Jane Rawson's Blog, page 5

Does anyone still read books?

Australian writers are being assailed on all fronts at the moment. The government is keen to change the rules about whether bookshops can buy their books from an overseas publisher, rather than having to go to an Australian publisher. This has the Australian Society of Authors and many others super-riled.

Proposed changes to copyright are also freaking out a lot of writers and publishers. And of course there’s the cutback in government money for writers and publishers, with some people saying this is by far the biggest deal for those who create non-mainstream books.

I’m not an expert in the economy of book publishing – I barely understand the economics of my own book-creating situation – but it seems reasonable to think none of this will make it any easier to get a book written, published and sold in Australia. But it also all seems a bit beside the point, because the thing is even if the government was crying out to fully subsidise all our writing and publishing efforts and we could churn out OzLit by the bucketload, no one wants to buy it or read it.

Have you seen Roy Morgan’s latest polling on rates of reading among kids and adults in Australia? Apparently the kid stuff is good news, but I don’t care – I don’t write kids’ books and by the time they’re old enough to read my books I’ll probably be dead. But take a look at those adults figures. In the last three months, nearly 40% of Australian sheilas over 14 years old did not read a novel. They didn’t even have a go. And fewer of them had picked up a book than last time Roy asked ‘hey, what are you reading?’.

Blokes? Nearly 60% of them did not read a novel in the last three months.

This is not a line of people waiting to get my new book (Image by Ricky Brigante)

It’d be interesting to know what the figures were for the last year – I don’t imagine they’d be much more encouraging. If you don’t think ‘I wouldn’t mind reading a novel’ even once in three months, why would you think it ever?

It would also be really interesting, of course, to know what kinds of novels people are reading, and how often those in the ‘reading’ group pick up a new book. Given only 16% of Australian adults had bought a book in the last month, the figures among reading folk probably aren’t that high. And I’m guessing a lot of the novels that do get read are written by a small group of bestselling authors, most of whom are overseas, and that another fair chunk is books that have been out forever that people have finally got around to reading (maybe because someone just made the book into a movie).

As a loose guide, Booktopia’s ten best-selling adult fiction books for last year were (biggest-selling first) Go set a watchman, The girl on the train, Grey, The girl in the spider’s web, The lake house (Australian), Make me, A little life, Island home (Aust), The secret chord (Aust) and either Isobelle Carmody’s Australian The red queen or Michael Connelly’s The crossing, depending on whether you reckon Carmody’s work is for adults.

From which I conclude that the vast majority of Australians could not care less whether I ever finish my work of historical-science-fiction set on a shipwreck because they do not intend ever to read it. What’s more, if they don’t I shouldn’t feel miffed, because they were quite clear up-front that novels just aren’t really a thing they’re into, thanks very much.

So why does anyone bother writing? Pretty much no one wants to read books. There is no demand for books. No one is standing outside the bookshop door going ‘I’ve read all these! When is a new one coming out???’

There certainly isn’t any demand for Australian literary fiction. The Australian government doesn’t care if Australians keep writing and publishing books. And specifically, no one cares if my book ever gets finished or published.

I guess you do it, as David Lynch apocryphally said, for the doing. It’s good to be reminded now and again.

Are novellas the next small thing?

Avid watchers of the bookish pages will have noticed Nick Earls, who was a bloody big deal in my youth, has just released the first of a series of five novellas and has been all over the paper and virtual broadsheets talking about this thrilling new form. Inkerman & Blunt are the publishers, and it’s more a package than a book – a novella comes out each month for the next five months, and all five have been recorded as audiobooks by stalwarts of the Aussie soap and telly-drama scene.

Meanwhile, Seizure recently announced the winners of its fourth year of Viva la Novella. This competition produces ridiculously gorgeous books, delicious little physical objects that demand stroking (and, hopefully, purchasing; I say this because I’m a past winner). In its third year, Viva la Novella produced Marlee Jane Ward’s Welcome to Orphancorp, which has been shortlisted for the Aurealis and Norma K Hemming speculative fiction awards, shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Awards and won the Victorian Premier’s Awards. It’s a pretty big haul for such a little book.

