Lian Tanner's Blog, page 15

Molly K’s art

If you’ve been following this blog for a while you will know that I adore receiving fan art. And every now and again I get something really special.

These are from Molly K, a young artist who lives in the US and loves The Keepers. (You can see more of her work on her Facebook page.) I put up her picture of Broo a few weeks ago, but now I have a whole stack of pictures that she very kindly sent me. Here are some of my favourites:

Sketch of Goldie

Sketch of Toadspit

Sketch of Bonnie

Goldie, Toadspit, Bonnie and Broo in front of the Museum of Dunt

And the picture of Broo again, because I love it so much.

Wonderful, yes?

Secrets, speeches and the new governor

I am pleased to report that New Book Mark II is going well. All the frustration that was dogging me when I was trying to write New Book Mark I seems to have vanished. Instead of jumping from scene to scene in a desperate attempt to find something that interested me, I’m now working from the beginning and enjoying it a lot.

So why is it so different? (I’ve been trying to work that one out all week.)

1. I really like the two new central characters, who kind of bobbed up out of my subconscious. They weren’t intended to be the main characters, or particularly heroic, so they came out of my fingertips interesting and fallible and quirky and a bit strange. The previous main character was a rather boring mix of Goldie and Petrel, carefully designed to be heroic, and therefore rather bland. Why did this happen? Because I was thinking too much. Trying too hard. Worrying about whether people would like her. (Note to self: this is a mistake. Don’t do it again.)

2. All the characters I’ve met so far really really want something. And they’ll go to extraordinary lengths to get it. What’s more, the things they want clash rather nicely. So – conflict, straight off.

3. There are lots of secrets. Oh how I love secrets! Especially the ones that, if they are discovered, will probably result in death or imprisonment. (That sort of thing makes people behave in all sorts of odd ways.)

4. I’m no longer trying to force particular characters into the story when they don’t want to go in. (see #1)

The curious thing is, I probably wouldn’t have found this story if I hadn’t started writing the first one. It’s all part of the process really, and it only seems like a backward step.

Anyway, this week I’m plunging further into it. All the most important characters are together now (I think), but so far they’re all hanging onto their secrets. Which is going to make things harder and harder for them. (Bahahahahahaha …)

Also this week I have to write a speech. We three judges have at last decided on the winners of the Premier’s Book Awards, and the announcements are being made at Government House on 2nd December. Along with the ones we decided on, there’s also a People’s Choice Award. That’s the one I’m introducing. No idea what I’m going to say yet, but I’m looking forward to meeting the new governor, Professor Kate Warner, who I have heard lots of good things about. And Government House always has nice nibbles.

A very odd turn …

Those of you who have read The Keepers trilogy will probably remember that Goldie was often guided by a little voice in the back of her head. It led her into trouble and out again, and once she got over her distrust of it, she relied on it a lot.

One of the reasons I wrote about that little voice is because I believe very strongly in instinct. I think it’s something most of us have, if we will only listen to it. My instinct isn’t a nice clear little voice, like Goldie’s, but it generally lets me know pretty quickly if I’m doing something that’s wrong for me. And I ignore it at my peril.

I use my instinct a LOT when I’m writing. It tells me if I’m working on something that my head likes but my heart doesn’t care about, and vice versa. Because of course a good book needs both head and heart – it’s such a long journey from first idea to finished manuscript that, if part of me isn’t enthusiastic, I’m probably not going to get to the end.

This last week, my instinct has been shouting at me. ‘Your main character is BORING! BORING BORING BORING!’

Whoops.

That’s not good.

But it explained a lot of the uncertainty I’d been feeling about the plot. And it’s better to find out now, when I’ve only written 20,000 words, than when I’ve got a whole draft.

So I thought about it for a while. Where’s the energy in this story? Which parts am I excited about? Which characters are busting to do more?

And the answer was: That character who was just an afterthought, who was only going to come into the story once or twice. That boy. HE’S interesting. I want to know more about him. And that other girl, the one with the chicken. She’s interesting too.

I suspect this story is about to take a very odd turn. I’m going to chuck out most of what I’d written, and most of what I’d plotted. And I’m going to see what happens. I WAS aiming for a first draft by Christmas. Now I’m aiming for a new outline by Christmas. In one way it feels like a big step backwards.

But at least my instinct is happy.

A working title

I like to have a really good title before I start writing a book. It doesn’t always happen – with Path of Beasts I was more than halfway through the book before I got the title (which was suggested by my US publisher). But if at all possible, I want it sitting at the very top of all my files before I write a word.

Why?

It keeps me focused. Helps me remember what I love about the book. Makes it all seem possible.

Sometimes I end up with a working title that gets changed before the book comes out. My working title for Ice Breaker was [trumpet fanfare] Frozen. Oops. Just as well the publishers didn’t like it, or there would be some awfully confused kids around. The working title for Sunker’s Deep was Claw, which I still rather like. But I like Sunker’s Deep better.

I’ve been struggling with the title for the first book in the new series. (The series itself is called ‘The Lost Brothers series’, which I rather like. It might change – in fact I had a brilliant idea for it in the middle of the night a couple of nights ago, but didn’t write it down, so I’ve no idea what it was. I’ve been telling myself ever since that it probably wouldn’t have looked quite so brilliant in daylight.)

