Claire Scobie's Blog: Wordstruck, page 5

Wordstruck - What stops you writing?

Is it your heart – are you afraid of what you might find? Or your head? Does it think you don’t have time?

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10 tips on how to stop the block

If you feel overwhelmed, think small. Isolate one thing and write about that for 10 minutes.

Spend a few minutes writing about all the stuff that is making you not write – fear of failure, insecurities, exhaustion. By writing about the block, we lessen the fear.

Shake it up. If you write in silence, play music. If you are solitary, take your work to a café.

Give yourself permission to write one word. What word would you chose?

Listen to your intuition. You might think you know what you ‘should’ be writing about, but if you stop, breathe and ‘tune in’ to yourself, your inner voice may be telling you something else. As you listen, you unlock a deeper aspect of yourself.

If your inner voice is telling you that you’re no good or that writing is a waste of time, you can begin a dialogue with that part of yourself.

Novelist Virginia Woolf was the first to give the ‘internal censor’ a name. She recognised that part of her was censoring or blocking certain thoughts or feelings, usually connected with sex or the body. In an essay called ‘Professions for Women’, Woolf wrote that her inner censor was ‘intensely sympathetic [and] charming’. Woolf’s response was to ‘kill her. Had I not killed her, she would have killed me.’

If that seems too radical, try making a ‘pact’ with these blocking parts of yourself. Your inner censor might feel fearful if you are writing about sensitive issues. Why not promise, that after writing, you will destroy what you have written. Often, once things are down on the page, they don’t seem so bad.

The inner critic tends to back off if ‘it’ knows you are writing for yourself rather than for public consumption. Sometimes you can let that part of yourself have ‘its’ say and then, gently but firmly, ask it to stop. Or you can override it by writing very fast, giving the inner critic less time to intervene.

Sometimes try writing from a different point of view. If you write as ‘she’ or ‘he’, it helps to distance yourself from any experience. According to Tristine Rainer, it also ‘seems to fool both internal critics and internal censors.

So what strategies do you have?

Stuck on your travel memoir? Join me for a weekend intensive, 19 & 20 October, in Sydney.

Wordstruck - What it takes to research a book

You never know what you’re going to do to research a book. For The Pagoda Tree I’ve shared my hotel room with a rat, ridden on a bullock cart, met a prince and driven all night from Delhi





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Claire on the back of a bullock cart, snapped in The Hindu paper

to Pushkar in search of the perfect crumbling palace. I’ve trespassed and been chased by a fist-waving security guard; had my breast groped, once; had a parrot read my fortune, twice; eaten with my fingers off a banana leaf, lots. Most enjoyable of all, I’ve worn a sari.

The major difference between investigating an article compared to a book is the amount of stuff you need to know. And the length of time it takes to find out.

English novelist Sarah Waters once described how her characters seemed to ‘come out of the mist’ of the historical material once she’d done enough. But how much is enough? Kate Mosse (Labyrinth, Citadel) says she spends three-quarters of the time it takes her to write a novel doing the research. I resolved to follow Louis de Bernières advice not to research too much after he became bogged down in Turkish history when writing Birds without Wings.

I started in all the obvious places: online, Google books, Google scholar. I spent numerous weeks in the India Office Records in the British Library in London. I also made four trips to India. First stop was the palace library in Thanjavur where the effable Mr Perumal, ensured regular cups of chai as I read dusty manuscripts; then a raft of libraries in Chennai.

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The most fruitful was the Adyar Library. The man at the front desk was a stickler for rules and said I needed a letter of request to join. An elderly lady over-rode him and allowed me in, as long as I was barefoot and didn’t plug in my laptop, ‘too much electricity use.’ Each time I went back the rules changed but it was worth it for the discovery of some rare eighteenth-century Tamil texts.

Just like when I am following the breadcrumbs of a story, I also made contact with local reporters. I visited Chennai’s eminent historian; sat in on classical dance classes and interviewed a Tollywood – the Tamil version of Bollywood – star. Wherever I went, I followed the ol’ journalistic trick of ‘following your nose’.

5 Tips on Researching a Book

1. Be prepared for the long haul

You have to devise systems and tricks to keep you writing during the slow times. As I’ve said before, I find the writing software Scrivener invaluable. It’s more user-friendly than Microsoft Word as you combine all research and writing in one project.

2. Write as you research

Obvious but too often writers feel like they have to know everything first. If you don’t know how your character physically travelled from A to B, get her there anyway and then work out later if they travelled in a pony and cart, a carriage or a Morris Minor.

