L.E. Truscott's Blog, page 46

My Top Ten Books – Then

As a writing exercise more than fifteen years ago, I constructed a list of my top ten books. They aren’t in any order because choosing one book over all others is just an impossible task for me. Most of them wouldn’t make my top ten books list now (which you will see in a couple of days when I post a current list) and I wonder if I was genuinely impressed with these books or if my reading choices were so narrow that this list is simply the result of that.

1. The Last Grand Passion by Emma Darcy

This book was the first Mills & Boon novel I ever read that didn’t have some stupid, made up, easily overcome reason keeping the hero and the heroine apart. And I’ve read a lot of Mills & Boon novels. Back when I thought I wanted to be the next queen of romance fiction, I read as many of them as I could as a teaching tool to find out what to do and what not to do.

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “Although romance isn’t always high class literature, it can have an actual plotline that means something. This is the kind of novel I aspire to write, with believable conflicts and an ending that makes your breath catch and your heart skip a beat with the absolute beauty and perfectness of it.”

2. Hornet’s Nest by Patricia Cornwell

This is a strange but compelling effort by Patricia Cornwell, one of her best as far as I’m concerned, although this series is almost always overshadowed by her Kay Scarpetta books (probably justifiably because the subsequent novels involving the same characters weren’t as good).

A good portion of this story is devoted to the main character’s cat trying to send a message to its owner about a crime taking place, which sounds bonkers but is absolutely charming when you read it.

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “I was completely engrossed in the relationship between Andy Brazil and Virginia West and although he was 22 and she was 40, the age gap didn’t matter. It really taught me something about relationships.”

3. Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed Kennedy by Bonar Menninger

I was, and if I am honest still am, obsessed with Kennedy assassination theories. I have dozens of books on my shelf about this subject but this book really resonated with me. I think the premise has basically been disproved now but it was very convincing when I read it as a 20 year old.

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “This was really the first non-fiction book I ever read that was completely understandable to me. I learned that I have to be interested in the general subject matter of a book before I start reading it, otherwise I will never get through it.” That remains true to this day. No matter how good a book is supposed to be, if I don’t care about the topic, then I’m going to be fighting a losing battle as I struggle to get through it.

4. A Choice of Christina Rossetti’s Verse by Christina Rossetti

I love Christina Rossetti’s poetry – her poem “Remember” is one of two that I can recite from beginning to end from memory. This book taught me that poetry from other centuries was actually palatable to me just when I was beginning to think that I was a modernist in all respects (not the case at all).

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “I always thought I liked modern poetry over everything else but the truth is if it has that undefinable something that hits me between the eyes and insinuates itself into a dark corner of my memory, refusing to leave, then I like it, regardless of the social period and setting in which it was written.”

5. The Bible

This might seem like a strange choice amongst all this fiction and poetry but my reasoning back then pretty much says it all: “Okay, I haven’t actually read the entire Bible but the bits I have read or heard in church astound me. I’m not here to debate whether or not it is a true account, although I like to think it is, but I’ve always said if it’s not true, then it is the greatest piece of fiction ever written.”

6. The Giant Book of Killer Women edited by Richard Glyn Jones

The inclusion of this book was really an open acknowledgement of my morbid fascination with women who kill (perhaps it was also an early indicator that I would go on to write action adventure with women killers – see my debut novel, Enemies Closer).

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “The funny thing about my interest is I’m always trying to justify it as if it isn’t completely normal, which it really is. People are always fascinated by the things which seem the furthest from their reality.”

7. Postcards from Planet Earth containing the works of various poets

This was the poetry book we studied in Year 12 and that, in and of itself, makes it a rare specimen because I think I can safely say that with the exception of Shakespeare (and we didn’t do nearly enough of that) and this book, I hate with a passion every other book we studied.

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “This is one of those rare books of poetry that just keeps getting better. Every time I read it I get something different out of it. I’m not sure exactly what I love about it but the variety is extraordinary, the viewpoints fascinating and the beauty is limitless. As soon as one poem from the collection loses it shine, another is there to take its place.”

8. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

This was really the first Shakespeare play I read and understood – two things that can be very separate from each other. I had a special edition that on one page had the original play and on the facing page had interpretations, explaining the poetic language I was too literal to understand. It makes such a difference if you know what all the Shakespearean actors are blathering on about – and knowing that it’s not just blathering!