At the beginning of the week I at last found a working title. Tanglefoot. I’m not sure about it yet, but it’ll do for now (which means it’ll probably get changed at some stage). Here are some of the other possibilities:

The Ghost Wind

Scantling

The Honourable Traders

The Assassin’s Child

The Lost Girl

The Wind’s Child

If you have an opinion, I’d like to hear it.

A couple of other good things happened this week. I saw the American cover for The Hidden #2: Sunker’s Deep. This will come out in the US/Canada next August.

I saw the Australian/NZ cover for The Hidden #3: Fetcher’s Song, which will come out in early January.

And I found a stunning illustration of Broo, from the Keepers trilogy, on Instagram, drawn by an artist called Molly K. You can find her Facebook page here.

Broo the last living brizzlehound #copicmakers #thekeeperstrilogy #brizzlehound #favoritebookseries

A photo posted by Molly k (@the_wild_maypop) on Jun 21, 2015 at 1:45pm PDT

On not being organised

I was going to be really organised with this new series. I was going to do all my world building in advance, and have folders full of information (colour coded for my convenience) that I could find whenever I needed it.

*ahem*

I’ve got the folders. Well, a folder. And the colour coding. But after several months of work, its main function seems to be as a nice place for Harry to sit.

No, the real work is happening elsewhere.

It seems I don’t really like colour coding. What works best for me is still the notebook.

The information in it isn’t at all ordered or sensible or easy to find. I just write down whatever I’m thinking at the time. And stick in pictures that have nothing whatsoever to do with the story (like the mammoth on the right hand page) but which are still intriguing. Which means that when I want to check something I have to rummage through pages and pages of strange thoughts and irrelevancies, and get lost, and stumble over things I’d forgotten, and swear a lot, and promise myself that I will start using the folder really soon.

But I never do. It seems this is about as organised as I’m willing to get.

Still not sure what I’m going to do with that folder.

At home, snarling

One of the things I love about my job is that it gives me heaps of time to myself. Which I needed this week.

Last weekend was the Tasmanian Writers and Readers Festival, held at Hadley’s Hotel in the middle of Hobart. It was a great weekend with really interesting speakers, and Hadley’s was a gorgeous place to have it. I went to the launch on Friday evening for the announcing of the shortlists for the Tasmanian Premier’s Awards, as well as several other sessions. I was Mistress of Ceremonies for the launch of Julie Hunt’s terrific new graphic novel Kidglovz on Saturday, and I launched Forty South’s new anthology of short stories on Sunday.

I had a good time and was pleased with how everything went, but after a busy weekend like that it always takes me a couple of days of solitude to find my balance again. (The introverts among you will recognise this phenomenon.) Trouble was, I’d lost a filling, so had to go to the dentist on Monday afternoon.

It was one thing too many. By Tuesday I was snarling at the world. Go away! Leave me alone! Yes, that means you!

(No, not you, Harry. You’re okay.)

Luckily I didn’t have to go anywhere. I could finish the proofread for Fetcher, send it off to the publishers, do a bit of work on extras for the US edition of Sunker and potter away quietly at the new book. While ignoring the phone and pretending I wasn’t at home if anyone knocked on my door.

By Friday I was ready to face the world again.

 

Some ideas have more bounce than others

I find it way too easy to follow the wrong idea when I’m plotting. For the last few weeks I’ve been playing around with ideas for the new series, which has a tentative title of ‘The Lost Brothers series’. I had the core of the idea, and I was working out scene sequences, what the main characters wanted, who the antagonist was, etc, and feeling pretty pleased about how it was going – right up until Friday morning. At which point I fell into a despairing hole, crying, ‘Nooooo. I don’t think this is going to work.’

Now the thing is, all despairing holes are not equal. At some point halfway through a book, a despairing hole is to be expected. (‘Everything I’ve written so far is rubbish.’ ‘I hate this story.’ ‘Why oh why did I ever think I was a writer?’ etc) The only way to deal with it is to climb out and keep writing.

But a despairing hole when I’m in the early stages, like this? Nope. That means something’s wrong. The idea has lost its bounce.

So I went back to the original spark – the thing that had interested me about this story in the first place. And I realised that I’d wandered miles from that spark, all the while telling myself that this story made so much more sense than that story.

I think it’s a question of head vs gut. The original spark – the exciting one – was a gut reaction, a sense of ‘Oooooh, yes, that’s really interesting!’ But then I started thinking too much, being too sensible. And the idea that developed from that sensibleness didn’t have any bounce. When I tried to write a couple of scenes, to get a sense of it, the characters just lay around in feeble heaps, twitching occasionally to show that they were doing their best.

So – it’s back to the original idea for me. I can feel it bouncing around inside me as I type. I just have to keep checking in with my gut to make sure I’m still on track.

 

Second printing of ‘Icebreaker’

On Friday I had an email from my US publisher about Icebreaker:

‘Great news: we are back to press for a second printing!’