Photo by Luke Siemens/Flickr

Perhaps even more astonishing was the inclusion of a book that is not only a novella, but an experimental novella, in the Stella Prize longlist. Jen Craig’s Panthers and the Museum of Fire is a fascinating and strange little book put out by Spineless Wonders, following a writer who shares a name with the book’s author as she walks from Glebe to Surry Hills to return a manuscript that she wasn’t supposed to have read but secretly has. Nothing happens and a great deal goes on. Panthers unsurprisingly didn’t make the shortlist – Australian literary prizes are notoriously conservative – but still, it’s a bit of a win for novellas.

In his many interviews, Earls proposes that the novella hits the sweet spot for an audience who’d rather read a tweet than a novel – they’re short enough that you can get through them before you get distracted. They’re also an excellent length for adapting to film or telemovie (and rights are available for Formaldehyde, anyone who’s reading…). I don’t know if the ‘short enough you won’t get distracted’ argument holds up – if a book’s gripping it’ll hang onto you whatever its length (witness the three volumes of The Captive Prince I devoured in about a week, refusing to eat, sleep or talk to anyone for the duration); if it’s dull, even if it’s tiny, you’ll ditch it on the slightest provocation.

But the thing is, despite the uptick in novella-themed column inches and the claims this is the book-size that will Bring Back Reading, it’s a form that’s been around, celebrated, read and loved since forever. You may well know that a whole bunch of the classic ‘novels’ are really novellas – most famously the ‘greatest novel[la] ever’, The Great Gatsby. But did you know that Nicholas Spark’s The Notebook, which was on the best-selling novel lists for over a year or something ridiculous, is – True Shocking Fact – really a novella. It’s a mere 38,000 words (or the same length as Formaldehyde which – not that I’m bitter – I was told several times by publishers was too short to be worth publishing. No one buys short books, they reckoned).

I love long books. I love short books. I’ll read just about anything, let’s be honest. Oh, except All the light we cannot see; don’t make me read that thing again. But because lists are fun, here are my favourite short books which may or may not be novellas.

Coming through Slaughter, by Michael Ondaatje
Come Inside, by GL Osborne (it says on the cover it’s a novel, but no way)
Slade House, by David Mitchell
We have always lived in the castle, by Shirley Jackson
Dept of Speculation, by Jenny Offil
The wife of Martin Guerre, by Janet Lewis
Bruno Kramzer, by AS Patric.
Too Loud a Solitude, by Bohumil Hrabl
Three men in a boat, by Jerome K Jerome
Eugene Onegin, by Alexander Pushkin

How about you? Do you refuse to read any book shorter than 55,000 words, and do you call publishers beforehand to check the word count of any book you’re thinking of buying? Or do you love short books and think all those books I’ve listed above are actually way too long?

Best feminist books I’ve read since last International Women’s Day

 

A quick post for International Women’s Day. Since March 8 last year I’ve read, oh, I dunno, about 100 books. Lots (most even) of those were by women. But these are my most favourite, most feminist reads of the last year. Links are to essays or interviews or other stories that focus on the feminist aspects of these books (except for the link to the review of Rebecca Lim’s book, because as far as I can see no one has yet done a feminist analysis of her writing: get on to it, YA bloggers).

How to be both, Ali Smith
The Neapolitan Quartet, by Elena Ferrante (I’ve only read three…)
The Unspeakable, Meaghan Daum
Deeper Water, Jessie Cole (a lovely review, but it misses an important part of the book: what a superb experience it can be to move around the world in a young woman’s body with all its feelings and sensations and strength and power).
The Astrologer’s Daughter, Rebecca Lim
The Blazing World, Siri Hustevedt
The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson
The Scent of Eucalyptus, Barbara Hanrahan

I hope you’re reading something that’s both feminist and exciting, enlightening, intriguing or eye-opening today – I’ve just started on Stella longlisted Panthers and the Museum of Fire, which may very well make this list next year.

Happy International Women’s Day!

