Simone Sinna's Blog, page 51

Riding with Rosie ...

It's an agonizing thing for most authors to let go of their baby. Once the umbilical cord is cut, the novel in editing and marketing may need lots of care, but you putting it out there for scrutiny, no longer just your baby to fantasize about.
Watching your partner's baby (which you helped with, though not as many sleepless nights as my own book or real children gave me... isn't quite as gut wrenching, but a curious process never-the-less.
The Rosie Effect was launched in Australia September 24th. Biggest print run ever by Text. rave reviews, a few so-so. Readers generally love it as much or more than the last...but some of the passion about the characters! "Never thought I could hate a fictional character so much" (social worker who takes on Don...but she does redeem herself! Not much sympathy for poor Rosie- hell, she's got the quirky Don (who would drive most people slightly nuts...), pregnant, no family or supports, doing a PhD and a medical course. There would be something wrong if she wasn't cranky!
Fortunately, there's a lot of heart warming hilarity along the way.

Writing with Effort

Quote for the Month....Writing without effort is usually read without pleasure Samuel Johnson

I have been finding out just what this means this month, with edits back from my psychological thriller Medea's Curse, due out next year.
As Simone Sinna I have three novels and six novellas edited with help from the wonderful Siren Bookstrand.
But editing for mainstream books is quite different - and I have to say this is where I really get Samuel Johnson's quote, painful though it might be.
I read out loud to my husband (a published author sold to 40 countries and one of those cut throat editors getting things very neat and clean) the first paragraph of the last nine books I had on my I-pad, plus one book from the past, all psych thrillers of sorts. This included one I thought was rubbish, one that was highly celebrated and awarded as literary and one that has been highly commercially successful. The last two as I read them stood out so far ahead of the others (including one author who was on the NY bestseller list and who I really like) it was stunning. My husband picked them without hesitation (even though he had no idea what the books were).
Yes editing and rewriting works (as I keep telling myself after the 20th rewrite of my prologue!). I can hear the difference myself- cleaner, less (or even no!) adjectives...now just have to do the same for the rest!
Oh and the two stand outs? Gone Girl and The Secret History.
I can dream can't I?

The Culture of Me...a cautionary tale

There is a lot of talk about the “culture of me”; Anne Manne’s new book on the Life of I (I haven’t read it but I heard her on the radio) and articles on the explosion of narcissism in the first world. Marry this up with the proliferation of articles on parenting: helicopter, tiger, attachment parenting and many more and the bursting at the seams of our adolescent psych units with children as young as 8 and 9 years old bouncing off the walls after family breakdowns or/and taking Ice there isn’t much to look forward to if you’re having a family. How to negotiate? Who to listen to? It used to be just conflicting advice around breastfeeding. Now it’s whether they should be doing three hours piano practice or allowed to play in the mud by themselves. As a perinatal specialist (in my non-author time) I see the anxiety, worry, and frantic attempts to be perfect and do things right and the cost this has. There is no such thing as perfect parenting, rather it needs to be good enough—imperfect but with a robust structure of respect and confidence that allows ruptures to be fixed. Many of the mothers I see don’t have the role model in their own childhoods to have the confidence, and depression, anxiety and marital tensions make it worse for them as well as for the children who feel the tensions and without the robust structure blame themselves, feel confused, angry and “act out” though it is almost always because they desperately need connection. Containable when they are physically little, but not as they grow.We as parents have a responsibility to bring up our children to the best of our ability and get help when we can’t. BUT…society isn’t helping and this takes us back to the cult of “I”. I have been doing family therapy with an intact loving (and imperfect family) from a traditional Asian background whose 12 year old daughter has been raised in Australia. They in keeping with their traditional values “spoilt” the little girl and though not rich gave her all they could. They made mistakes, probably intervening too early when she was young and not putting enough boundaries around her and allowing her to learn to deal with her own emotions at a younger age (The common parenting problem of being ruled by wanting to avoid conflict and have the child love me).But what her father said to me today opened my mind to how else we are failing our children. They had just had the police out again; the child’s behavior is aggressive and threatening and she isn’t little any more. She kept swearing and threatening until the father lost his cool and said he would hit her (acceptable in his culture, but I should hasten to say he didn't), which he was told by the police was inappropriate. However this was just what the child (and in this moment her out of control rage was child not adult) wanted—to feel that power. In his home country the father said, it would never happen because the culture (and the society and law) is about respect and dire consequences if not adhered to. Not matter what your age. So this child would have got the same or worse anywhere else the state puts her.This child is on the verge of going into foster care. I have another patient now thirty who had exactly the same story at 13 and did go into foster care. But rather than show her this was worse than loving parents it had the opposite effect—gave her new freedoms and drugs and sex to experiment with. I have other patients who because of their childhoods are never going to work and will rely on those of us who do to support them throughout their lives; I rarely have any discussions with them about them feeling guilty about this or trying to put back into society. It is all about not taking responsibility for themselves and letting the state do it—which reinforces their sense of low self esteem, poor self efficacy and contributes strongly to their mental illness. I have a friend when in his twenties all the forms were set to go for the disability pension which he would have stayed on for life; until a psychiatrist refused to sign them, said it would be a death sentence for his mental health and that he needed a job. He did just this and believes that advice saved his life literally; he is now in his sixties with no plans to retire from a successful lucrative career.I am not suggesting that we have an authoritarian regime as in some other countries—that has many problems! But I do think we need to adopt more a culture of with freedom comes responsibility not just to the self but others. We can start this in the home but if we don’t as a society unite to support the importance of responsibility to the greater good, I see an inevitable sad decline of all that is good into a society none of us will want to be a part of; when it all disintegrates remember Noah will only save the animals. We have to save ourselves before it’s too late.

