L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 11

Why I Don’t Go to Libraries Anymore (and Why I Love Them Anyway)

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My local council has recently built an architectural award-winning building (even though I’ve heard people describing the outside as looking like Donald Trump’s hair) and moved both its offices and the library into it. I’m assured it’s beautiful inside. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t gone in and don’t have any plans to.

I don’t go to libraries anymore. The last time I went to a library was with my sister and her then pre-school aged daughter on one of their weekly trips to return the children’s books they’d borrowed and select some more. Before that? A body corporate meeting of unit owners where I lived that just happened to be in a hired meeting room at a library. And before that? During my undergraduate studies, which I finished when I was twenty-two (nearly half my lifetime ago).

A Few Reasons Why I Don’t Go to Libraries Anymore

Time Constraints on Reading

If I really get into a book, I can read straight through and finish it in one sitting (assuming I have the time, which I rarely do these days). If I don’t really get into a book or if it’s really long or if there are other things I have to prioritise, it can take me months to read a book. When this is the case, I don’t want to have to return to a library to renew my borrowings or even have to return them unfinished, I just want to put it on my bedside table and be able to pick it up whenever I have a few spare reading moments.

I don’t like being pressured to read, particularly not within a set period of time. Reading is something I do for enjoyment and pressure is not enjoyable.

I Prefer to Read in Private

I know plenty of people like to take a book to the beach or a coffee shop or a park or even simply pick one up in the library and start reading right there and then, but I feel weird reading in public. I will do it on the train (sometimes it’s safer than making eye contact) or at the airport bookshop when I’m waiting to catch a flight but, for the most part, I do all my reading at home (and most of it in bed – the term for a person who does this is a “librocubicularist”).

Although I know it’s not the intention, reading in public or even just in company feels like someone is being ignored. I’ve got guilt about enough things, I don’t need to add any more to the list.

If I Want to Read a Book, I Buy It

For some girls, it’s shoes. For me, it’s books. There is nothing that feels as good to a bookworm as buying a book. Certainly, it’s nothing like merely borrowing one (because you know you’ll eventually have to give it back).

There are so many second-hand books that need forever homes (and I buy them from charities so it’s a win-win scenario) that I might never have come across if I was browsing in a book store. And purchasing brand new books means I’m supporting writers to be able to support themselves and write more books.

I Don’t Have Any Children

I think libraries are so important as a part of children learning to love reading. My sister and her three children virtually live at the library. But I don’t have any children. And I already love reading. So, in conjunction with the other reasons I’ve espoused above, this is why I don’t go to libraries anymore.

A Few Reasons Why I Love Libraries Anyway

Libraries Are Where I Learned to Love Reading

Like I said, libraries are so important to children learning to love reading. It’s certainly where I learned it. My family wasn’t flush with cash when I was growing up so if we wanted to read books, this is where we found them. And since my parents were divorced and lived two hours apart, we had not one but two local libraries to spend hours in, as well as our school libraries and for those years we lived in a rural town, the mobile library in a truck that would come and park outside the school periodically.

It’s such an important formative experience to read as a youngster, to discover books that you love reading as a child. Let’s face it, if you don’t learn to love reading as a child, you’re unlikely to learn to love it at any other time in your life. And everyone can learn to love reading if they find books that speak to them. Where better than at a library?

Libraries Are Where I Learned

Okay, yes, this is what schools are for but when I think about, school is where I was taught but libraries are where I learned. There’s only so much information that can be conveyed in a classroom during very short classes (although at the time, they never felt short) but to reinforce it, to read opposing points of view, to learn more deeply about what are essentially a teacher’s talking points, there is nothing better than a library. Libraries might be where children learn to love reading but they are also where children learn to find things out for themselves instead of just accepting what they’re told.

I went through my primary, secondary and tertiary studies before the internet was the all-consuming and all-informing (some say ill-informed) thing it is now. There was no such thing as Google Scholar to find academic resources so we had to actually go to the library and physically look things up. It might sound tedious but actually it was a glorious process of discovery because you so often stumbled across things that you never would have if you hadn’t been walking past a shelf full of books that were technically outside of the area you were interested in.

Libraries Are the Reason for My First Ever Published Pieces

During the second-year of my second undergraduate qualification, I did a subject called Small Press Publishing. Essentially, the whole subject was about publishing a book. Everyone in the class proposed topics for the books, we chose one and then everyone was assigned a job that would get the book written, edited, designed and printed. The book was called InRoads and profiled the great streets of Melbourne in Australia (where we were living and studying).

I was assigned responsibility for coordinating the Toorak Road section. We put out requests to the student body to submit pieces and were looking for about six per street. We only received three for Toorak Road and so it became my additional responsibility to write the three extra pieces we required.

I’d never been to Toorak Road before but suddenly I needed to become an expert. I visited. I walked up and down the street. I noticed shop after shop with recognisable names and that became the first piece I wrote called, “What’s In a Name?” I took the free tour at Como House, a historical residence previously home to a high society family and now a National Trust property flush with tourists, and that became the second piece I wrote (you can read it here). And then I went to the local library and researched everything I could about the establishment and history of Toorak Road. It became the third piece I wrote. All three were published in the book, the first time I was ever published. (My father accompanied me on one of my visits and took dozens of photographs – particularly of Como House, St John’s Church and Fawkner Park – and that’s how he was published for the first time in the same book – on the front cover no less – but that’s another story.)

If it hadn’t been for that local library, I never would have been able to write that sixth and final piece to complete the Toorak Road section.

Libraries Hold Events for Writers and Readers

There is nothing better for a writer than connecting with readers who appreciate what they’ve written and readers clearly enjoy it as well or they wouldn’t turn up. “Meet the Author” events are offered in many libraries and while social media connections are common these days, there’s nothing quite like meeting your favourite writer in person. My nephew met Andy Griffiths when he was nine (another formative experience).

When I was younger, I would be in awe at the thought of seeing a writer whose work I liked in person but the thing that struck me when I finally heard them speaking was that they were just regular people with a particular skill. Now that I’m older and a writer myself, I cherish those connections even more because finding people who are prepared to read your work and want to talk to you about it is difficult. Thank God for libraries facilitating it.