This is good, given it’s only been in the shops for a little over a week. It means the book is getting off to a very nice start in the US, so we are all feeling pleased.

Also feeling pleased about the Australian edition of Fetcher’s Song, which is at last beginning to look like a book. I received the ‘first pages’ during the week – this is where the manuscript has been to the typesetter and is all laid out, but not yet bound into a book. This is my last chance to make changes, so I’m reading through the whole thing very carefully.

One of the things I love about this series is the way Allen & Unwin have designed the prologues, with a gorgeous steampunky border.

Fetcher has an in-store date of January 4th, 2016. Four months to go. Save your Christmas money!

Third on the list of pleasing things, I’ve started plotting the new series – or at least the first book of the new series. I always plot in quite a bit of detail, but this time I’m trying something new – the noticeboard.

Stephen King has been very scathing about authors who plot. In his book On Writing, he says plot is a clumsy tool, a jackhammer that destroys the fossil of a story. He should know better than to make such sweeping statements. It might be the case for him, but it doesn’t apply to everyone. Some people plot, some people don’t – in my opinion it’s all a matter of temperament, and once the book’s finished the reader shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

As for the notice board, I’m really enjoying it -  it’s a lot more fun than cards spread on the floor or on the computer screen, which is how I’ve done it in the past. There’s something about those little scraps of paper and the pins that encourages me to move them around, throw some out, add new ones, experiment … And on Friday I bought some coloured sticky notes, so all these white bits will probably end up being replaced by greens and blues and oranges.

What’s more, I spoke to both my Australian publisher and my agent, and they both really like the sound of the new series, so it looks like it’s goer. The first book doesn’t have a title yet.

Character names

I’ve been thinking a lot about character names this last week, mainly because I’m daydreaming my way towards the new series, and part of that is working out what to call people. You may have noticed that I like names that mean something. Like Sinew. And Krill. And Petrel. (I make an exception for Olga Ciavolga.) When I move away from this it’s usually towards something Germanic or Anglo-Saxon, and fairly short, like Uschi or Bran.

I originally started this as a reaction against the sort of Celtic-based high fantasy where the first character you meet is called Angharaduin, and the next one is Rhonabwy, and the next is Ysbaddaden – and by the time you’ve got to page 2 you’re totally confused and don’t know how to pronounce any of them. But then I began to really like these short names, and the practical worlds they came from. I had fun with the names in the Hidden series – sea names for the crew of the Oyster (Dolph, Orca, Crab), underwater names for the crew of the Claw (Sharkey, Deeps, Cuttle).

It wasn’t quite as easy in #3, Fetcher’s Song, because the characters are land-based. So really I just went with short names that I liked. Like Gwin and Nat. I pinched Gwin from one of my nieces, though she spells it differently, as Gwyn. I’ve used family names before – my very first published book, Rats!, had a character called Megan, who is another of my nieces. It’s not that the characters are anything like the real people – it’s just a handy resource.

But this time, I FORGOT TO ASK! I’d had it mind for ages – Must check with Gwyn. But it kept slipping down the list of things to do, right up until a couple of days ago, by which time the manuscript was on the brink of being sent to the copy editor and it was almost too late to make any major changes. So I shot off a quick message to Gwyn, saying, ‘I’ve used your name – do you mind? I’ll change it if you hate the idea.’ Crossing my fingers all the while.

And she messaged back, ‘AWESOME.’

So I guess it’s okay.

Also this last week, Icebreaker came out in the US and Canada. And the lovely people at Feiwel & Friends (US publisher) changed their Facebook cover photo to celebrate.

I thought that was pretty cute.

Back to the new series

I’ve been reading a book of Terry Pratchett’s non-fiction – mostly short articles that he wrote for magazines or as introductions to anthologies etc. In a piece called ‘Paperback Writer’ he says:

‘Once you’re tuned in on the next book, research comes and kicks your door down. Something is casually mentioned on TV. A book about something else throws out a historical fact that, right at this moment, you really need to know. You sit down to dinner next to an ambassador who is happy to chat about the legal questions that arise when a murder is committed in an embassy and the murderer flees outside, i.e., technically into another country, and the plot gulps down this tidbit.’

I forget this with every new book. I set out to find particular information, then suddenly discover that slightly different information has set out to find me – and it’s much more interesting than what I was originally looking for. So now I’ve got my New Book Notebook (it doesn’t have anything approaching a title yet) perched in a conspicuous spot in my living room so that I can scribble stuff down whenever it strikes me (or kicks the door in). When I go out in the car I sit it on the passenger seat, and stop every few kilometres to scribble stuff down. (My journeys are slow when I’m in this mode.)

I received more treats this week, but this time they came via email from Andrew Smee, who’s a teacher at Kangaroo Valley Public School in NSW. They’ve been reading Ice Breaker, and a while back the kids did their own cross sections of the ship. Now Andrew writes:

‘We were discussing comic book writing features as a stylised text type so we came up with an activity for the class featuring Fin… well a decent look-alike based on the cover art. Here are a couple of examples:

Isn’t this a great idea? When I get round to having another competition, I might make it a comic strip.

But for now, I have to go and see who’s kicking my front door …