Criticism: Makes us stronger or sends us running?

I don’t care what anyone says; no one likes criticism. It’s just that some people are in a deeper denial (they would say better defended) than others.At one extreme my writer friends are paralyzed and keep re-writing the same bit, never to finish, because of fear of failure. With my early books I cut the umbilical cord and rejected the baby to some extent, only to be told (rightly) by my writer’s group that the baby still needs nurture (mmm…editing).I tend to say “criticism is fine if it’s constructive” which is true to a point, but it doesn’t mean I don’t secretly want everyone to agree with me and think my work if something of pure genius (I’ll settle for a ripping good yarn, or made me think or enjoyable. With my Simone Sinna titles, had the best sex in years after my husband read it will also do). We certainly need to be able to hear criticism  to improve and are more likely to be able to tolerate it if given constructively so it’s worth learning how to do this. My best teachers have been (in no particular order): my writer’s group, Syd Field’s Screenplay, Myers Briggs and Kent Hoffman (a psychotherapist involved with Circle of Security based on attachment theory that I use in my other job) and a final nod to James Blunt (yes I do like his voice and songs and I have all his albums).Okay I’ve probably lost most of you now and the ones still reading are thinking something like WTF? First and second go together: Syd Field’s book, though I am not and never wish to be a screenwriter, is great for understanding story structure (for plot Christopher Booker’s Seven Basic Plots was more interesting and engrossing) and being able to anchor your thoughts and know about story structure. I read extensively and I intuitively know when something is working and when it is not. I know that in crime/thriller books there are a number of things they almost all adhere to like giving hints and red herrings. But to actually be able to say what it is that is wrong is much harder and harder again to suggest how to fix it. Editors are good at the former, but not at the latter (hence why they are editors not writers), though to be fair fixing the problem has to come from the author who knows their characters and has a big picture of what happens and how it needs to be set up. From ScreenplayI learnt to identify clear import parts of story which is critical to screen plays but perhaps is just as important in stories and books where the story is clear. So this means genre, yes, but also to my mind, better, literary books that stay with you, Like Burial Rites. Beautiful writing to me, alone, will just send me to sleep. Add good characters I’ll be up for a while, but add in story – then you have a masterpiece. So enter writer’s group who didn’t always use the words inciting incident or first act turning point but by identifying weaknesses in places like this it made it much easier to see how you could strengthen your writing. I need to add here some great advice I got last night from Text author Chris Flynn (A Tiger in Eden) which was in the end, don’t try to write by committee.Next? Myers Briggs and Core Sensitivities (Hoffman et al from circleofsecurity.net) basically helped me understand myself and how I take criticism. I am an extrovert unlike a lot of authors, so I get my energy from the outside world. This means that reviews are going to draw (and repel) me like a magnet and I will find them irresistible (I read about one author that never reads them. I understand not looking up Amazon/Goodreads but reviews? Really?). Not replying is also not something that comes naturally but the advice is to ignore (James Blunt of note has some hilarious responses on Twitter to his hate tweets). I have also heard horrible stories about increasing aggression and that would be even worse. From Hoffman I know I am esteem sensitive. Think narcissism without having to be a full blown politician. This means that reading bad reviews is soul destroying. Esteem sensitive means just that – not that you believe you are great, just that you bolster yourself up to get through life (not to delusional level, but, well, it is nice to focus on the positive reviews not the negative).The final advice comes from James Blunt. He told the Sydney Morning Herald reporter something like this about his detractors: I don’t know them so why should it bother me?
I’m going to practice this one.