Libraries Buy Books and Some Governments Offer Lending Rights Payments to Writers

Obviously, in order to have books on the shelves, libraries usually have to buy books, which is good news for authors. And in some countries (twenty-eight, according to Wikipedia at the time of writing this, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Israel and quite a few European countries), there are Public Lending Rights (for public libraries) and Educational Lending Rights (for educational libraries) programs. These programs differ by country but generally seem to be cultural programs administered by the governments to compensate authors for the loss of royalties from potential sales due to the books being available for free to those consuming them. We don’t get to say this often these days but yay to governments who recognise the importance of libraries and the authors of books that make libraries possible.

*****

If you need more convincing that libraries are wonderful places, I could give you plenty of reasons (computer access for people who don’t have it at home, historical record preservation, lending of films and music and now digital products as well, being a public gathering place along with general health and wellbeing benefits – seriously, there have been studies, look it up!) but if you’re reading this, then I suspect you’re already a library enthusiast. And I hope you still call into your local library from time to time even though I don’t. Because they rely on visitors through the doors to convince people obsessed with commercial priorities that they’re still worth funding. They are and always will be.

Controversy in Writing

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Without having any real evidence to back up the theory, I have always thought that writers could be divided up into two categories: those who court controversy and those who avoid it. (I later realised there was a third category – writers who are controversial without realising it – and you can read a bit about that here.)

I also figured out a long time ago that getting involved in any type of controversy tends to leave me upset in greater proportion to any change I may be able to effect in advocating for one side or another. So I generally try to stay quiet unless I feel very strongly. And even then, I moderate myself and think long and hard about how to phrase what I want to say in order to avoid reactions from trolls and people who never change their mind about anything even in the face of overwhelmingly logical arguments. After all, the vitriol of stupid people can be vicious and my greatest ambition is an easy life.

Besides, how much controversy is there in writing really?

Okay, sure, there’s plenty of controversy in writing when opinion pieces are considered. It’s the nature of opinion by definition. The Macquarie Dictionary defines it as “judgement or belief resting on grounds insufficient to produce certainty”. And since there’s no certainty, it’s almost guaranteed people will come down on both sides of the argument.

But controversy in fiction? In novels? Surely not? Surely not much, in any case?

It was partly why I chose writing (or why it chose me, the definitive answer may never be known on that score). I could sit at home tapping out words that turned into sentences that turned into paragraphs that turned into chapters that turned into entire books. If people liked what I wrote, great. If they didn’t, not so great but I could cope. (My foremost reaction to my first – and only to this stage – one-star rating was not anger or offence or sadness but curiosity. Why? Since it wasn’t accompanied by an explanation, I’ll never know what it was about my book that had so greatly disappointed that reader.) But I would mostly be shielded from the (nowadays) online yelling matches that erupt from time to time, particularly in relation to politics and social justice and education and the law and morals and… well, just about everything else. The world of fiction writing would be a place where I could retreat from all that.

It’s taken me a while but I’ve realised, as I should have from the start, that there’s as much controversy in fiction writing as in anything else. I have social media to thank for that. I follow a lot of other writers and they aren’t nearly as squeamish as I am in getting involved in controversy. Here are just a few recent examples.

Cockygate

This is a strange one. One of the very first things writers learn about the legalities of writing is that titles can’t be copyrighted. If you want to call your book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, you’re well within you rights to do it. You’d probably be plum crazy considering that JK Rowling has already had immense success with a book called exactly that. But there’s nothing to legally stop you from doing it (although you can guess Rowling’s publishers and the production companies responsible for the movies would try like crazy).

And yet in the first half of 2018, a self-published writer by the name of Faleena Hopkins trademarked the use of the word “cocky” as an adjective in the title of romance books and wrote to several authors asking them to remove their books with “cocky” in the title from sale, rename them or face legal action. Some of them did because they didn’t have the resources to fight against it.

The trademark is currently being challenged through legal avenues by retired lawyer and writer Kenneth Kneupper because:

*The word “cocky” was used in romance novel titles long before Faleena Hopkins ever used it

*Generic terms generally aren’t able to be trademarked

*It’s “a dick move” (according to Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat – “…if it were really possible to legally forbid authors from using a certain common word in their book titles, then the whole publishing industry would be down the drain in a matter of days.”)

Romance Writers of America are also working with an IP attorney to resolve this issue, which is currently ongoing.

Ebook Stuffing

Ebook stuffing is when writers publish supposedly new content that is primarily composed of previously published material. For example, the first 250 pages might be never before seen but the remaining 3,000 pages are not. Because of the way Amazon was paying authors that are part of the KDP Select program (based on a percentage of page views to disperse a limited fund of money), it meant serial book stuffers were often earning up to $100,000 a month and reducing the funds going to other writers who weren’t doing the same thing.

It violated KDP’s terms of service but not much was ever done about it, some say because it wasn’t really hurting Amazon. They paid out the same amount of money, regardless of where it was going. In early June 2018, they implemented some new guidelines in an attempt to prevent ebook stuffing from continuing but as David Gaughran reported, some offenders claimed almost immediately they had found a loophole, simply by adding the word “compilation” to the title.

There will always be people who operate according to the letter of the law but flaunt the spirit of it and this is a perfect case in point.

Jennifer Weiner and Jonathan Franzen

I will freely admit I have never read books by either Jennifer Weiner or Jonathan Franzen. In fact, I only know who both of them are because of this controversy. In 2010, when Franzen was releasing his novel, Freedom, Weiner complained about the wall-to-wall coverage it was receiving (dubbed “Franzenfrenzy”), including not one but two reviews in the New York Times, saying it was evidence of the over-representation of white, middle-aged, male writers in a fawning literary scene. Jodi Picoult backed her up, saying the New York Times “favours white male authors”. Although he was probably just unlucky to be at the apex of a conglomeration of feeling about the attention these white male authors receive, Franzen became a lightning rod for it and the term “Franzenfreude” was coined by Weiner, becoming a rallying cry for female writers and authors of colour. As the Schott’s Vocab blog on the New York Times website pointed out, “Though he may well benefit from it, sexism within literary culture is no way Franzen’s fault.”