3. Create your own research system

Whether it’s the old-fashioned card index, post-it notes in books, photographing sources with your I-phone or a spreadsheet, keep a note somewhere of the titles of every book, page reference and any quotes as you go. Update regularly. If necessary use a referencing system like Endnote – useful if you have an extensive bibliography and footnotes.

4. Create your own personal deadlines

Schedule each ‘to-do-section’ in your calendar and block out periods of time. Be realistic. Give yourself extra days for the tricky bits. If giving yourself a word-length target – say, to write 1000 words a day – is counter-productive then set yourself a time-based target of two hours. Write as much as you can during that time, with no distractions.

5. Enlist help from experts

Contact people who know your subject better than you do. Interview them, ask them to recommend the best books, ask them to fact-check key sections. Librarians and archivists are particularly helpful.

Wordstruck - Meeting the Bookwallahs

Yesterday I met 4 writers – two Indian & two Australian – who were part of the 2012 Bookwallah tour, Asialink Arts’ roving international writers festival through India. This amazing literary tour covered 4000-km by train, beginning in Mumbai and ending in Pondicherry in Tamil Nadu. They did not travel light.

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The Bookwallahs: l to r, Chandrahas Choudhury, Annie Zaidi, Benjamin Law & Kirsty Murray

Their luggage was 300 kilos of Australian books housed in a bespoke pop-up library made from kangaroo leather. By the end of the 3-week tour all the books were donated to libraries and universities en route. The writers had formed firm friendships and (hopefully) enduring cross-cultural links between the two countries were established.

I caught up with them at the University of Western Sydney as the Bookwallahs are now travelling through Australia – by train. Last week they were in Melbourne at the Writers’ Festival before a pit stop in Sydney and this weekend they appear at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival. Catch them if you can.

The Bookwallah participants include Australian writers Benjamin Law (A Family Law, Gaysia) and Kirsty Murray (India Dark + lots of YA fiction), as well as Indian writers Annie Zaidi (The Bad Boy’s Guide To The Good Indian Girl, Love Stories # 1 to 14) and novelist Chandrahas Choudhury, editor of India: A Traveller’s Literary Companion.

Aside from talking about the rich and often hilarious experience of the tour, they also showed a 30-minute documentary which I hope will air on television and was shown at the Melbourne Writers' Festival (MWF).

The vision

What struck me was the vision of their tour – and the logistics. They travelled in 3rd class with their books in a separate compartment at the end of the train. At their first stop the leather-bound bookcases smelled decidedly fishy: they’d been sandwiched next to fish packed in ice and the ice melted. From then on the books travelled by car. When the writers arrived in Bangalore, their books didn’t make it until after the events had finished. No matter, the portable library was set up outside in the dark.

The motto when things went wrong – and they did – was: ‘If all else fails … drink chai.’ A very good answer to almost any problem.

Despite the close proximity of their sleeping, eating and reading arrangements, the Bookwallahs did not fall out. They all mucked in and by the end were sad to say goodbye. The camaraderie was palpable during their talk. If they couldn’t quite finish each other’s sentences, they were pretty close.

The Australian writers talked about their misperceptions of India – dirty, poverty-striken. The Indian writers admitted how little they knew about Australia or Australian literature. And this gulf is exactly why the tour was created: so literature can knit together where politics cannot.

Annie Zaidi described how she grew up knowing the song ‘Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree’ but thought ‘the kookaburra was a mythical creature. How could I know it was a bird when birds don’t laugh?’

Now that the two Indian writers are on Australian soil, they say they feel very welcome. But what about Aussie trains? ‘In Australia a notice says you are only allowed two drinks an hour on the train,’ said Chandrahas Choudhury. ‘Over 15 hours that’s a lot of drinks. In India no alcohol is served – but we have chai instead.’

A list of essential Indian reading will be posted on the website next week thanks to Annie & Chandrahas. Look out for it and in the meantime – drink chai.

Wordstruck - Why you always need a notebook

This week I’ve been out bush in the Northern Territory. Out in the heat (36 degrees), in the gritty red dirt, feeling the sun’s bristling rays. For 9 days I unplugged – no phone, no internet: bliss.

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The first couple of days I was exhausted in the way you often are at the beginning of a holiday. I felt depleted.

But by day 3, I found myself seeking out my notebook. I always carry a small, slim Moleskin. I write my own short-hand. It’s messy & full of words crossed out. Sometimes I try to sketch what I’m seeing. Other times I make lists.