My other job

Yesterday I went to the office from 8-5 and wrote about electricity bills and women in energy and wind power policy and then I went to Embiggen Books and interviewed Jasper Fforde. Here’s me and Jasper talking about whether you can keep ten thousand ideas in your head at one time (me: yes, with notes; Jasper: yes, with superb memory), should you ever leave some out (maybe), planning out your book (probably a good idea, but neither of us do), teaching yourself to write (he’s confident it’s better than classes, I could go either way), reading (he’s not that into it, I would rather do it than anything else), jokes (good x 2), writing a book that’s about what happens when you get inside things other people have imagined and forgotten (he’s thinking of doing it; I already did but politely didn’t mention it), Wales (haunted) and setting yourself ‘narrative dares’ to push a story along (two thumbs up from us).It looks in the picture like I’m doing all the talking, but I swear I shut up 90% of the time. Afterwards 40 people lined up to get books signed by Jasper and two of them – bless them – also wanted me to sign a book. It was a lovely night and if you’ve never been to an event at Embiggen, I highly recommend you do so. Afterwards I had a lot of wine with my friend Rose who has just won the Viva la Novella prize, and that was very good too.

Talking about tiny books

This year I’m doing more writing and less talking about writing, but I am doing this neat event, thanks to Wayward Books and the super White Rabbit Record Bar (where much of ‘A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists’ was written). Me and co-Viva la Novella winners Christy Collins and Marlee Jane Ward (whose book also won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award) will chat with Judy from Wayward Books about all things novellaish. If you’re in Melbourne, come along on 25 February. Event details are here

10 terrifying questions

Hello! Here’s an interview I did with Booktopia a while back, and which they’ve just published. They asked good questions.

In writing news, I think I’ve just finished the first draft of something new. You’re probably not supposed to say that; I’ve doubtless cursed myself now. Anyway, I’m excited about doing draft two.

In reading news, 2016 has been superb. Have you heard about that Elena Ferrante? Holy cow, those books are good. I have one left to read. And I also read Ali Smith’s How to be both and it’s my favourite thing in a long time.I just went and bought a copy at Readings St Kilda so I can read it over to try to figure out how she does what she does.

And in unrelated news, I saw the Flaming Lips last night and that reminded me how much I would like the things I write to be like the songs they make. I have no idea how to do that.

Best books I read this year (with unnecessary graphs)

Image by Magic Madzik/Flickr

This is a long one so you might want to get a glass of wine before you start…

Some books you could read

The books I enjoyed most this year (not necessarily the best books I read, but the ones that meant the most to me) were:

East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
The story of a new name, by Elena Ferrante
A fine balance, by Rohinton Mistry
The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson (2015) 
A death in the family, by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Life and fate, by Vasily Grossman
See you in Paradise, by J Robert Lennon
Clade, by James Bradley (2015)
H is for hawk, by Helen Macdonald
N, by John A Scott
The weight of a human heart, by Ryan O’Neill
Gold Fame Citrus, by Claire Vaye Watkins (2015)

(Click to read my reviews.) The Argonauts and N are both incredible, incredible books and I am indebted to James Tierney and Lisa Hill respectively for recommending them. Now you should read them too.

There were some great Australian debuts this year. Emerging Australian authors are very good and you would, in fact, be doing yourself a favour if you checked out:

And you may find yourself, by Paul Dalgarno – a raw, funny, bleak, gripping memoir about fatherhood, marriage and displacement
The secret son, by Jenny Ackland – Turkish and Australian families intertwine in a clever, finely executed piece of historical fiction
Resurrection Bay, by Emma Viskic – like crime? Try this. Caleb Zelic is a deaf PI whose friends are being picked off by brutal, mysterious forces
The end of seeing, by Christy Collins – a Viva la Novella winner and a beautiful thriller about love, disappearance and the search for asylum
Welcome to Orphancorp, by Marlee Jane Ward – another Viva la Novella winner. A smashing, harsh-edged and funny futuristic read about one girl’s struggle with an industrial orphanage.