However, instead of calmly making that point himself, Franzen has ever since engaged in personal attacks on Weiner, saying, “there’s something about [her] that rubs me the wrong way, something I don’t trust…” Therefore, it’s hard to begrudge Weiner when she says, “Okay, I don’t hate Jonathan Franzen. What I hate is the way the New York Times transforms itself into his personal PR machine when he has a book out, to the exclusion of the books people are actually reading, so he’s sort of a symbol for a whole binary hierarchical… oh, fuck it, I hate that smug motherfucker, and I vote we TP his house.”

*****

The one thing that all these – and most other – controversies have in common is that they divide the writing community that so often benefits from remaining a strong united front, particularly given that the majority of us will never make it into the JK Rowling-level stratosphere and rely on the kindness of a few random readers (often other authors). It’s a shame. Particularly because if we’re devoting our energies to picking sides, then it doesn’t leave a lot of time for the things that will deliver the most benefits to our careers, our royalties and our mental health: writing.

The Nine Types of Book Review

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Once a book is published, there are two things an author hopes for: sales and reviews. Sales are good because they allow a writer to be financially supported as they write their next book. Reviews are good because they lead to more sales. And the more stars each review has, the more validated the author feels and the more confidence potential readers have.

But regardless of whether a book is good, bad or somewhere in between, and assuming it has had enough exposure, it will have each of the following types of review.

The Never-Read-It Review

Obviously someone who reviews a book they’ve never read has a nefarious purpose, either to promote or prevent the reading of it. Platforms like Amazon usually don’t allow a review of a product that hasn’t been bought directly from them so that helps a little. Platforms like Goodreads rely on the honesty of the reading community they have assembled. It doesn’t always work.

Authors might suggest they don’t mind so much as long as it’s a good review but reviews aren’t really for authors, they’re for potential readers. And there’s nothing worse for a reader than relying on a review and being time-wastingly deceived.

The Never-Finished-Reading-It Review

Everyone has started reading at least one book that they just haven’t been able to get through. For me, it’s Jane Eyre. And if you run through the Goodreads list of all my reviews, you won’t find it there. How could I justify reviewing a book I haven’t actually read? But plenty of people do it, usually using their inability to finish it as evidence of the book not being good enough to hold their interest. I prefer to interpret it as evidence of the reader’s inability to persist.

Some books that have impressed me are those that I really hated reading. The Godfather, The Fourth Estate, The Life of Pi – I really struggled reading these books. I just didn’t understand what the point of any of them was and I found them difficult… until I read the last pages of each, at which point they suddenly became profound.

Any review that starts with, “I didn’t finish this book…” is one I automatically disregard.

The Rating-Without-Explanation Review

I understand that most people don’t have the time to write lengthy reviews but I also automatically disregard one-star and five-star ratings if they don’t have an accompanying review that explains why. After all, a book has to be awful to be rated one star and amazing to be rated five stars. At least, they should be.

The rating without explanation bothers me less for two-star, three-star and four-star books (although I always appreciate even just a sentence as to why). But a one-star or five-star rating without going into the reason why is open to interpretation. Is it one star because the reader doesn’t like that genre but thought they’d give it a go anyway or is it one-star because it was a truly terrible book? Without the explanation, the rating is close to meaningless.

The Nitpicking Review

The nitpicking review gets caught up on one tiny little thing and is then based entirely on it. I saw it recently in a review where the reader couldn’t get past the fact that the story was set during a southern hemisphere Christmas, making it hot and entirely lacking in snow. Even though this is how half the world celebrates Christmas, the reader was particularly annoyed that it didn’t reflect their experience. So I have no idea whether the book was any good, just that they didn’t like that aspect of it. It’s especially unhelpful.

The Relative Review

Families can be great. They want to support the creative (although slightly fanciful) efforts of their sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and so on. So when a book is released, they’re among the first reviewers.

I have one of these reviews myself. My mother kindly wrote to accompany her five-star rating of my debut novel, Enemies Closer, “This is a great read. Not finished it yet. But enjoying it very much. Looking forward to each chapter. Have holidays coming up and will be engrossed.” To the best of my knowledge, she has never finished reading it. Even though she used to be, she’s not much of a reader anymore. It’s perfect evidence of why reviews from relatives should be approached with at least a little caution.

The Spoiler-Revealing Review

A great many books rely on plot points being revealed to the reader only as the book is being read and yet some reviewers feel the need to let us know them in their reviews. “Rosebud’s the sled,” Herman Mankiewicz whisper shouts at people filing into the first screening of Citizen Kane in the movie about its making, RKO281. At least he had some comic timing. Most reviews with spoilers simply give away all the good bits, making reading the book itself entirely unnecessary or entirely unsatisfying.

The Short Thoughtful Review

A sentence or a paragraph is all that most writers want because a sentence or a paragraph is all that most potential readers will read before moving onto the next review. “A traditional romance with feisty main characters and a lovely fairy tale ending. Three stars.” It doesn’t get much shorter or sweeter than that. And while a writer might prefer four or five stars, it’s the kind of review that will speak directly to the target audience for a book of that genre.

The Mid-Length Musing Review

The mid-length musing review is more likely to be seen and read in full on a book blog and is more likely to be written by an amateur book reviewer and appreciated by bibliophiles. You will know exactly why the reviewer did or didn’t like the book and, in most cases, it will have just enough detail for the author to think, “Hmmm, I must remember this part of the critique when I’m writing my next book.” Unless it devolves into a rant (always a possibility when someone feels strongly enough to write a mid-length musing review), then it’s always worth giving it some consideration.

The Long Essay Review

This is the kind of review most writers can only dream of, thousands of words dedicated to a genuinely thoughtful consideration of the author and their book. These will usually appear in newspapers and magazines and will be written by professional critics who weave the story of the author and their writing of the book into their review of the book itself. They’re flattering for authors (assuming they’re positive) but they’re mostly for hard-core readers and they’re few and far between for writers who aren’t already famous.

*****

Reviews are a bit like publicity; there’s no such thing as a bad example of it because the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about, as Oscar Wilde so wittily put it. Still, authors hope for a little bit of thought and effort when their books are being reviewed. After all the thought and effort they’ve put into writing their books, it’s what they deserve.