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “The language is so beautiful and the ideas and concepts so advanced that you have to wonder if literature hasn’t gone backwards from Shakespeare’s time.”

9. Writing Yourself Home: A Woman’s Guided Journey of Self-Discovery by Kimberley Snow

A friend gave me this book when I was in my early twenties and at the time I doubted that I would ever use it. It seemed like another women helping women, self-help, spiritual discovery book of the sort I hate. But essentially it was a book full of writing exercises and prompts (in fact, the creation of this list was one of the exercises in it). Yes, some of the exercises require writing about extremely personal things but writing is writing as far as I’m concerned. I still have the pieces I wrote more than fifteen years ago and reading back over them now is like a history lesson about my own life. I’m very good at forgetting pieces of my personal story – there’s only so much room up top and personal stories are the things that tend to get deleted – and it’s interesting to look book and see someone so different from the person I am now.

10. 1984 by George Orwell

Even though it makes this top ten list, now I can’t even remember having read it. I will have to add it to my Read Again list (which, just like my To Be Read list never seems to get any shorter).

At the time of constructing the list, I wrote: “This may or may not have been the first ‘classic’ I read but reading it, I was struck with the absolute beauty and clarity with which Orwell could write. This was only confirmed when I read Animal Farm. It was not only the ideas behind the stories that struck me but also the way the stories unfolded. They almost seemed like entities that had emerged fully formed and perfect. It is likely that what Orwell intended readers to get out of them is not what I got from them, but what is literature for if not differing, personal interpretations?”

As you might be able to imagine, my Top Ten Books – Now is a very different animal. Keep an eye out for my next post so you can compare. Thanks for reading!

Book Review: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

As an insight into the lives of domestic help in Mississippi in the 60s, this is a terrific book. As a work of fiction, it is well-written (particularly the author’s ability to convey a range of different voices without confusing the reader) but the story is lacking.

I will admit upfront that I am not a huge fan of writers who write about characters who are writers (i.e. blatantly and obviously themselves). There’s a level of laziness that bothers me about this, so I brought that perspective to this book before reading a single page. I know they say write what you know but if that’s all you know maybe you don’t have enough to say to fill an entire book.

I suspect this is one of those books that a lot of other people will really enjoy but I’m a hard marker and have come down on the side of “could have been better but still a worthwhile read”.

The inclusion at the end of the book of the writer’s own history with her family’s domestic help was a nice touch.

Definitely give it a go and make up your own mind.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 11 November 2013

Trine: Part Two, Chapter One

A couple of days ago, I discussed the age old question of whether women can write male characters and men can write female characters.

In the novel I am currently writing, Trine, a novel in three parts, the first part is from the perspective of a woman and the second and third parts are from the perspectives of two different men. I’ve finished writing the first part and I’m extremely happy with the result. I’m about half way through writing the second part from the male perspective and I’m just as happy. But I thought I’d let you be the final judge on whether I am effectively conveying the male voice.

The following is the first chapter from the second part of Trine. Each part covers the same two week period so the first chapter of Trine previously published here on my blog takes place on the same day. Considering this is a work in progress, I am more than happy to receive critiques. Happy reading!

****

My name is Joseph Copeland but for as long as I can remember everybody has called me Jock. There was a point in my childhood that my mother had to sit me down and explain that it wasn’t really my name. When I asked why she didn’t just name me Jock to begin with, the question seemed to stump her. Eventually she told me that not everything in life has an easily defined reason behind it. Philosophising at the age of four with my mother, I wish I’d given her maternal wisdom more credence.

It’s hard to keep secrets in a small town but even harder not to have secrets at all. People scream for privacy but mostly only to cover their shame. It’s certainly my motivation. But I’m the police chief of a three cop town so I know the secrets of most of the people who live in it.

Jillian Sugar, the local librarian, once had a daughter who died in her sleep when she was still a baby. Rumours circulated at the time that it may have been more sinister because back then nobody knew much about cot deaths. When her husband left her, this seemed like further proof. And she didn’t do anything to extinguish the gossip because in her mind it seemed less dishonourable to be thought of as a baby killer than admitting her daughter’s father was gay and had only stayed for the child.

