something and then you know where you are going (they would do to some degree) but it is refreshing to know that each book presents a new adventure of discovering how best to write THAT particular book.

Peter Carey said all of the books he wrote before he was published set him up to write Bliss, and then writing The Illywhacker (which he said was extremely challenging) prepared him to write Oscar and Lucinda effortlessly. I remember Bob Dylan saying, also in his early career about all of the songs he had written up to the point contributed to him writing Like A Rolling Stone effortlessly.

I can see the value of simply writing, practicing the craft.

My violin playing provides another lesson for me. I have to practice every day to get the techniques and get my fingers moving effortlessly across the strings. I have seen an improvement in the 6 or 7 lessons I have had. Applying this to writing, I need to just keep doing it and each time hopefully I am absorbing (unconsciously) technique. I have finally started to write my novel again! Random scenes. I haven't written it for ages, lots going on in my life, and I have been writing poetry which has been great too, to use words in a more free flowing way.

I am going to remember that even writing veterans like Peter Carey and Paul Auster come to each book and feel like it is a fresh challenge, a new unchartered writing journey. This fact encourages me. I want to keep writing so that maybe I will be able to say all those novels, stories and poems I wrote that maybe not many people knew about, prepared me to write another piece effortlessly.

Emerging Writers Festival Melbourne

I flew down to Melbourne for the weekend, specifically to check out the emerging writers festival and to see some friends. Melbourne delivered characteristically chilly weather, the Town Hall where the panels I attended was ostentatious, regal and beautiful all at the same time.

The festival was refreshing. I love the well established writers festivals. I really enjoy listening to published authors talking about their work or how they managed to get where they are today, the struggles and triumphs or intellectuals discussing some high philosophical subject matter. However, it was refreshing to attend a festival where people who have not yet become well known were featured on panels and were sharing their knowledge. Where the "not yet" writers or the emerging writers were acknowledged and their experiences were shared in open forums and discussions about how to make it when you are undiscovered or what to do when you are undiscovered.

There was an interesting panel on getting your work out into the public arena, with discussion of a poems on menus, buses, trams, when you wait for a coffee at the counter, on sign posts on a mountain trail. Getting your work out into the public arena where it can be read and appreciated or not as the case may be.

Spoken word and zines were discussed, web techniques, self publishing, book distribution, marketing, blogging of course, all of these things were discussed as well as editing, quality of work and attending courses. Though a lot of things I had heard many times before, some of what the individual emerging authors had to say was a fresh take on certain aspects and I appreciated this.

The Zine and Small Press Fair was wonderfully creative. Little match boxes with life paintings inside on miniature match box size canvases, comics, zines, boxes with concertina illustrations, drawings, mini shots (Vignette Press) which is one short story per little booklet, so many gorgeous items, skillfully constructed, inventive, inspiring and interesting. It was a pleasure to attend the festival. It inspired me to continue with some ideas I have had of late. Hi to Simon Groth who chaired one of the panels I attended and did a great job.