Novel Writing subject beginning...

Hello again

(I will get back to doing a blog on Hemingway soon if anyone was wondering.)

I have started to read The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis and I think it's cool the way he starts the novel in the middle of a sentence. His manner of narration is to write in first person with each section a different character talking about their experiences. It is quite an overwhelming style. Lots of telling, but it does draw you in with their voice and the subject matter.

The characters some of them if not all of them are very unlikable; they are hollow, bitchy, shallow, drug taking and hedonistic. I guess this book is like Less Than Zero was - nihilistic and a lot of sex and drugs and the meaningless of life. I did like that movie didn't read the book though.

I am enjoying reading something really different but I would probably not write something similar. There are some things I am learning from him, the conversational narrative voice style that I have always liked and often used. I really like that. But as for spending a whole novel talking about how they have abused, raped, disrespected, took drugs with, hated, how they were raped by two guys and more...I wouldn't do that.

I guess he made a very poignant point about his society in the 80's when he was writing. Commentators say he was writing about how hollow his generation was and the novel perfectly fulfills this function. It is superb at it in fact. I am definitely enjoying it though and I will probably have a look at Luna Park his other novel that people tell me is better than this one.

Starting university tomorrow. Yay! Hopefully, I can sort out tutorials so they fit on the day. I am looking forward to this subject I have wanted to do this subject for ages now.

On another note I have started to work on some short stories this weekend. I am thinking of submitting to competitions just as a way to give myself deadlines for my work. It is just a good way to keep disciplining your process and writing all the time, and getting yourself out there. Things are calming down in my life and I am going to focus on my writing now, a lot more.

Stay tuned for more about this subject and my writing including my poetry, that I seem to be writing more than ever. I never wrote poetry before, but now I am regularly writing short poems, enjoying words.

See you soon :) Say hi if you want to on here, it's nice to hear from a reader.

Documentary Subject

Hi again

I think my last blog sounded like I am not optimistic about my year ahead. This is not the case. I am very excited about the prospect of this year for the things that are happening. I am going to do a media writing subject at uni which involves script writing and documentary making! Something I have never done before!

How exciting! I have friends who are working with kids in Africa and other parts of the world and ever since I was very young I have wanted to help people. With a camera people can be helped a little easier, because other people can "see" what's happening more than just with words on a page, although we all know I love words on a page!.

I am excited by the prospect that I might have skills that could help people in a tangible way around the world. Ever since I visited Nepal years ago I have wanted to do this. Actually, before that. That is why I became a journalist to travel and shed light on people's struggles around the world. Somewhere on my journey the path veered off from this.

However, it's not over till it's over. So now I am still contemplating my subject choices and whether to enrol in the Masters or stay in my current course. There are lots of considerations in my life - probably most of which I haven't gone into on my blog.
But I will keep you posted on these subjects.

I am missing the Hemingway world I just left and I am looking for a new book to dive into. Maybe if I do the novel subject I will be reading novels or if I do Advanced Narrative then I wont have novels to read...now I am just rambling.

See you at the next post.
:)

Poem that received a Highly Commended award in the WARM Writing Competition 2010

This poem expressed my emotions following the death of a close friend. As I have said before I am not a poet, however at the moment, poetry is all I am writing.

Breath

Breath is all that separates,
Me from you,
Now…
So often lately,
I have to remind myself to exhale,
My torso holding my breath in,
Like an unconscious desire,
I have to tell my body to release the air.
Let it escape there.

Cause deep down I know,
It is this simple thing,
These air vapours passing across my tongue,
They are all
That separates me from you.

You lay on the road,
Your life was going,
That day I became breathless,
For no real reason,
But now I know why,
Cause you were leaving,
My body knew.

And now I remind myself,
Breathe, Sue,
Breathe…
Cause sometimes somewhere deep,
I must remember,
It’s all that separates me from you.

Uni, internet and trying to absorb everything for dialogue.