Book Review: If I Stay by Gayle Forman

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Gayle Forman is a brilliant writer. They say that easy reading is hard to write and If I Stay was a very easy read. Told in a first person narrative by Mia, a seventeen-year-old high school senior and a gifted cellist, the news comes through that schools are closed for a snow day so Mia, her parents and her little brother plan a busy day out visiting friends, family and stores. They never even make it to their first stop on the itinerary though because a truck slams into their car.

Her parents die instantly and the scene Forman writes describing the aftermath of the crash is so visceral that I was nervous getting in a car afterwards. Seeing their lifeless bodies, Mia can’t bring herself to look for her little brother and instead stumbles across her own. Except she isn’t dead. She’s badly injured and for the rest of the book has an out-of-body experience watching the doctors and nurses trying to save her and her friends and family in the hospital waiting room coping with their loss and praying there won’t be any more.

I’ll admit that I hated this device because it’s the sort of thing that writers do to get around the fact that Mia would actually be unconscious and unaware of everything going on around her as she fights for life but are so desperate to write in the first person that they’ll defy logic if that makes it happen. But if you can get over it (and I did), you’ll be treated to a lovely character study. Mia’s parents, her boyfriend, her friends, just about all people she knows are way more cool than she is. Instead, she’s calm and it’s a nice change for a young adult novel. So many of them are full of crying and yelling and typical teenagers who think average grades, relationship breakdowns and parents who want the best for them are the end of the world. Mia actually is facing the end of her world and her composed consideration of that is refreshing.

Surprisingly for a book of such depth, the story takes place over just twenty-four hours (not including the flashbacks that are about half of the book). It’s not a plot driven novel so don’t expect anything to “happen”, especially not when you come to the ending. Of course, the fact that there’s a sequel does kind of give it away.

The book is full of musical references and it reminded me of Will Grayson, Will Grayson in that respect. Some of the music I knew but most of it I didn’t and it takes something away from the reading experience when that is the case. It’s like there’s an inside joke that you aren’t lucky enough to be in on. Save it for the movies, I say.

I don’t really know why but I’m not inclined to read the sequel. Even though there was a device that I didn’t like and the unappreciated musical references, there’s enough perfection in this book for me not to want to ruin it with sloppy seconds as sequels so often are. And I say that knowing that the sequel is rated just as highly as the original. No doubt I’ll come around eventually. But for now I just want to have the experience of this book as a book on its own. And that is a worthy writing and reading experience.

In a word: elegant.

4 stars

*First published on Goodreads 12 January 2018

This Was Supposed to Be the Announcement of My New Book… But It Isn’t

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Draft Image for Black Spot Cover

This is a strange blog post to be writing. It was supposed to be the announcement of the release of my new book, Black Spot. I’ve been talking about it here for years now, from conception to writing to shortlisting in the 2016 Text Prize to its planned publication. I’d originally planned to release it in February 2018 but life and a hectic new job kept delaying it. It was eventually ready by the end of May 2018 (apart from the cover, which would be ready a few weeks later). And then came something that threw a spanner in the works.

It’s not often that government and business decisions affect me directly but this one did. The Australian Government decided all online purchases under $1,000 sold into Australia by businesses outside of Australia would be subject to the 10% GST. (Previously, only purchases over $1,000 were subject to the tax.) And in direct response, Amazon decided it would no longer sell or deliver to Australia from its non-Australian sites.

Amazon does have a local Australian site – amazon.com.au – but it has only a fraction of the items available for sale on the US site and the prices are often more expensive than buying from overseas, even when taking into account currency conversion fees and shipping. So few people in Australia have been using it. Amazon’s launch here has generally been considered a flop.

So what better way to sure up the local site than by forcing people to use it, even when they don’t want to? At least, that’s what the conspiracy theorists are saying. Amazon says they’re not averse to the idea of the tax, they just don’t think they should be the ones responsible for collecting it. Other companies who will also be subject to the changes, such as eBay, have decided they will continue offering their complete range for sale in Australia and begin collecting the GST as required.

For anyone who can’t get what they need on the Australian Amazon site and wants to continue shopping on Amazon US or Amazon UK, they will need a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to get around the geoblocking – Australians won’t even be able to view the site if it can tell you’re trying to look at it from Australia – and a forwarding company to receive the delivery in the US or the UK and then on-forward it to its final destination.

So why is this such a problem for me? Because I’m an Australian, because I’m a writer, because the majority of my readers are Australian and because the only place they can get copies of my paperbacks is Amazon US and Amazon UK (as I have published with CreateSpace). At least until 1 July. After that, they won’t be able to buy copies of my paperbacks at all unless they’re willing to go to all the effort described in the paragraph above. I won’t even be able to put a link to these sites on my blog because I, as an Australian, won’t be able to find the link in order to copy it.

As such, I’ve put my publishing plans on hold while I investigate other options: publishing with a different print-on-demand company that will mean my paperbacks will be available in Australia or maybe still publishing with CreateSpace but finally setting up that author website I’ve had on the backburner and selling them myself into Australia.

I don’t know what the answer is yet. I just know that self-publishing is hard enough and this has only made it harder.

Of course, when the time comes, I’ll let everyone know when and where the book is available for purchase. In the meantime, if anyone has any suggestions or solutions, I’d love to hear them.

Writing Is What Happens While You’re Busy Missing Deadlines

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About eighteen months ago, I published my most recent book, Project January: A Sequel About Writing. But I’d actually planned to publish it about four months earlier. Yet as the deadline I’d set for myself arrived, the book still wasn’t finished. I still have the publishing plans for it and my next four books written on one of my whiteboards:

*Project January: A Sequel About Writing – November 2016

*Black Spot – November 2017

*Trine – November 2018

*Project February: A Trilogy About Writing – November 2019

*Matriarchy – November 2020

I eventually finished and published Project January in March 2017 and you can read about how I did that in my post on how to psych yourself into writing a book. But because it was four months late (or at least four months later than I’d planned to publish), suddenly my subsequent publishing plans were also thrown out. (Obviously I like the idea of publishing roughly one book a year.)

