Rebecca Bloomer's Blog, page 4

Something Different

The ladies at my writers group today, pointed out that it's been a long time since last I blogged.  My apologies, I've been a bit busy.  In the last few weeks, I've done a number of workshops for Logan City Libraries, where I had a great time and learned a few things.

Getting to express my love of books at Logan Central Libray

I'm learning new things everywhere lately, whether it's from my son who is a walking encyclopedia, new aspects of my daughter or interesting tidbits from my writers group.

At my writers group recently, one of the members explained the process of accessing different ideas,perhaps from a different hemisphere of the brain.  The process for doing this is really simple and I encourage you to try it out, just for something different.

First- Write your name at the top of a page and

Second- Number two columns on the page from one to ten

Third – Using your dominant hand, write a list of personal characteristics in the first column.

Fourth – Cover that column of writing

Fifth – Using your non-dominant hand (in my case my left hand), write a list of personal attributes in the next column

Sixth – Compare the columns

At first I thought this was one of those self-fulfilling things.  People are convinced the columns will be different, therefore they are.  Today, I sat down and tried it out myself.  The column from my left hand was completely different from the column my right hand produced (and I'm not just talking about the handwriting either).

I'm thinking now, that this activity will be particularly useful on Saturday when I present my workshop on Characterisation for the Queensland Writers Centre.  Imagine doing this with a character's name rather than your own, or even answering character interview questions with both hands.  You could end up with a much more well-rounded character.  I like it.  I think I'll try it

By the way, if you're looking for a workshop on characterisation, I'll be in the State Library, upstairs at the Writers Centre from ten am on Saturday morning.  Look forward to seeing you there!

Kids & Cafes

I watched a program last night wherein it was reported that a local council had banned children from drawing in chalk on the footpath outside a local cafe.  The cafe had been providing the kids with chalk in an effort to keep them busy and happy while their parents got their cafe experience.  After the report, a presenter commented, "Would they rather kids happily drawing with chalk or whingeing and whining in the cafe because they don't want to be there?"

Frankly, I think the council is being ludicrous but that's not the point.  The point is kids don't like cafes (hell, in general I don't like cafes, they're pretentious, boring and overpriced). You can tell kids don't like cafes because of the frikkin' whingeing and whining.  Sooo, here's an idea; instead of treating your kids like they're accidental attachments to your formerly kid-free, cafe-hopping existence, consider them beings you brought into the world because you were ready for a change in lifestyle.  Get your coffee to go, walk your kids to the local park (take your friends with you if you like)and set them loose on the playground while you get your caffeine fix.

There will be three advantages to doing this. Firstly,  your kids will get some running around and exercise into their day which will wear them out a little, thus making your life easier when you get home.   Second, the childless people in the cafe will dislike you less.   Lastly, you'll get brownie points for being a good parent.

Try it out, see how it goes.

No, you are not more talented than everyone else…

Today my writers group discussed plotting. We  covered everything from noting basic plot points, to graphing points of rising action to circular plots, the heroes journey and how an external journey should be mirrored by an internal journey.   We discussed the way twists of a plot expose characters, how plot gives scenery purpose and movement.  I explained that plot helps keep backstory from becoming the story.  Most importantly we came to the conclusion that eventually, everyone must plot their novel.

Plotting is the beginning of the 'work' part of writing.  It's all very well to collect ideas, cuttings, photos and stimuli.  At some stage all this creative collecting, needs to lead somewhere, preferably to a dynamite ending.  If a plot isn't linked, clues aren't dropped and pieces aren't subtly joined and related, readers feel cheated, deceived and ripped off.

For me (and coincidentally Derek Hansen whom I heard speak at a writers festival one year), the end is the perfect beginning.  I never put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, until I know where the story is going.  The last scene in my manuscript is so clear and beautiful in my mind, that I can describe it in vivid detail long before I know the rest of the plot.  Before I start, I'm longing for that ending.  I don't know where that ending comes from, I just know it's my end goal.