The Writer’s Life

There is a lot of romantisization of a writer’s life – and having after many years of rejections and three unpublished manuscripts (over 140,000 words each!) on the bookshelf to now have a book contract with a prestigious publisher for a mainstream psychological thriller (after 10 erotic romances…) I’m not about to complain here, just put things in perspective. I run a group called putting your life in perspective (It was called Putting your Problems in Perspective, but it is for new mothers and I changed the name when they started identifying the baby as a “problem”- the problem is lifestyle change. Not the baby) and on the plane to New York (not to research a book but for the “other” life professional conference, my husband however is doing the book research) I saw a lovely movie About Time which added to the whole perspective idea. While overdoing it a tad and being arguably schmaltzy (I cried and if I ever get a second father I want it to be Bill Nighy) I loved it and the take home message was to cherish every minute of your life. I have been living that idea to some degree ever since walking the Camino de Santiago and going part time and writing the rest of the time, but it was a timely reminder.So yes I am jet lagged (Melbourne-New York really does bad things to my sleep pattern), and there is not enough time to go to the conference, write, shop, go to Broadway, eat at all our favorite restaurants, see all our friends…yep, first world worries! But there is time to be wowed by NY in spring. Amazing bloosoms and daffodils on the Highline and along the Hudson River.

Great views as we fantasize about where Don Tillman might live in The Rosie Effect (the book my husband is researching, out in September), to combine the bar visit in Brooklyn with catching friends in Long Island and …okay not much happening with my book but I am waiting for the edits on Medea’s Curse (and rethinking the name; The Medea Curse maybe?) due in a couple of weeks and it’s hard to think about the drafted sequel of the new Simone Sinna Book (Rulebreaker, which I am half way through and yes it starts in a cafe in New York! If you're after a racing racey read in the meantime try Heartbreaker now on Amazon) when so much to distract me.

There was also the quick trip here via Canada… I was giving a talk in Vancouver (beautiful city!) as my husband lived the promotion side of being a writer. He likes talking and the Canadians love the book which helps, but you do get a small taste of what it is like to be a celebrity (novelists thankfully aren’t as easily recognizable as actors) but you could understand authors who want to sit in a garret and write would find the publicity tour daunting to say the least (my husband has been on the road since The Rosie Project came out in Australia in January 2013). Mine comes out in Feb 2015 and I’ll happily go on the road though the one (or none) turning up to events, the bookshops who don’t have your book are all things ahead of me I rather suspect… but that’s a writer’s life. Bring it on.

Writers: Do You Want to Know What You Don’t Know?