Hey anyone who's interested.
I haven't posted for such a long time. I have started uni which is really great. I live for it every week. The feedback from 20 other people reading your work is a bit grueling but also exactly what I wanted. The lectures are informative and fun. It feels like such a luxury to sit and talk about writing - compared to when I was an undergrad and I studied some subjects that weren't that exciting. Or rather weren't my passion.

But focusing on writing for three or more hours a week is heaven for me.
Craig Bolland is a really interesting and informative lecturer. He did a lecture on voice which was really great the other day.

Something I have been learning recently from being online and meeting people who connect from all around the world via a blog or your website or whatever. I have come to really appreciate chatting to people from different places, and in relation to writing we can learn a lot of nuances of language. Uk ways of speaking, American slang, people with English as a second language it is all so useful. If you are typing or chatting to someone it is very conversational and a great way to pick up how to write dialogue. It is right there for us to see.

On the internet words are the only thing you have. So I am learning that it can help my writing, particularly of dialogue and this is a pleasure. I always used to hate dialogue but after a course a few years ago I discovered the liberty and beauty of dialogue. How the author can say so much in dialogue, or in what is left out of dialogue?

I used to hate it and think I couldn't do it but now I have fallen in love with it. I am writing more stories with more dialogue in it than before. Hemingway wrote so much conversation and it was dynamic and real and harsh sometimes but it put you right there in between the two people.

So, I am really enjoying exploring dialogue, especially in relation to have different opinions expressed in a short story or novel. A character might think this and someone else might think that. This seems very exciting to me, inserting ideas into the narrative and showing differing opinions. The web of life, the beauty of the world.

Also, if you chat to writer friends I have found I start to tell stories to them. In a story way, (I think I do this in conversation too). And one friend and I were writing a dynamic comedy together whilst chatting. It was fun. I can feel the life of language on the internet. I haven't felt it before.

Craig mentioned this in his lecture, exploring different voices and tones going on the internet and playing around - he mentioned pretending to be someone else which I won't do. But the other stuff I can really understand how it can help to generate ideas, remind us of what dialogue and conversation looks like on a page.

Anyway, I have handed a short story in to uni and I will be having a consultation in another couple of weeks. So depending on how I go, I may or may not talk about it.
(: No I probably will share about the feedback.

See you later. Feel free to comment if you wish, it's always great to hear from people.
(:

Editing Using my Imac

The other day I discovered an effective editing technique for myself. I had heard it said that you should read your work out loud to see what works and what doesn't. I had tried this before and it didn't seem to work for me. Then after playing around with Garage Band on the mac I realised I could use the audio recording facility to hear my story read back to me. Then I could do more versions and read it out loud and edit it as I could hear the things that weren't working and I wanted to change them.

When the story was merely the words on the page it didn't have the same effect on me as hearing the problems read out loud. It seems to make it more tangible when you read it out because you feel as if you are an outsider to the text. Hearing a story is a really good way of seeing whether the dialogue works or the text is flowing correctly. If the sentences are too long or not clear enough. For me this has provided another dimension in editing. For a longer piece maybe you could take one chapter at a time and read it out. It would have to be after the whole manuscript had been written.
I am starting my Grad Certificate in a couple of weeks and I am very excited to learn more, write more and to receive feedback from others and from a lecturer. Bring on July 21.

Lost some of my work...

Don't you hate it when you have written something you are really happy with and then you discover you have saved over it or lost it? Well that is what has happened to me. A part of my novel that I enjoyed writing has now disappeared. Dissipated out into the air. The words, letters that created the piece have gone. 

I want to be like Peter Carey and Ernest Hemmingway who didn't care. Peter Carey said he routinely threw out good writing to challenge himself to do even better work and Ernest Hemmingway in A Moveable Feast lost his whole first novel, left it in manuscript form in a taxi. He didn't care that much. They had a robust attitude to their writing and didn't believe in holding onto things. I will get to that soon. I will write the piece again and it will hopefully be better than it was before. That is very possible- everything needs work after the first draft anyway. 

Anyway I wanted to write this blog, knowing there will be other writers who have had this happen and can empathise with me. One must let go and hold our pieces lightly. If I wrote it once I can challenge myself to do it again. 

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.