So, when I was telling my group today, that I'm currently Jonah in the guts of my whale, in the process of working my way out at about fifteen hundred words a day, they had one main question.  "Do you reread each day, before you start again?"  I replied "No."  Then they wanted to know how I do that, how I keep on track without back checking.  The answer is simple, "I'm not writing backward, I'm writing my way forward to the end of the story.  I've got my plot points, so I know where I've been and I know where I'm going."  Every now and then, while writing, I'll knock up against a previously plotted moment and have a little celebration.  A mini-milestone moment.  Eventually I'll hit the last one and type 'the end' (maybe it will be all in celebratory , tear smeared capitals).

I am not, however, a natural plotter.  I'm a character driven writer.  As such, I don't plan minutiae, I just mark the points of rising action, the climax and the end point.  The funny thing is, I don't think many people actually are natural plotters. Knowing that, I get a chuckle when aspiring writers wriggle and squirm, in an effort to avoid doing something that seems so mundane and boring as a prelude to a creative act (after all, graphs belong with mathematicians not writers).  Without fail, they  make excuses, tell me this is not how they work, explain that it's all in their head and worst of all, that even though they're a hundred thousand words in…they're not sure of the plot yet.  My response is always, "Go home.  Plot your story".  Because honestly, everyone, everyone, one way or another, at one time or another, has to plot their story…and no…you are not more talented than they are.

P.S.  I promised this video to my writing gang, so here it is: 

Kids, Libraries and Workshops

Check out the new poster that lovely librarian, Jo Beazley created for my school holiday workshops.  If you've got teens interested in writing and happen to live in the Logan area, be sure to book them in and bring them along.

Writing, an Upside Down Cake.

Why is writing a book like baking an upside down cake?  Well let me tell you, this comparison only occurred to me while I was peering through my oven door at an upside down plum cake tartin.

Writing any book or story is very like baking.  First we get all the ingredients together.  When writing, this involves characters, settings, themes, timelines, researched information.  Anything at all that we think might make for a tasty story is gathered up and kept close by.  Then we need a way to put it all together.  That's the plot.

Just as with baking, things have to go together in the right order.  Step by step, with appropriate timing, care and attention.  If you mess with the method, you end up with a whole mess of quality ingredients that don't come together as a complete, whole, product.  Same with writing.  You can have great characters, brilliant setting, even good dialogue but if you can't combine them in a way that's purposeful and easily digested, then none of those fab ingredients mean squat.

Lastly comes the baking process.  Proofing, editing, redrafting and so forth.  Anybody who's ever baked knows that the oven must be at the right temperature when we submit our cake.  Too much proofing and editing, and the story becomes generic, overly careful and tough to chew.  Not enough attention to this final process, and the end result is sloppy.  Those fine ingredients that are perfectly mixed and blended, need just the right heat (generally from an editor) to bring them to their ultimate perfection.

But that could be any cake, right?  It's not only upside down cakes that require all this tender loving care.  You're correct.  However, this is why upside down cakes are unique and so similar to the writing process.

.  With normal, right-way-up cakes, you can watch them through the oven door, even poke them with skewers to be sure they're done.  The end result with those babies is generally pretty certain.  With an upside down cake, Even after the ingredients and plot are perfectly and cleverly baked, you still can't be entirely sure.  Will the fruit/toffee combo stick to the pan?  Will it be soggy in the middle.  Will the topping actually taste good post bake?  With every upside down cake, the moment of 'turning out' has been, for me,  a moment of prayer.  "Please god let it be good.  Pleeeeease let it work.  Let them like it. "  That's the bit that always makes me think of writing.  As passionate and inspired as I feel while I'm writing, as helpful as my critique partners and editors are, in the end I always find myself praying. "Pleeease, let it  work."  Because you never know until it's turned out and eaten, pardon me, read!