Two weeks ago I attended a Master Class for published authors. Though my husband is a great help and fountain of knowledge, (and he studied writing and screenplays for more than five years) it is many years since I did the couple of brief writing courses and most of my knowledge has come through reading fiction with a passion (some 200 books last year!) and practice. We are told to get 10,000 hours and that was certainly what I needed to be an expert in my “other” area of work where I worked for a number of degrees. I have had a couple of  150,000 word manuscripts almost get published, one 143,000 word document thrown in the bin (by me) and all which added to those hours. Most recently writing and publishing as Simone Sinna has enabled me to write in a positive feedback loop- and get better developing character and plot line. One review of my first book said the characters were two dimensional and it hurt … but I took it on board (though I have to say the romance genre does tend to lean towards this, as does novellas where there can be limited character development). I have also been writing a psych thriller and felt out of the positive feedback loop with this- hence the master class. A group of more different writers you can’t imagine; fables, literary drama to postmodernist paranormal. And my thriller Medea’s Curse to be published in Jan/Fen next year by Text. The only “genre” piece of work amongst the group. But after being frozen in my twenties through fear of not being able to write anything important enough, to writing erotic romance suspense I have become content with what I can and cannot do – and what I want to do. Medea’s Curse might be broadly genre but it has a multi-layer plot(s) and moral and ethical issues. And I don’t think the criticisms will be about two dimensional characters. I have worked on this for nearly three years and didn’t think I could get it better…until my editor (who hasn’t attacked it yet) made some suggestions and the Master Class got to it.Two weeks later I am looking at the manuscript in amazement. I have made a lot of changes. After the editors get at it I’m sure it will be better still. It will never be perfect, but the outside knowing eye of a knowledgeable reader who can pinpoint problems versus someone reading for just pleasure is very telling. Thank you class!But the other gift they gave me was to tell me to read 7 Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. I was reluctant. I mean I could hardly change the plot of my book now could I? I figured when I found it was only $16 that I’d do a quick peruse…It usually takes me a day to read a book. This took me a week and a half. The first quarter? Yeah, like the name, 7 Basic Plots; Overcoming the Hero, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, Rags to Riches, Rebirth. But there are the discussion around the books that fit (and don’t fit) the mould, and then the rest of the book which is Booker’s ode to history, including science and sociology, psychology (he’s a Jungian who studied history) and an amazing (though I don’t always agree with him) attempt to pull it all together and look at why and where we are with stories in 2014. I wish I had read it thirty years ago (it took him 34 years to write). I don’t think it’s too late to read it, no matter how long you’ve been writing. I guess it cheers me up to see my book has got the features of a good story (doesn’t mean it is good of course!) though he is fairly scathing about crime stories and stories for mere entertainment. I read to wind down and I often use that as an excuse to read “light” thrillers rather than literature/ Pulitizer-Booker winners (which I also read when in less need of a wind down). But I have never enjoyed stories without a plot and how much more rewarding to have one that is well written by someone who knows what they are doing and can maybe, even in thrillers, allow the hero/heroine to move towards learning something about themselves and teaching us at the same time.
I am now writing the sequel to Medea’s Curse. I hope that all I have read will settle in and inform rather than overwhelm. It means a far more rewarding and exciting journey.

Gourmet Weekend- Beware the Chilli

I like chilli - not just the meat and bean dish they give you on Mexico and at the base of ski-lifts in Colorado, but the green and red ones of varying length and heat. But when you are are having a gourmet weekend (normally fine food and wine) then maybe, just maybe it isn't a good idea to have a South American theme.
It started off inspired by a Brazilian colleague who was in town, but it soon turned out our knowledge of Brazilian anything was limited to one cocktail, Caiprinha (or something like this) and the wax effort I've never been brave enough to subject myself to. So we had to cast the net further (occasionally to Spanish influence, of which we had plenty of cookbooks) and yes, Mexican...
Night one, fresh from the market we had plenty of seafood so could go light on the chilli. Alas didn't go so lightly on Margarita's.
Next morning? Nothing fruit and coffee couldn't cure. Lunch? No probs. Crab that had been crawling around the sink all night. The screams in the middle of the night were NOT due to them...the growling prowling bear outside was actually a wombat and the only way we were in danger was if the animal dug another hole and the house disappeared down it. Don't laugh, this is possible.
But dinner. The mole was fabulous- I had no idea of the number of nuts and pumpkin seeds and other oddities but it tasted brilliant. But. I had to use some chilli powder and grabbed the Cambodian variety... a slow burn. Slow, long and still burning through the system of my guests the next morning if the queue to the bathroom means anything. (Saved on the cost of wine and toilet paper is much cheaper...) Thank goodness for the lime tart (26 limes over two days used this weekend!) and the Sunday brunch tortilla.

