Lili Wilkinson's Blog, page 11

And one more thing

I know I already did this rant, but I'm not quite finished.

A few of the NaNoHaters have been begging for us to pay as much attention to reading and readers as we do to writing and writers*. And, um, we do. More, in fact. I've just spent the last eight years working in an organisation that does just that.

Here in Australia we have the MS Read-a-thon, the Reader's Cup and the Premier's Reading Challenge. There are Summer Reads and One City One Book programs all over the world. There's Edinburgh's Carry a Poem campaign. There's BookIt! and Reading is Fundamental and Reading For Life and Read Across America. There are interscholastic Reading Olympics. Jamaica has a National Reading Competition. Hawaii has a Celebrate Reading Day. 2012 is Australia's National Year of Reading. We have Book Week and so many readings, panels, launches, festivals and book clubs that even the keenest reader could not possibly participate in them all.

At the moment the Inky Awards are on – Australia's only teenage choice book prize. It's an award for readers – readers get to select their favourite books from Australia and overseas. But my favourite part of the Inkys? The part that makes me proudest for bringing to life? The Inkys Creative Reading Prize. Which not only celebrates readers, it gives them an active role in the creative process. Readers make a creative response to a book they love – in any format they choose, whether it be fan fiction, music, video or cake**.

I'm sure they don't mean it, but the journalists*** ragging on NaNoWriMo kind of sound like they're saying that only True Artists are allowed to be creative, to make things, and that the role of the plebs is just to consume their output. I also find the inability to separate the dirty business of making money and being "famous" from the sheer pleasure of creating something out of nothing, a little disturbing to say the least.

Reading a book or watching TV or seeing a play is like breathing in. Writing, painting, playing, sewing, baking – that's all breathing out. Human beings need to do both. Not just artists. Not just journalists. Everyone.

_____________________

*And let's face it, the participants of NaNoWriMo are NOT the ones we should be trying to get to read more. They read plenty. That's why they write.

**There were TWO cake-related entries last year. Om nom nom.

***Also. I'm sure I don't need to point out the journalistic hubris of whinging in public – in print – about how other people's writing is a waste of time.

Some thoughts on NaNoWriMo

Over at Salon, there's this piece by Laura Miller about how NaNoWriMo is a waste of time and energy, producing a "self-aggrandizing frenzy" of crap writing that nobody will ever want to read. She suggests that we shouldn't squander our applause on writers, but focus instead on readers. Which is all very well, but I can't help feel she's missing the point.

Sure, there are some people who write 50 000 – or 150 000 – turgid words in November and immediately foist them upon every agent and publisher in the book come December 1. But frankly I expect that's a minority. I know a lot of people who have attempted NaNoWriMo. Nobody's ever asked me to read their writing. Nobody (that I know of) has submitted their novel to a publisher*. When I ask people why they attempt it, they don't say 'because I want to sell my book and be famous and make lots of money'. They say 'For the challenge. To prove I can. Because writing is fun.'

Writing and crafting a novel takes a very long time, and a lot of patience. That first, rough draft is just the tip of the literary iceberg. People know this. In fact, people who have tried NaNoWriMo probably know it better than most, because they see how much work goes into a very rough draft, and can see the miles and miles there are to go before it will be publishable.

I like to sew. I don't want to be a seamstress. I like to sing in the car. I don't want to be a musician. I'm trying out printmaking. I don't want to be a visual artist. So how come people trying their hand at creative writing get demonised for being "taken over by the narcissistic commerce of writing"?

The idea of people spending a whole month of the year being creative every day, writing, thinking, imagining, crafting – I think it's awesome. And if there are a few people who take it too seriously, then don't take them too seriously. Just like how we shouldn't let uber-political correctness spoil Christmas.

Having said all that, I'm a bit of a hypocrite. Because I do NaNoWriMo in the hope that my book will eventually be published. But writing is my job. The book I'm working on at the moment will be my seventh novel, and I've come to find that doing a mental braindump of ideas and story very quickly is good for my creative process. I work better with a rough draft that I can then craft and polish into something I'm willing to show my editors. And then they help me craft and polish it even more until it's something fit for the eyes of readers. I like the pressure and friendly competition of NaNoWriMo (even though my chances of completing this year are very slim). I have no delusions about the quality of my early drafts, but as Neil Gaiman says: you can grow some beautiful things in crap**.