Drawing on walls

Over the last couple of days I have been 'decorating' (some might say graffiti-ing) the wall above my desk.  It's a blank wall upon which hubby has been threatening to hang

On the left, my bowl of prayer beads, on the right, all my notebooks. I use them as well as wall space!

paintings.  I've beaten him to the punch though, and created my own space above my new little desk.  This is a huge relief because finally I've gotten all the stuff in my head OUT of my head.  Now I trust that I will not, cannot forget it, because it's all right here, in front of me.

Until now, I've always kept a notebook of plot, character, dialogue etc etc but this version of planning and mind mapping is actually rather exhilarating! I don't feel the need to write on lines, stay within a space or order my thoughts.  My neighbour was mortified when I told her I'd drawn on the wall.  "Why?" she wanted to know.  "Why didn't you hang butchers paper or something?"  Honestly, there's no good reason and I have no excuse, except…well…have you drawn on a wall lately?  It's so much fun!

Lyrics from a song about Charles II and notes about his reign

Suddenly I understand the attraction for kids.  Yes, I'm pretty sure that as a child, I got more than one smack for drawing on walls but gee, it's my wall and if I want to draw on it, I will.  Besides, they're water based pens, they'll wash off when I'm ready.

So this is how I plan.  Cutouts, images, maps, quotes, translations, arrows and research.  Characters are filled in and decisions are made.  Believe it or not, there's an entire book  almost completely plotted out on that wall and staring at it is how I resolve any issues I may encounter when I write.

Obviously some people are more orderly than I.  I watched a woman on television the other day, who has a folder for each chapter and everything she writes down or cuts out, goes into the appropriate folder.  My chapters aren't apparent until I'm writing, so that won't work for me.  I've met another author who uses

Notes, job descriptions, poetry...

Scrivener and all her stimulus pieces are computer-based.  I don't think as clearly when staring at a screen as when I'm staring blankly into space…or at a wall.  When I'm at my computer, I'm being purposeful not dreamy or imaginative.

As such, I highly recommend drawing on walls.  It's great fun, feels fabulous and is very helpful when it comes to jogging memory or stimulating ideas.

The Finishing Touch

Yesterday was the inaugural meeting of the new writers group started at the Runaway Bay Library on the Gold Coast.  We are a diverse group, interested in a variety of different genres and all a different phases of our writing and writing careers.  I think that rather than being a difficulty, this diversity is what will lend our group interest and strength.

I've never been responsible for organising a writers group before so was a little anxious about how it would go.  I think it was great.  I should have known better than to fret.  When you put a group of writers around a table it never fails to become a storytelling event, and this was exactly the case with our group.

One of the first things we needed to do was choose a name for the group (especially so that I could stop referring to us as 'the group' in my blog).  Creativity and humour leant all the possibilities an appeal.  Some of the suggestions were:

Writers Block

Desperate Authors

Finishing Touch

The Write Stuff

Dream On

Myself, I preferred Finishing Touch, as it felt nice and positive.  Also, this is what I need the group to do for me.  I need them to keep me on task.  I need them to expect things from me.  I need them to expect that I will act like a writer and actually write! (I've been a bit slack with that lately).

As a group, we also decided that we need to feel purposeful.  It won't be a group that is about chitchat, it'll be directed and helpful.  When I can, I'll get other writers and industry people to talk to us about their field, their methods and experiences.  We're also going to refer to a lovely little book called 'The Weekend Novelist' which will hopefully help to step people through the process of producing a finished product.

All in all, our meeting finished on a very positive note and I'm really looking forward to the next.  For a girl who never was a 'joiner', I think this is going to be a wonderful new experience!

Authors and reviews

Today I received a fabulous new review for Foley Russel and That Poor Girl, and naturally I cried while trying to read it out aloud to my hubby.  That's right, didn't cry while reading on my own, I had to cry in front of others.  Anyway, it got me to thinking about the relationship between writers and reviewers.