Some books I read, with graphs

Look, I know a lot of people (particularly writers) hate Goodreads, but I love it. How handy is it to have a record of everything you’ve read and what you thought of it? Very handy. And now you get to reap the rewards, in the form of unnecessary graphs.

All these stats are for 1 Jan til 5 Dec 2015. Some of the numbers don’t add up because I’m not super-methodical at tagging stuff, and I read some collections with multiple authors.

 

 

 

This year I got a bit queasy about giving books star ratings. Some books have so many reviews there didn’t seem much point agonising over 3 v 4 stars, and some are by people I know and giving them a rating just seemed too odd. But overall, I read a lot of pretty good books.

 

This is a new field in ‘books unnecessarily graphed’. In my never-ending quest to hit on the formula for finding my perfect book first time, every time, I tried to keep track of why I chose the books I chose. I discovered almost nothing. I hoped I’d find that my favourite books were all by people I knew, or were exactly the books hyped in all the blogs and papers. But my favourite books were totally random. So much for that idea.

 

Some books I wrote

In case you missed it, I’ve had three books published this year. I know you’ve already read them, of course, but perhaps someone you know and love would like a copy too?

The Handbook – has some awesome DIY tips, great for people who hate stuff and think Christmas is stupid.
Formaldehyde – perfect for your weird niece or nephew, or someone you got in Kris Kringle (it’s cheap).
Best Australian Comedy Writing – includes funny writing by people who are famous and not me; ideal for people you don’t really know but who seem like they like funny things.

 

 

Funny and ferocious

Oh g’day. I’ve been doing Nanowrimo for the last month and my brain is utterly fried. Honestly, I doubt I’ll ever do it again, I think my brain is too old and brittle to deal with this kind of pressure. I can barely remember what my name is.

I can, however, remember to do some remorseless self-promotion. I am in two new things in the month of December.

One: Issue 12 of Tincture. Tincture is a digital-only literary magazine that you can nab here. My story, The Reference, came about when my husband lost his job. He didn’t leave on the best terms and he wasn’t sure what his old boss would say when called for a reference, so he asked me to pretend I was from some trucking company and give the bloke a call. It was awful. His boss wanted to purchase some services from my fake company, and he wouldn’t let me off the phone and he kept asking me questions… Anyway, I wrote a story that is a bit like that but not quite, because it’s a bit more ferocious. Even if you’d rather not read my story about a fake reference, you should get Tincture anyway because there are some insanely good stories in this issue. Australia has some incredible writers you have never heard of.

Two: Best Australian Comedy Writing. Luke Ryan and Affirm Press made my little heart beat a good deal quicker when they asked if they could republish a story of mine in this book. They told me that the story is funny and I am funny. It was one of the best days of my life. The story itself is pretty bleak (surprise surprise) but it does include a few excellent jokes. The good news is the rest of the book is actually genuinely funny, so why not buy a copy for someone for Christmas? (Note that I make no money from this book, so I say this out of the pure goodness of my heart and my great love of smiles.)

Coming soon: my annual list of books I read, unnecessarily charted. I bet you can’t wait.

 

Some Formaldehyde reviews

A little novella like Formaldehyde was never going to get much attention from book reviewers, so I’m really pleased to see a few reviews cropping up here and there over the last few months.

Ed Wright, who was super-kind about A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists a few years back, said Formaldehyde‘s ‘deliberate implausibility is refreshing’ in a review in the most recent Weekend Australian.
Declan over at Writerful Books says he was ‘fully drawn into this story with its weird and wacky characters’.
I managed to unsettle Stephanie at No-award for a second time running; she says ‘Jane’s fiction work often leaves me confused and slightly unsure (if ‘twice now’ can count as ‘often’); Formaldehyde is a part of that pattern.’
Rachel at Leatherbound Pounds follows up a great review of Unmade Lists  by saying Formaldehyde is ‘funny in the darkest, driest way possible. I laughed out loud and I was confused and I was shocked and a little bit sad. It’s surprising, quietly political and has a freshness that I enjoyed so much.’ You can read the review here.
And Alan at Readings reviewed all three Viva la Novella winners, saying Formaldehyde was ‘a delicious blend of science fiction and magical realism, of severed limbs and Russian novels … a baffling, joyous and addictive read’. Thanks, Alan!