___________________________

*except, well, me. And that was after nearly a year of thinking and revising.

**Simmone Howell pointed out that the crap needs to be turned before the beautiful stuff can grow, and she is right. But you still need the crap.

The demographic speaks

I came across this blog post by Audrey, a 13 year old USian. Audrey interviewed her friends about what they wanted in a YA novel. It's something I've been thinking a lot about lately, as I'm editing one book and just starting to write another. Someone asked me the other day who I wrote for, and I replied: smart, funny, flawed teenage girls.

Here are some of the things Audrey and her friends said they wanted to see more of, that I want to write more of:

people who are smart, funny, and maybe a little out there
Mysteries, theft, and murders
Mysteries where you have to think/predict what will happen, mysteries that aren't obvious.
Characters who are super smart but then makes a stupid mistake
Characters with a really ironic sense of humor, characters who get the humor in bad situations
Characters who speak their minds, characters who are opinionated
Interesting explanations of non-interesting things
Characters who betray other characters
Inside jokes!
characters who are unique, who aren't perfect.

Some of the other interesting things that came up were more beautiful people, tall people, unusual names, British accents, foreign languages and sport. And less psychopath teenage killers/druggies, dark brooding boyfriends, talking animals and VAMPIRES. Hurrah!

So, Audrey and friends. I'm writing books for you guys. Please keep reading.

NaNoBegin

So today's the first day of NaNoWriMo, and I have to say, I'm not really feeling the excitement this year. We're down at the beach for the long weekend. It's a nice day. There are dogs asleep at my feet. Perfect writing conditions. But so far this morning I've eated toast, done internetty things, written this blog post, organised a kris kringle and stared out the window.

Maybe I just need to get into it.

Or maybe I should take the dogs for a walk.

PINK behind-the-scenes

Hop on over to Spike to get a special behind-the-scenes peek at Bruno Herfst's design for the PINK cover.

Musical help required

The only problem with writing That Book About Rock that I've been thinking about for ages, is that I don't really know that much about rock. I mean, I like it. I listen to it. But I'm not nerdily proficient in its trivia and anecdotes. Luckily I live with someone who is, but I want more! At the moment I'm reading The Penguin Book of Rock & Roll Writing, and Rock Chicks: the Hottest Female Rockers from the 1960s to Now.

What musical books/films/documentaries do you recommend? Fiction and non-fiction. I just need to get into the mood of it all.

Editing

Well, I had an amazing holiday. We met some reef fishies. We ate some reef fishies. And their shellfishy cousins. We spent a lot of time on our pool-lagoon balcony, basking in the warmth, refreshing beverage in hand and surrounded by pistachio shells. We even went to an aquatic driving range, where I learnt that a) smacking a ball into a lake is fun and b) I'm not very good at it. But now I'm home, and it's time to start editing Pocketful of Eyes (aka Next Book).

My fabulous editor has gone through the MS and marked it up. A lot. It's always a bit daunting at first. The page I'm avoiding working on at the moment has about 50 tracked changes and comments, which is about one change per eight words. If the whole MS is like this, there'll be about 9000 edits altogether. This is why editors are scary awesome.

Most of the edits are tiny things, like formatting and punctuation. So it's pretty easy to skim through and approve all those. Then I go through and fix the simple queries, like "rephrase this" or "omit that". Then the things I can fix immediately. The really tricky queries are the ones that affect multiple points in the narrative. Where I have to figure out what day it is, or change something major about a character's behaviour/dialogue. Those ones go last.

It's a bit overwhelming at first, but once you get into the rhythm of it, it's quite fun. Especially since I know that with every click, my book is getting a little bit better!

Resigned

resign

vb

1. To submit (oneself) passively; accept as inevitable: I resigned myself to a long wait in line.

2. To give up (a position, for example), especially by formal notification.

3. To relinquish (a privilege, right, or claim).

I did the second one. It's all a bit scary, but as of January 31, 2011, I will no longer work at the Centre for Youth Literature. I've been there for nearly eight years now, so it's a been pretty good first job.

I started working at CYL when I was completing my Honours year at Melbourne Uni. Just a part-time admin job that I saw in the paper. When I googled CYL (or ACYL as it was then), I saw they were putting on a conference called Reading Matters, and DAVID ALMOND WOULD BE THERE. I was instantly determined to get the job, so I could meet David, who was one of my very favourite authors (still is).