That wasn’t the only thing that changed. I started development of an entirely new book. I changed a title. I moved some things around. So as of right now, my publishing schedule (even though I haven’t written it down anywhere else but here) looks like this:

*Black Spot – June 2018

*Motherhood – May 2019

*Project June: A Trilogy About Writing – February 2020

*Trine – February 2021

*Matriarchy – February 2022

Black Spot will be published later this month*. It’s about time. It’s been ready to go for almost two years. Motherhood is the entirely new (non-fiction) book, a collection of essays about the many mothers I know with incredible stories, and the intended publication date coincides with Mothers’ Day 2019 (you can read about its development in my 2017 Project October posts). Project June (formerly Project February) is still being written – I’m at about 45,000 words of what will be 80,000. Trine is still being written, too – I’m at about 85,000 words of about 110,000. And Matriarchy is something I’ve been ruminating over for a long time, the story of a small country that expels all men to create a safe place for women. I haven’t even written 1,000 words of it but the first third is pretty firmly settled in my mind (if not on paper).

Plans are all well and good but I have no doubt that apart from the publication of Black Spot (which is pretty firmly settled for next week), everything else is still up in the air. (How can it be anything else when none of them are finished being written?)

And then, of course, there’s my blog. As I write this, I have 12 blog posts written and ready to be published. Since I publish one a week, that’s 12 weeks’ worth. It sounds pretty good. And I only have to write one a week to keep that schedule filled for nearly three months into the future. Except what I meant to write was that I only have 12 blog posts written. Because for some reason, I’m finding even writing that one blog post a week difficult. I’m certainly not writing anything else either. Why?

Because I’m working a full-time job. I’m also doing freelance editing after hours. I’m helping my sister with her university studies. I’m attempting to keep a house fit for human habitation at the same time as I slowly (very slowly) renovate it. And people keep inviting me to social events. While I’m sure I could happily never see another person ever again, I’m assured that it’s necessary for my mental health so I go and socialise. And every minute I’m doing it, I’m thinking to myself, “I could be writing right now.” And those 12 blog posts? Well, just last year I had – and was managing to maintain – about 65 blog posts ahead of schedule. Ah, the glory days of being a full-time writer!

What’s your point? I can hear you asking. The above is my long-winded way of letting you know that it’s not the end of the world when the deadlines (otherwise known as goals with time frames) that you set for yourself don’t get met. So your book or your blog post gets published later. So what?

The one time it really is a problem is when you’re getting paid to write to a deadline. I was a paid corporate writer for over seven years and I never missed one deadline during that time. Probably because I wasn’t emotionally attached to what I was writing and everybody else seemed to like the results, so that was good enough for me.

Corporate writing is one thing but a publishing contract is another. I’ve written previously about how it isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. This is from the second of two posts I wrote about why it’s unlikely you will and why you shouldn’t take it to heart when you don’t win writing competitions:

“The prize on offer for the winner of the Text Prize was a publishing contract, which is what we writers think we want. But I spoke to two people at the announcement party who made me wonder if I should be careful what I’m wishing for.

“The first was a writer who has been quite successful and has published a lot. But that writer also seemed very tired, almost on the verge of a burn out, because of contracts with short deadlines that had to be met no matter what. Writers without contracts can sit at home and tinker with our books for years trying to get them right without any such pressure. We bemoan the time as it ticks by without any seeming progress, but now I’m wondering if this is the simpler time we will later fondly look back on and dream of returning to.

“The second person I spoke to worked at a publishing company – there were quite a few different companies represented at the party – and I mentioned that I had enjoyed a book the company had published but hadn’t liked the sequel. ‘Neither did we,’ that person responded. ‘Even the author wasn’t happy with it.’

“‘Then why,’ I asked, ‘was it published at all? Why wasn’t it held back until the author was happy with the final result?’ I was told that there were international contracts in place with specific deadlines and that these other publishers didn’t care so much about whether it was any good, just that they could capitalise on the success of the first book by rushing out the second.”

*****

If deadlines work for you, then by all means go ahead and set them. If they don’t, you can set them as well and then watch as they go by unmet. As Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, said, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” Maybe you’ll learn to love the sound of them, too.

*Read next week about why publishing Black Spot this month was the intention but won’t be happening.

On Reading the Book That Beat Me for the 2016 Text Prize

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In 2016, I entered the then unpublished manuscript of my young adult novel Black Spot in the Text Prize competition for young adult and children’s writing. I wasn’t holding my breath about winning because I’m not the holding-my-breath kind of person. And when I received a blanket email from the Text Prize people thanking everybody for their entries and saying that the shortlisted authors would be contacted individually, I assumed I wasn’t one of them because I hadn’t heard anything.

A couple of days later, my phone rang. I didn’t recognise the number. I thought it might be about a job I’d applied for. Instead it was a woman named Ally, who told me she worked at Text Publishing. She was calling to let me know that Black Spot had been shortlisted for the Text Prize. And to invite me to the announcement of the winner in just under two weeks’ time.

If it sounds like I was very calm during that phone call, I wasn’t. I was stunned. I was overwhelmed. But I was happy. This was an achievement. This was amazing. This was bliss.

From 297 entries, the five shortlisted novels were mine, Eternal by Sarah Bainbridge, Waste by Claire Christian, Never Let Go by James Cooper and Rosebud by Fiona Hardy. And two days before the official announcement, we each received a phone call to let us know if we’d won or not, presumably to avoid those “What the f**k?” or break-down-crying reactions that sometimes happen when you only find out on the night. As I said at the time to my honorary manager, I was bummed that I hadn’t won but I’d get over it. And I have.

At the official announcement party, Claire Christian was announced as the winner and as she gave an impressive speech, I was 1) thankful I hadn’t won because I don’t do public speaking and 2) certain she was going to be a much better marketing proposition for Text Publishing. (Look at her official author portrait; she has blue hair! If that doesn’t say marketer’s dream, then I don’t know what does! Okay, I don’t know much about being a marketer’s dream, if I did I’d be better at it, but Claire seemed to me to be it.)

Towards the end of August 2017, her book was published under the revised title of Beautiful Mess. In September, I bought a copy and in October, I read it (you can read my 4.5-star review here – I sent a message to Claire saying I thought the book was wonderful and I hoped it wasn’t too awkies having someone you’d lost to writing a review of your book and she responded by thanking me, saying it wasn’t awkward and she was glad I had enjoyed it). As of writing this, I can’t find that any of the other books, including mine, have been published yet. One author has found an agent, another is working on a US publisher’s feedback to get it to their standards for publishing and I’m preparing to self-publish.