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At the end of my break away, the notebook was full. Here’s a few things I jotted down:

Descriptions of the landscape:

‘Everywhere turkey bush, pink now, will turn purple. Boab trees with indents like a tummy button, smooth to touch, ridged and patterned.’

Phrases from the locals:

Tessa Atte, an Aboriginal guide, in Litchfield National Park, ‘In town my people are boned-out. Makes me sad. After 10 days out bush, eating bush tucker, they get all shinny again.’

My feelings:

‘Getting filled up again. The drifting Milky Way above. Such an amazing world.’

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Wherever you go, always carry a notebook. You never know when inspiration might come. Roald Dahl wrote his ideas down straightaway, before he could forget them.

Here’s 10 things you can write in yours.

Observations

Fragments of conversation

Funny moments

Bodily responses

What surprises you

What mystifies you

Quotes from books that you like

Story ideas

Descriptions of places & people

Random phrases

So go on, share what you like to scribble …

Wordstruck - How to hook your reader from the first line

Whether it’s an article or your first chapter, you need to make your first lines work hard. They must hook the reader, wind them in, convince them to read on.

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They need to set up your story. They usually establish point of view; they often introduce the voice and in some books, they provide the spine of the narrative.

Don’t worry if your first line doesn’t come first. Often you might write a fair amount before you know where to start.

Some writers can’t work like this. Journalist Richard Guilliart recently described how he’s ‘paralysed if he can’t get the setup.’

There is no set formula. But the following techniques are tried and tested.

Descriptive. Make the first line visual, an image-picture, something the reader can see in their mind’s eye.

Intriguing. Hint at a deeper problem or introduce a mystery. Get the reader wanting to know the WHY of the story.

Conflict. Straight away there is dynamism on the page.

Mystery. If we don’t know the why but we want to know we will read on.

Humour. It doesn’t need to belly-aching LOL, it can be wry or ironic.

A quote or an opinionated statement, a fact or a surprising statistic.

In media res – in the middle of the action.

Avoid making your first line too long. Too many images and clauses can be confusing. Simple is often effective.

When I did a random search through some travel memoirs and novels, I found that many of the first lines set up the entire book. Mine does in Last Seen in Lhasa – although I didn’t realise that at the time: ‘I don’t know how I know Ani as I do.’

Here’s a list of first lines – how do you respond to them?

‘No one else seemed concerned when our plane took a nosedive.’
Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven by Susan Jane Gilman.

‘I shall never forget the four photographs.’
A Journey in Ladakh by Andrew Harvey.

‘In the day’s last light the glowing lake below the palace-city looked like a sea of molten gold.’
The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie

‘The last time I saw Laurent Jammet, he was in Scott’s store with a dead wolf over his shoulder.’
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

‘The Alexander, with its cargo of convicts, had bucked over the face of the ocean for the better part of the year.’
The Secret River by Kate Grenville

‘January. The year began with lunch.’
A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.

Wordstruck - Longform stories in print & online

Last week I was at the Walkleys Storology conference in Sydney. This brought international and national journalists, publishers, editors, ‘journo-preneurs’ and other creatives together.

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I was on a panel discussing the ‘Longform renaissance’ with Allen & Unwin publisher, Elizabeth Weiss, social media expert Steven Lewis & SMH tablet editor, Stephen Hutcheon.

It was a lively talk about what’s new, what’s working, what’s not. Here’s what we covered.

Firstly, what is longform writing?

When I researched that I was amazed to find some American editors describing a 2,000-word story as longform. To me, that’s an average feature article.

People typically sort longform journalism into two types:

investigative reportage
narrative nonfiction not pegged to the daily news & focused around a human story

Where can you find longform writing?

In print: in Australian magazines like The Monthly and in weekend supplements.

Online: The Global Mail are doing some innovative longform pieces mixing words with pictures and footage. See The town that wouldn’t disappear for a compelling example.

However as we discussed the multi-media approach doesn’t always work. Sometimes the images & videos get in the way of the story. And how often do you actually watch all the video? We agreed that this is still a work-in-progress.

Here are some other longform websites (mainly American). Some are free, others require a subscription.

Byliner
The Atavist
Longform
http://thefeature.net/
The Awl
Narrative-ly
Politico
Longreads
@ifyouonly on twitter features 1 great piece of writing a day

Kindle Singles

This is for stories between 5,000 to 30,000 words. While they’ve been very successful for a few writers, since 2011 only 400 titles have been published. Most cost between $0.99 and $4.99. In July they launched a new series that features long interviews with famous people.