Oh (na)no, it’s November again

Image by Barb Wewers/Flickr

Well, it’s almost November, so here’s a post about NaNoWriMo (if you have no idea what I’m talking about and wish you did, you can visit the National Novel Writing Month website here).

I’m going to do nano again this year: it’ll be my (counts inaccurately in head) seventh go at this thing. Seven. I think. One year I wrote about 100 words on November 1st and promptly gave up (though those 100 words did eventually get recycled into a short story that showed up in Sleepers Almanac one year). Another year I kind of cheated and wrote the 30,000 words I needed to turn a previous nano-novel into an actual novel-length manuscript.

Nano has worked really well for me. The kind of stories I enjoy writing seem to be generated by the frantic feverishness of having to hit an unrealistic word-count every day for a month. I am not a calm and patient crafter of beautiful, lucid prose. My 2000 nano effort was Formaldehyde, which was published this year (after 15 years-worth of rejection and rewriting) as a Viva la Novella winner. More recently, I wrote the first draft of A wrong turn at the Office of Unmade Lists over two Novembers. And I have another two very drafty manuscripts I’m still hoping might turn into something readable one day. This year, my plan is to add 50k words to my current, very slowly progressing ‘novel’: I’m hoping some enforced speed writing will give it the kick up the bum it needs.

A lot of people hate NaNoWriMo: they reckon it creates unrealistic expectations, terrible manuscripts and overwhelming feelings of failure in people who don’t deserve it. And sure: it’s not for everyone, because everyone writes differently. If you are already a disciplined writer, or you prefer to plan extensively, or you like to rewrite every sentence until it’s absolutely perfect before moving onto the next one, you don’t need and won’t enjoy the hectic pace of nano. (I’m also a big fan of the nano-compromise: setting yourself a smaller word count so you don’t have to totally wreck your life to produce a decent chunk of work. Why not do 35,000 words each year for two years, for example?)

But I reckon those who dismiss nano because it produces both sub-standard manuscripts (which of course it does) and unrealistic impressions of how books get written (which I think is unfair to participants: almost no one thinks you can write an actual publishable novel in 30 days) are missing the point. The point of writing – maybe any writing – isn’t to produce a publishable, saleable book. Almost no writing process will do that. However you write your manuscript, there’s next to no chance anyone will publish it. If someone does, you can safely assume very few people will buy and read it. I reckon the point is just to discover what it feels like to write a substantial work: that feeling of becoming immersed in your story, of dreaming about it, of having your characters take over their own lives, of discovering parts of your subconscious you never knew existed. And it’s the feeling of setting out to do something very, very hard and maybe even achieving it. These are joyous, worthwhile things. Even trying and failing can be a great feeling: it’s ok to discover that the thing you thought you really wanted to do you maybe don’t enjoy that much after all. It frees you up to get on with discovering the next thing you might like to do. Or maybe you’ll find you like to do it once, but never again: tick it off and move on to learning trombone or rock climbing.

Because for me doing nano is kind of like challenging yourself to run a half-marathon. You want to do something hard you’ve never done before, and you have a deadline you have to do it by. A lot of people who think they’ll do it will never get around to starting training, or will get partway through training and get distracted, or will train until the day and start the run and not finish it. That’s OK. Some people will do the run and think ‘thank god that’s over, I’ll never do it again’. Others will do it again the next year, or maybe two years later. Some will train to run a full marathon. And a very, very small proportion will make running a serious, everyday, important part of their life. The main difference is that professional runners don’t get on the internet and talk about how much they hate fun runs and how no one should take part in them because they produce an unrealistic sense of what the very important profession of running is all about. In running, people accept it’s OK to dabble, to just have a go. And I reckon in writing it’s totally OK too.

If you started reading this post because you were hoping you might get some useful tips and you’re now desperately disappointed, I recommend Anna Spargo-Ryan’s actually helpful 5 tips for winning nanowrimo with your head intact.