I was always going to read Claire’s book because 1) it won a writing prize and that’s a pretty great endorsement, 2) I wanted to know what she had done better than me and use it as a learning process, and 3) I’m a little masochistic (but mostly the first two). I’m was very pleased to be able to report that it’s an amazing book because 1) it justifies that it won the Text Prize and 2) I got to write a glowing book review and avoid looking like a sore loser.

It struck me, though, that there were quite a few similarities in our books. Explorations of death, the tricky time of being a teenager, identity, power, relationships with parents, relationships with significant others (friends and lovers) and mental health (specifically depression). There were also two big differences. Claire had approached her story from a place of realism, pure gritty realism, while I had written a piece of escapist fiction. And it was clear that she spent a lot of time with real teenagers. If I didn’t have a sister twenty years younger than me and a teenage niece and nephew, I wouldn’t have spoken to a teenager in decades, pretty much since I was one.

One thing that was really reinforced for me was that books aren’t really the kind of thing that can be definitively ranked as better or worse. They’re not like science tests and they can’t be objectively marked correct or incorrect out of a hundred. The reason that both of our books were shortlisted was because they were both good. Her book isn’t better than mine. It just spoke more clearly and more powerfully to the people at Text Publishing. It was closer to what they were looking for, something that neither of us could have known about, so in the end it was a bit of a crapshoot in that respect.

And the other thing is that I haven’t really been beaten. My book still exists. It will be published. It will be read. My success will come differently and later than Claire’s but it will still come. Her book is fantastic. And my book was good enough to be shortlisted with it. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Book Review: Beautiful Mess by Claire Christian

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Full disclosure time: in 2016, this book was shortlisted for the Text Prize for Unpublished Children’s and Young Adult Writing along with a book I’d written and three by other writers. Clearly, my book and those three others didn’t win and this one did. I was always going to read Beautiful Mess because 1) it won a writing prize and that’s a pretty great endorsement, 2) I wanted to know what Claire Christian had done better than me and use it as a learning process, and 3) I’m a little masochistic (but mostly the first two). I’m very pleased to report that it’s an amazing book because 1) it justifies that it won the Text Prize and 2) I get to write a glowing book review and avoid looking like a sore loser.

Ava is going through a tough time. Her best friend, Kelly, has recently died after a long struggle with depression and Ava’s coping mechanisms – like sleeping with Kelly’s older brother and telling an assembly of her entire school to get fucked – aren’t really helping.

Gideon is going through a tough time, too. He goes to Ava’s school and he knows her and what happened to Kelly but they haven’t crossed paths. She’s popular and beautiful and he’s introverted and poetic – literally; he writes poetry – and he’s a recovering self-harmer after being bullied out of his former school.

They meet when Gideon’s therapist gets him a job working at Magic Kebab where Ava works, too. She doesn’t think about him much until the night he uses his knowledge of poetry to beatbox with a group of African teens and blows her away. She tells him he should ask her for her number but he tells her he doesn’t have a phone. Or use the internet. (Because of the aforementioned bullying.) So instead they start writing each other letters. (It’s hilarious when Ava realises she doesn’t know how to post a letter.)

Nothing huge happens in the book because all of the huge things have already happened and it’s about what happens afterwards, the long, horrible seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks and months of coping after awful things have happened. It’s all gritty realism, nothing escapist about it at all. It deals with so many difficult topics – death, sex, depression, self-harm, bullying, expulsion from school, identity – using complex, interesting, imperfect characters with a really important message for teenagers and for all of us really: it’s okay not to be okay.

I read some reviews that didn’t like the ending, I suspect because it wasn’t Hollywood happy ever after, but how could it be Hollywood happy ever after when your best friend’s still dead at the end of the book and your arms and legs are still scarred from your self-harming as permanent reminders? It’s not neatly wrapped up because it’s not meant to be an end, it’s meant to be a beginning to the rest of the characters’ lives. But it’s also not meant to be a jumping off point for a sequel, at least I hope it’s not. There’s nothing worse than trying to force another story out of a set of characters that have already told you everything you need to know about them.

Beautiful Mess reminded me a great deal of Will Grayson, Will Grayson but better and Claire Christian’s writing and insights into young people reminded me a lot of John Green, the same kind of insights into teenagers that he has but with a lovely and obvious Australian flavour that should still translate into other countries and cultures.

It’s very close to being a 5 star book and my true rating is more like 4.5 stars but there was a moment when Gideon punched another boy in a fit of jealousy and a misplaced sense of needing to protect Ava and instead of being ashamed of his actions, he was a little proud. I know it’s realistic but it seemed out of character and in an environment of court cases dealing with one-punch killings (quite prevalent in Australia), it was jarring, almost like he reached out of the book and punched me.

But apart from this moment, some editing errors and the short time it took me to get used to Claire Christian’s way of writing how the teenagers speak (a bit stop-start), it’s nearly a perfect book. I can’t wait to see what she does next.

4.5 stars

*First published on Goodreads 28 October 2017

A Story About Choosing an Author Photo

Sometimes (okay, more than sometimes) I like to live in a world where the only thing I’m judged on as a writer is my writing. The rest of the time I know I have to play the game. You know the game. The one where what you look like, how cool you are and how good you are on social media seem to be just as important. I resent the hell out it (mostly because I’m not beautiful, I’m a nerd – not one of those cool new-age nerds, just an old-fashioned awkward nerd – and my social media skills could charitably be described as needing work).

So imagine the personal torment I went through as I recently chose a new author photo to go on the back cover of my latest book, Black Spot. If you know my history with author photos, it’s not that hard to imagine.

That history is this. In 2012 as I was preparing to release my first book, I asked a friend of mine if she wanted to be the public face of my writing. She was blonde, bubbly and beautiful, people responded well to her without exception and, most importantly, if she was willing to do it, that would mean I wouldn’t have to. She graciously declined and instead offered to lend her professional photography and marketing skills to take (and lightly Photoshop) this image of me.