The CYL Manager was Agnes Nieuwenhuizen. I kind of knew Agnes, because:

I used to go to CYL events when I was in primary school.
Her husband John was my high school librarian.
She lived around the corner from my family home, and used to come into the cafe I worked in.
Mum had been part of the Booktalkers program when her book Ramose first came out (this was pre-Dragonkeeper).

I got the job, and it kind of redefined my life. I had majored in Media at Uni, and thought I wanted to be a filmmaker. My best marks had always been in creative writing subjects, but I chose to ignore that for the more glamourous life behind a camera.

But as soon as I was at CYL, answering phones, opening mail, processing cheques, I started reading YA again. Well not really "again", because I never stopped. But I read it more. And loved it. And it didn't take long to realise that this was what I wanted, what I'd always wanted, ever since I could remember.

After a year of part-time admin at CYL, I was offered the slightly more glamourous position of Event Coordinator, specifically helping with the Library's 150 Books, 150 Years, 150 Words project, celebrating SLV's 150th birthday. I ran a competition and curated a mini-exhibition of 150 great Victorian YA books.

A couple of years later we started Read Alert, CYL's blog, and we won an Arts Victoria Industry Portfolio Award for it (blogs were new and exciting, then). Then along came the funding opportunity we'd been waiting for, and we were able to scrape together enough money to build Inside a Dog, which I project managed – and still do. Inside a Dog is getting a bit long in the tooth nowadays (it was created before Facebook went public), so I'm spending my last few months at the Library working on a full-scale redevelopment. It'll be awesome.

Oh, and I've been writing as well.

Nearly eight years after seeing that admin position advertised in the paper, I have five books published and contracts for another four. I'm published in seven countries and have won an award and been shortlisted/commended for a bunch of others. I feel ridiculously lucky to be in such a position, and thankful for all the trust and help and encouragement I've had along the way.

But all good things must come to an end, and although I've loved working at CYL, it feels like the right time to move on. New Inside a Dog will be my shiny and wonderful legacy, and it's time for someone else to put their own paw-print on it. So as of February 1, I shall be really able to put "author" as my primary occupation on my tax return. And of course the great thing is, as a writer, I'll still be around, and see all the same people as before, just in a slightly different capacity.

And who knows, maybe one day I'll get to be on the CYL program, instead of behind it!

resign [r??za?n]vb

Books with beats

So I'm thinking about the Next Book, and thinking about music… and books about music. It's a tricky thing to do, because it's hard to describe music without hearing it. And there's nothing more irritating than a character who whips out a guitar and pens some emo lines to Express their Feelings. So what works?

Here're some of my favourites. What are yours?

King Dork by Frank Portman

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

Rose by Any Other Name by Maureen McCarthy

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway

Band names

You convinced me, Internet. I shall NaNo once more. Mj is going to do NaAlWriMo and write (and record) an album, so the house will be a very creative place for a month. And because there'll be music all around, it's probably about time I wrote that music book I've been thinking about for a while.

And as I'm a planner and also procrastinating from about a zillion other things, I started thinking about band names for this book. And turned to a bunch of lists that I saved years ago from a long-dead website, and came up with some options. Which do you like best? Which shall I use in the NaNo?

(these ones are all weird job titles)

The Brilliandeers

The Bucket Chuckers

The Grizzly Workers

The Hand Nailers

The Sulky Drivers

(these ones are all names of dances)

The Demented Seagulls

The Little Favourites

The Dainty Duncans

The Wooden Nickels

The Grand Starry Nights

The Daft Willies

The Black Bottoms

The Squash Blossoms

The Cockle Shells

The Hussy Brides

The Shim Shams

The Savage Whims

The Aw Shucks

The Bright Corners

The Hasty Puddings

The Toy Giraffes

The Emptied Cracks

The Smoking Bishops

The Missing Ducks

(and these are types of mushroom)

The Mudwort Smuts

The Beefsteaks

The Earpicks

The Slippery Jacks

The Black Bulgars

The Sickeners

The Horns of Plenty

The Jelly Babies

The Twisted Deceivers

The Black Trumpets

The Stinking Parachutes

The Humpbacks

The Booted Knights

The Tar Spots

I love them all.