Next time its their turn. Fourth of July? Wholesome American me thinks...

Don't Feed the Birds

There's a whole lot of really goo reasons not to feed wild birds, I'm no expert but I gather pretty much anything we give them isn't good for them (unless you have a supply of lizards, snakes and insects?) and even if it was you don't want them dependent on you. You just aren't always going to be there.
But its the third reason you don't want to feed them that is strongest in my mind.
The Great Ocean Road is beloved my tourists and locals alike, the latter in droves over Christmas. So there I am post the Christmas rush when the birds had been well fed...and now hungry.
No fewer than six Kookaburras planned a calculated attack (I have seen rosellas and parrots landing on hands and shoulders but never kookaburras!). they waited until we had got our steaks down to half the size (they had eyed off on the BBQ and clearly decided they were too much) and then swooped! Glad I got my first half of that steak! I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie...

Shopping in Paris

Shopping in Paris
I had to complete the set (well only as a first world problem). Rome in April last year, New York pre-Christmas, London in the Christmas- New Year hiatus and now as our vacation (so called in the USA and I have been practising my French here and vacances is more like the Americans than out holiday) ends…Paris.
I have shopped in Paris before, many times, but I have to confess I have yet to get a handle on it. The excuse used to be that they didn’t speak English or understand my bad, Australian accented French. But now all the Parisians speak English and while I would like to (and need) the practice, I can’t put them through the agony. So no excuses as to not knowing the price, where to get the forms for the tax return (if you can bear the queues at the airport) and I have been coming here too long to say I don’t know where to go. But truly I don’t.
I have walked the streets where you have to push a bell to enter the hallowed halls of the Couture houses, even plucked the nerve to push them, enter, and pretend that three costumes only on the rack are going to be enough for me to drool over and get the cheque book out for. These items don’t have price tags and Madame and I both know I would pass out if she told me. It’s not that I don’t have genuine Thierry Mugler, Jean Paul Gaultier, Galiano and Versace (though I have more of their perfume than their clothes) but I have their ready to wear variety. I am, like most of the world, not on the list to sit next to the current Vogue editor or Anna Wintour , Victoria Beckham and Gwyneth Paultrow at the Season’s show.
I have on previous trips (the times when the sales are not on; there are regimented times for these and probably rules about how much they are allowed to discount. France is the country of red tape and maximum benefit for the shop stewards rather than the shopper) decided Galleries Layfette has been too expensive and searched for something else. I have found shopping centres, one at least which was positively basic and ordinaire and not selling anything that the Parisienne women I saw were wearing. I also found somewhere underground (Les Halles) where I might find things my children would wear (and that I could afford).
But today I thought I would return to Galleries Layfette. I mean the map has them all over it, the only thing I can locate without reading glasses though I am familiar enough with Paris that this is where me feet lead me, no matter which new arrondissment my husband thinks we need to try out a new hotel in. Me, I’d choose Esmeralda opposite Notre Dame on the left bank. Quaint, poet sized over priced rooms but what the hell. It’s Paris. I’ve yet to have a room I could swing a cat in. Not that I would but I often end up with cat pictures, clocks, and ornaments from the one shop for cute things I would highly recommend, in fact several shops in one street, the only street really, on the island you get to from Notre Dame, near also the bridge with all the locks on it left my lovers. Another overpriced too small hotel there I adore too; Deux Isles.
So Galleries Layfayette. On par size wise with Bloomingdales, smaller than Macy’s and larger than Liberty, and glitzier than any of these, at sales time it’s akin to feeling like you are in the middle of a herd of bison at mating time. Not pretty. I say bison because you can hear the Americans shouting directions over each other, but I have been away from Australia long enough that it is their accents that I pick out and that grate. Do I really sound like that? And they are hopping around a plenty. One rather imagines that the French know better, that there is somewhere else they go and get the real the real bargains.
It is day four of the sales (soldes). Everything is open on Sunday for this very reason. My husband has decided a hotel (called L’Hotel) new street in the sixth, and I have to waste several moments in it. However small it is exquisite in leopard skin (matches my hat, gloves and lingerie…) and they are incredibly accommodating. They have just the restaurant for us and send us off with a map. We are distant enough from the tourist hub that when we have oysters (the only thing on the menu and in a shop the size of a postage stamp) we are surrounded by locals (including a young group who had perhaps started the day in Amsterdam if you get my meaning…) and the oysters are excellent and the Chablis crisp and big the way I like it. But GF is looking a long way away…
Then I happen on some streets off Bvld St Germaine, all with Soldes signs and excited French women. I go in. I could take virtually anything. Exactly the stuff I like, one size it seems- mine. The prices are…brilliant. I arrived in New York on carry-on and left that way because the kids took the extra suitcase home. London wasn’t a problem because we were on the Eurostar. Tomorrow returning? Okay I will have to check luggage and it’s time for another Camino (planning the next one to Rome) to remind me I don’t need so many clothes.