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Ever since, I’ve been using it for my book covers, my social media, pretty much everything related to my writing and professional lives. When Black Spot was shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize and I had to provide a photograph to Text Publishing for promotional purposes, I supplied them the same picture, only in colour.

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In February 2017, I used it again when I released Project January: A Sequel about Writing. Then I enlisted the ten second delay function on my camera to take a photograph of me holding the book for the announcement.

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In the uncropped version, you can see my laundry on the left (and a fraction of the garage) and the downstairs toilet on the right. “The toilet roll in the background is distracting,” my sister Stephanie commented when I circulated the raw image asking for feedback from family and friends on potentially using it again for the publication of Black Spot. “It’s going to be cropped!” I replied.

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In April 2017, when I was profiled on the website of Swinburne University, I used the ten second delay function again and took this image. “It looks like you’ve been crying,” said my sister Genevieve when I asked for her help choosing the best image. “I swear I haven’t. I don’t hate having my picture taken that much. Unfortunately, that’s about as good as it gets,” I told her.

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And in early 2018 as I prepared to release Black Spot, I went back through all these images and realised none of them quite suited the young adult genre of the book. That meant it was time for another horrible attempt to take a picture in which I don’t have crazy eyes, chicken neck, caveman forehead, slumped shoulders or that weird smile that strangely emulates my now long deceased dog after he was hit by a car. Yes, Chandler Bing and I have a lot in common when it comes to sitting for a portrait.

So even though I usually only wear make-up for weddings, I spent half an hour applying it badly (the only way I know how), half an hour taking pictures of myself, five minutes scrubbing my face (only realising at that point and after I’d taken about seventy-five pictures that I’d forgotten the mascara, more important than you might think for someone once described by a make-up artist as having “the shortest eyelashes” she’d ever seen) and the next day regretting it as I had a massive allergic reaction (the reason I don’t wear make-up). These are the best of a pretty bad bunch.

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Worse still, even though the whole point was to take a picture that suited the young adult genre of the book I was publishing, none of them were even remotely appropriate for that purpose. What a waste of an evening one day and a box of tissues the next.

Those I enlisted to help me choose a photo agreed by not agreeing. There was no consensus about which image I should use but the two most popular were the ones I’d taken a year earlier for the announcement of Project January’s release and the Swinburne University profile. But neither of those screamed “Young Adult Author” either.

My sister Elizabeth, although she was the only who picked it, said that this was the image that most closely suited the type of book I’d written.

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I don’t think it’s the best picture ever taken of me but it’s casual and relaxed, there’s no forced cheesy smile, I look confident that I’ve produced a good book (or possibly like I don’t care whether anyone else thinks I’ve produced a good book) and like someone a teenager might be able to relate to, more than in any of the other pictures anyway. For a few hours, this was the image I chose.

And then I decided that even though the concept of the image was right, the image itself wasn’t. It was a little fuzzy and while that usually wouldn’t bother me, it’s the sort of thing that my cover designer likes to put her foot down over. After all, it’s her reputation, too.

So I cleaned a window in my house that I like looking out of, did my make-up again, dressed similarly, posed similarly and sat for another timer delay photography session. And finally I managed to come up with this.

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Nobody is ever going to ask me to be on the cover of Vogue and that’s okay because it isn’t a goal of mine but at least I look better than a dog that’s been hit by a car (yes, I set the bar pretty low but when you’re not photogenic, you have to be realistic).

I don’t think, however, that I’ll be following the advice I’ve seen to splash this image everywhere on my blog, social media, Amazon and Smashwords profiles, Goodreads, etc for the sake of consistency. Because I’m not a young adult author. I’m just someone who happens to have written a young adult book. I might write another in the future. But my next three will be non-fiction about motherhood, non-fiction about writing and a literary crime novel. I’m not sure which author photos will best suit the covers of these books but there’s a good likelihood that it won’t be the one I chose for Black Spot.

Yes, I make my marketing life hard by not sticking to one genre but I make my writing life so much more interesting by writing and publishing whatever the hell I want and figuring out which picture goes with it later on. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I Am the Very Model of an Unknown Author Immemorial

I’m very bad at marketing and anything promotional

Even though with books I’m always quote devotional

In short, in matters authorial and even editorial

I am the very model of an unknown author immemorial

(And in this case, a bit of a plagiarist and an awful lyricist)

I know I do plenty right when it comes to my writing. If I thought differently, I probably would have given up a long time ago. But I know I do plenty wrong as well. How do I know that? Because I’ve written two-and-a-half books of writing, editing, publishing and marketing advice and often it’s a case of “do as I say, not as I do” because at least fifty percent of the time, I don’t – and sometimes just can’t bring myself to – follow my own advice. Which undoubtedly has something (probably a lot) to do with why I remain an unknown author (since time immemorial).

Here’s a (hardly comprehensive) list of things I do wrong.

I Only Write When I Feel Like It

I’ve seen plenty of advice from other writers that says you really know you’re a writer when you force yourself to sit down and write every day. At the moment, I have a nine to five job that I sometimes don’t leave until eight o’clock. When I finally get home, I can barely be bothered eating, let alone writing. So I only write when I feel like it. That’s usually two to three times a week and mostly on weekends.

When I was writing full-time without the distraction (and security) of paid work, I wrote nearly every day (weddings, funerals and family birthdays excepted). And even though I wrote nearly every day, I still only wrote when I felt like it. The difference, of course, was that I felt like writing more often and I had the time to do it.

Something that I’ve noticed though is that I do my best writing if I only write when I feel like it. I think it’s because I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to say and by the time I get the urge, it all just spills out of me in a form very close to what ends up being the final version.

I’ve Never Been Part of a Writing Group

The closest I’ve ever come to being part of a writing group – sharing my first drafts, reading the first drafts of others, providing and responding to feedback, sharing my second drafts, reading the second drafts of others and so on – was when I was studying for my two writing qualifications. We were all still learning so a lot of what we wrote wasn’t great but that was the whole point, I suppose. And while I found it valuable at the time, once I had my qualifications, I just wanted to write on my own.

Part of it is about time. Time spent doing anything else is time not spent writing and I resent that a lot. Part of it is about the diversity of other writers. I’d say at least seventy-five percent of all books written don’t interest me. I remember that from my time studying; there were so many pieces of writing about things that I wouldn’t have chosen to read if we’d been given the choice.