Travel writing in longform

As many of you know, narrative travel writing has really suffered in recent years due to slashing advertising budgets and shrinking travel sections in newspapers. Now that most travel articles are under 1000 words and many are little more than travel advertorial, it’s hard to get longer travel pieces or essays published.

Yet I know the demand is there – both by writers and readers – from people who come to my travel writing courses.

Perceptive travel offer writers the chance to write longer stories but only publish travel writers who’ve written a book. They pay $100 per story.

My sense is that the so-called longform renaissance does exist in pockets, more in America, than in Australia. This is fuelled by the reaction against the sound-bite nature of news & social media and the ease of reading longer stories on tablets/i-pads. Hamish McKenzie has more to say on this.

As with so many aspects of publishing we’re still trying to find a way forward. I always take heart that people kept predicting that travel writing wouldn’t survive – yet it keeps re-inventing itself.

Stories won’t die either. The form is changing but they’ve been around since we first sat around campfires.

Would love to know your thoughts on this. Do you read longform?

Wordstruck - How to say more by saying less?

Writing something short can be as hard or harder as working on a long sprawling project like a novel. But in the process of whittling down your words, you get to the heart of your story.

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I realised this putting together my book trailer for The Pagoda Tree. For this I worked with talented videographer Michael Amendolia and Walkley-winning film editor Ella Rubeli.

Using Scrivener I first put together a storyboard with my vision for the trailer. Then I put together a three-page script. As I quickly discovered 3 pages was far too long for a 3-minute clip.

Michael filmed me in my office. We did several takes and each one helped refine my message.

Then the footage, sublime original music from Vicki Hansen, images of Indian temple dancers, the evocative book cover and the exact fonts were sent to the Ella, the editor.

Ella put together a rough cut. I watched it several times and wrote down everything I’d said. It soon became obvious which parts needed to be stripped back. I retyped my script, shortening it from 3 pages to 1 page.

It amazed me how little you actually say on film compared to what you write. Of course, with film or TV the images work for you. The music adds atmosphere. The final details, transitions and combination of images/words create the experience.

But the essence of what you’re doing is the same. You’re refining your key message.

When you start a writing project or a book, a helpful exercise is to write a 300-word blurb for it – like you find on the back cover.

Then trim this to 100 words. Then cut it to a sentence. All of this makes you focus on your strongest storyline.

In the end my 3-minute book trailer can only give a taste of what The Pagoda Tree is about. It’s been a fantastic process: collaborating with other creative artists, learning to see my book in a non-writerly way, using other media to tell my story.

It’s also given me insight into how flexible stories are – but how you always need to know the WHY of what your writing.

Please share the trailer now also on Penguin youtube with friends!

If you want to hear more about the inspiration behind The Pagoda Tree, I am doing an In Conversation with Suzanne Leal next Thursday, August 13, 6.00pm, at Waverley Library in Sydney. Only $5 & includes wine!

Wordstruck - Give yourself permission to write rubbish

At my travel memoir course last weekend we were talking about how much writing is rewriting. How hard it can be. How rare it is that your first draft is flawless.

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There were some surprised murmurs, some nodding heads. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Just give yourself permission to write crap.’ The whole group laughed.

‘Can we quote you on that,’ quipped one person. The next day another said, ‘That was
yesterday’s big takeaway for me – knowing it doesn’t have to be perfect first time round.’

And...

Wordstruck - how to write about other cultures

In a recent video interview with the Australian Writers’ Centre I was asked how I write about other cultures. The pitfalls, the pleasures. And how writing about my Indian characters in The Pagoda Tree differed from writing about Ani, the Tibetan nun, in Last Seen in Lhasa.

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It’s an interesting issue. In travel memoir writers often face the dilemma of how to write about ‘the other’ without sounding awestruck / judgemental / baffled or rude.

In the eighties PJ O’Rourke wrote Holidays in Hell. R...

Wordstruck - What happens when you hit a wall with your writing?

We’ve all been there. Those days when nothing seems to flow, when your words are wooden and your syntax is lifeless. Those days when you’re bored with writing. Sick of it. Even hate it.

I’ve been there too.

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It’s like you’ve reached a dead end – or a brick wall. So how do you get passed?

If it’s a short project or an article…

Go back to your original brief. Open a new document; cut & paste the title or brief at the top of the page. Remember what you originally set out to do before you becam...