Shopping in London...

It’s January 3rd and the Christmas decorations are still up and it’s grey, a bit dreary and raining. It is London after all. But I have to be honest, it was a crisp clear sky yesterday and I was just in New York and though there was a heat wave there for a few days, when it was cold it was colder than London currently is. The subway is a lot cheaper than the underground though, so if you can’t walk because of the weather then the pounds start disappearing (the paper ones, not the ones from too much plum pudding…eve the Indian restaurant here had plum pudding for dessert, albeit with yoghurt!). Sadly the Aussie dollar isn’t as strong as when I was last here so the 1400€ (two and a half thousand dollars, maybe two thousand American) camel cashmere coat in Harrods was just going to have to stay there for someone else. Wasn’t it?
I have had a bit of a hankering for a camel cashmere for a couple of years. In New York I bought a bargain Tommy Hilfinger dress and then had to buy the faun boots, and the longing for the camel cashmere returned. The bargain dress was about to cost a lot more…I couldn’t find anything I liked in New York so I thought London would solve my problem, a camel cashmere is after all one of those British classics. And had I wanted to mortgage the house and sell the car Harrods would have solved it. I thought about this. After all, who would need the house? I could just curl up and sleep in the perfect coat. It would also have been worth it to slam the credit card and see the look on the snooty woman server who almost wrestled the coat off me when I said I wouldn’t take it if it wasn’t on sale (the other side of the rack had 40% off). My husband (bless him) said go for it…my compensation for his book (which would be paying for it) doing better than mine.
So today I resolved to scour Regent St and Liberty and if I couldn’t find an alternative, the 1400€ would be mine. With regards Liberty, there is something kind of quaint about rickety store floors in a Tudor mansion when you are browsing Stella McCartney and Vintage. Even if you have to have elbows out and be a sumo wrestler to make it inside. Maybe there is another entrance rather than the notebook shop but neither I nor half the population of London (and a million tourists) could find it.
I eventually found one that had I not been to Harrods, would have been fine. In Hugo Boss (I hadn’t even known they had a women’s section) and half price sale. Fitted beautifully, the only negative was a belt and the loops it went through that I would have to remove. A quarter of the price. But the Harrods’ coat was calling. So onto the tube I go, battle rain, and then wander lost in Harrods. Where had that coat been only yesterday? There was a panic it had gone (there had only been one my size, but as it was new season I figured there would be more). Finally, after retracing the exact steps, there it was. Only it wasn’t nearly as good as I had remembered it. Not now compared to the Boss one at a quarter of the price.
So back on the tube (another ten dollars but in a good cause…Australians who have been to London can never complain again about Melbourne’s Myki card), through the rain (it had got worse, naturally) and there it was. The Boss camel cashmere coat. Fitting perfectly but…minus a clasp. I wasn’t sure I needed it, and another 10% less later it was mine. So was the top in the shop I had passed, and I was still 900€ in front. Now that is a shopping success ( I love the coat too, better still, and it is perfect with the Tommy Hilfinger bargain…)