But most of it is about me. I’m a loner, a recluse, a hermit (as much as someone with a full-time job and a very large extended family allows). And I’m also someone who wants to help make every piece of writing she sees the best it can possibly be. I already don’t have enough time to do this for my own writing so I have to be kind to myself and keep myself away from other writers while they’re writing.

I Don’t Do Any Networking

Even when I’m finished writing, I don’t seek out other writers or people in the publishing industry very often. I’m as much of a writer as anyone else who claims the title but whenever I’m in the company of other writers and industry people, I feel uncomfortable. I feel out of place. I feel like a fraud.

I’m an introvert and borderline anti-social so it’s not surprising I feel that way and a lot of other writers I speak to (when I do speak to them) confess to feeling the same way. The difference, of course, if that they do it anyway because they know how important it is to know and be known by all the right people.

My biggest fear is saying or doing something that means I get remembered for the wrong reasons and so, in the end, I prefer not to be remembered at all. It’s counterintuitive and counterproductive for someone who wants to be read. I strongly recommend nobody follows my lead in this respect.

I Don’t Have Anyone Else Edit My Writing

Having a professional edit your writing is expensive. I know. As well as being a writer, I’m also a trained editor. I have a side hustle editing books, magazines and marketing materials and my hourly rate is four to six times more expensive than the hourly rate I earn at my day job. Clearly, I don’t do enough of it to be able to quit my day job but that’s another story.

All the advice out there says that writers must have their work professionally edited in order to be taken seriously. And it’s good advice. Most writers don’t have the capacity to edit their own work to the standard required for publishing.

I’m not most writers. I feel very confident that spending money to have someone else edit my writing would simply be an expensive way of having someone read my work. They’re not going to find many, if any, errors. Yes, I’m that good. I was told by someone who worked for a publisher and who was part of a panel assessing my book for a competition that my writing didn’t need any copy-editing. I assumed the fact that it was commented on meant it was rare.

This isn’t to say that I don’t have anyone giving me feedback on my writing prior to publishing. I have a selection of beta readers who give me feedback on plot and characters and style and all of those kinds of things, amateur manuscript assessors. If they find a mistake, they’ll also point it out. But I am, and will continue to be, my own editor for as long as my unknown author status makes it the best financial choice. And maybe even after that.

I Publish When I Think My Book Can’t Get Any Better

I know some people can work on a single book for decades, revising and refining and querying agents and publishers until they finally get a bite on the hundreds of lines they’ve thrown out into the water. I’m not a patient person. I like working on various projects to ward off boredom. And eventually I will get to a point in all my books where I think they’re pretty good, good enough that I don’t have any more ideas on how to make them any better and I’m sick of working on them. That is the point at which I will publish.

I’ve published four books this way. They could probably all be better. But I’m not going to wait around for my fairy bookmother to come along and tell me how. And since no one else is lining up for the job either, I choose to publish instead.

Maybe they’re not perfect but I’m a published author with four- and five-star ratings, which means people have read my books. I think that’s better than harbouring the perfect book that no one has ever read.

I Don’t Do Any Pre-Release Marketing

Because I self-publish, once a book is ready to go – edited, formatted, book cover designed, ISBN registered – I always publish it immediately. I don’t set a schedule a few months in advance and then dangle hints and tweet cover reveals and ask famous writers to review it for some fame by loose association. I just publish. Which means I don’t do any pre-release marketing.

I Hardly Do Any Post-Release Marketing Either

Once the book is out there, I send an email to all my friends, family and acquaintances, share the news on LinkedIn, tweet an announcement, post another announcement on my blog and add the book to Goodreads. If I’m feeling especially in the marketing mood, I might do some very cheap paid advertising. (I’ve only done that for two of my four books though.) And then I move onto writing my next book.

Yes, it would not be uncharitable to label me the world’s worst marketer (if the thing I’m marketing is me or my books – I’m a lot better at it when I’m marketing other people and their work). It’s partly to do with not enjoying the spotlight but it’s mostly to do with not enjoying huge amounts of effort for little reward. That’s the chance you take with writing a book, some might say. But, I answer, there’s a book at the end of it. That’s the reward for writing a book. With marketing, if you put in all that effort and still no one reads your book, there is no reward. It’s just a lot of wasted time.

I Don’t Have My Own Website

I have a blog but so do about a billion other people all competing for attention and it’s not quite the same thing as having my own website. References to my books are buried further and further back in the timeline each time I post something new and with the over four hundred pieces of content on there (mostly writing, editing and publishing advice and book reviews, not specifically about me and my writing), it’s not easy to find… well, anything.

I know exactly what my website should have on it. I’ve helped develop websites for other writers. I guess I just haven’t gotten around to it. The thought of having to put even more energy into another online platform is exhausting. Possibly more wasted marketing time. I’ll get to it eventually, I’m sure. Just not yet.

I Don’t Capitalise on Any Success I Do Have

I’ve written and published four books, I’ve ghost-written another, my next book is nearly ready to go and I’ve got another few in various stages from development to partly written. I’ve been paid to write articles. I wrote an article that had over 10,000 views on LinkedIn. My last book was shortlisted for the 2016 Text Prize. But every time I have a little bit of writing success, I bask briefly in whatever praise I receive, then retreat hastily back into my precious anonymity. Because while I’d love to be a full-time writer again, to have enough of an income to be able to do that, I really don’t like the idea of fame.

And the thing about anonymity and being relatively unknown is that it means you can write whatever you want. My last book clearly has a sequel coming but I haven’t written it yet. If it had been published through a traditional publisher, there would be significant pressure to write the sequel and get it out there to capitalise on whatever success the first in the series had. It wouldn’t matter if the sequel was any good, just that it was ready to go. I know because I’ve seen it happen. I’ve had a publisher confirm it to me when I commented on how I hadn’t liked a sequel they’d published.

*****

I might be completely delusional but I’m going to continue doing things exactly as I am now because this is what makes me happy and if I’m meant to be anything more than an unknown author immemorial, it will happen regardless of anything I do or don’t do. In the end, there’s no right way; there’s just my way. And your way. And his way. And her way. I hope we all get where we’re going.