It's a tenuous relationship.  Less obvious than that between writers and editors or writers and publishers, but a relationship nonetheless.  Still, I'm yet to figure out exactly how it all works.  After all, I've read a lot of books that got great reviews and even won awards, but which I thought were nigh on unreadable.  Too wordy, pretentious or abstract for me to actually care about either the story or its characters.  By the same token, I've read books which were absolutely bagged by the reviewers but that I truly loved.

I think these discrepancies are proof positive that assessment of writing, like assessment of most art, is almost entirely subjective.  Different people like different things.  Some people adore Picasso's 'Blue period' for example, me…not so much.  It doesn't mean the art is no good, it just means it's not for me.  Obviously, the more people who love something, the more likely it is that you will too, the creation has something about it that is generally appealing.

General appeal, or universal popularity, requires a large number of people to actually participate in assessing the work.  That makes reviewers like treasure hunters.  They find things that are as yet undiscovered, and start appraising it, which is a tricky job if you think about it; and I'm well aware that a reviewer's opinion is not always right.

All that said, reviewers are readers and that's why their opinion affects me.  I want my readers to love my stories.  I want to feel like I've created a little something special for them…and it thrills me when they say I've succeeded.

So, Oprah Has A Half-Sister

Well, me too.  It didn't take me fifty years to meet my sister though, only twenty-one.  Because I have had the chance to meet my sister this way, I'm always fascinated by how other people deal with this kind of information.  I noticed that Oprah had questions for her mother.  Questions that revolved around how the baby came to be and why she was adopted out.  Questions with fairly obvious answers if you consider the times during which the adoption happened.

I never had those questions.  Maybe I never had them because my mum volunteered information.  Maybe I never had them because I don't care.  How my sister came to be adopted is not the best part of the story.  How she came back, is the bit I like.  The fact that she remains, is my favourite thing yet.

I visited my sister recently, and, typical of us, we spent the entire time laughing, joking and telling stories.  For me, being around Jules is like taking a giant big lungful of laughing gas.  Not because she's a clown (although she is pretty funny), mostly because just being around her makes me inordinately happy, joyous even.    I'm thrilled, every time, that I get to be around her. Is it some kind of hero worship that I would have gotten over had we grown up together?  Maybe, she is pretty heroic.  Is it that I now have a possible genetic match should I ever need a bone graft or a kidney transplant?  Hmmm.  Is it because when I'm with her, I get to be the younger sibling?  It is kinda nice.

Whatever the reason, I love it and I have no further questions.

Cultural Exchange…

People often talk about how difficult it is to move into a different culture.  I've never had that problem, in fact I've found the opposite to be true.  I pick up accents like other people pick up souvenir teaspoons.  Entirely new languages don't even daunt me too badly.  New dress codes, religious beliefs, diets, modes of transport, forms of handwriting…no worries.  Been there, done that.

There is one problem though, the ease itself.  In moving to the Gold Coast recently, I found myself happily ensconced in a new community.  I make new friends relatively easily too.  This new community though, is glitzier, more youth oriented and more inclined toward gold sandals, than I have ever been. So it shouldn't have surprised me that when having coffee with a new friend recently, she said "So I've been offered some discount rates on botox.  My friend Sharon** and I are going to get it done this afternoon.  Wanna come?"

Do you know, I almost said "yes"?  In my new world, this is what women do.  They get haircuts and they get botox.  They exercise where nobody can see them, until they think they look good enough to be seen.  So it wouldn't have been odd for me to say "Sure, just let me grab my kryptonite credit card and I'll be there in ten."   It was odd for me to say "Nah, I think I'm right for now thanks.  You have fun though."  I could tell I'd surprised her by the look on her face.

I'm thinking now, that it's not the change of culture that is difficult, it's the maintenance of self as you do so which can be come an issue.  Well, maintenance of self and maintenance of facial expression!

**not her real name!