Mildred Roberts, the owner of the general store, actually is a killer. She’d been a long-term battered wife, since before I was born, and when her husband had pointed a shotgun at her, she had wrestled him for the weapon. It went off in the struggle and when it was over, he was dead. It was ruled an accident and Mildred dutifully attended his funeral as the distraught widow. In all the time she’d been married, she’d never made a single complaint about the violence she’d endured but the police chief at the time, my uncle, had kept detailed notes of every bruise, every cut, every fracture, just on the off chance that she might find the courage one day.

Albert Doncaster, a direct descendant of the man who originally settled Hope Springs, is thirty-five years old, still lives at home with his parents and barely ever leaves the house. A couple of years ago, after an anonymous tip, I had to conduct a welfare check on him. The unidentified caller said that Albert was being chained to a wall by his mother, Eleanor, and that his father, Gus, was too browbeaten to do anything about it. It turned out they were half right. Albert has an IQ that places him in the bottom one per cent of the population as well as a condition that makes him prone to self-harm. At night, Albert sleeps in a bed with arm and leg restraints. It was confronting but it was also inspiring to see parents so devoted to their child that they refused to have him spend the rest of his life locked away from the world.

And then there’s Prudence Butters. She came to Hope Springs three years ago, buying a huge old pine plantation that had been on the market for years, and moving into the spartan house in the middle of it by herself. She is as close as Hope Springs comes to having an eccentric or a recluse. She comes to town every Monday and Friday and to church on Sundays. A deviation in this routine would suggest something is wrong. But there’s never been a deviation.

Because she buys a notebook every Monday from Mrs Roberts’s general store, there are rumours she is a writer, a very successful one. She certainly doesn’t have a job doing anything else. I’m not convinced. My infrequent interaction with her tells me she wouldn’t be able to hold down a job of any sort. There are three people in Hope Springs Prudence sees with any sort of regularity: Mrs Roberts every Monday when she goes in to buy her notebook, Father McKenzie on Sundays when she has lunch with him after church, and me. And she only seeks me out when something is wrong.

Prudence doesn’t seem to cope very well with things that regular people tend to shrug their shoulders at. Stray dogs. Trespassers. Light planes flying over her property. Sometimes her concerns have validity. Last year after she complained about someone on her property, my officers and I found a marijuana crop growing in a secluded spot halfway between her house and the fence line of her nearest neighbour. The plantation is enormous and we never would have known where to look if it weren’t for her. We would never have caught the couple responsible for it either, had it not been for the detailed descriptions she was able to give.

Prudence was in church yesterday and she made no attempt to speak to me or anyone else so I can only assume that everything is okay at the moment. And despite the occasional cot death, battered wife and marijuana crop, Hope Springs is generally not a hotbed of criminal activity. Most of our time is consumed by traffic duty and farm equipment thefts.

“Morning.” Matt Davey, one of the officers under my command, is at the front desk when I arrive for work shortly after eight in the morning.

“Morning.” He’s short where I am tall, fair where I am dark, pudgy where I am less pudgy, although he assures me it’s what’s in his genes, not a lack of effort that is responsible. There’s a gym at the police station – at least there’s gym equipment shoved into a room the size of a broom closet – but as much as he uses it, he never seems to get any less pudgy. Then again, he doesn’t get any more pudgy either.

“Where’s Sarah?”

Sarah is Matt’s wife and was meant to be the only officer under my command. But, as a policeman, he was struggling to find a role that would allow them to move to Hope Springs so Sarah could take up the position I had offered her. I petitioned the state commissioner for the funds to take on an extra person, reasoning that three officers meant three people for each eight hour shift per day. We had to expand our geographic area of responsibility and abolish the janitor’s role but Dermot, the long-time janitor, had been ready to retire anyway. We clean the station and mow the lawns ourselves now and nobody complains. And we all work the same day shift and takes turns being on call.

“Another tractor has gone missing. She’s out at the Peterson place taking a statement and seeing if they can track it on Jim’s computer.”

Sarah is technically Matt’s superior because she’s a senior constable while he’s a constable. They are together almost constantly but it seems to work for them. It works for me.

“Oh. The psycho’s in your office.” Matt is a man of relatively few words, the shorter the better as far as he’s concerned, even if it means shortening them himself.

“Any particular psycho and are we just letting random ones in?”

“Janet.”

“Maybe to avoid potential confusion, you could refer to her as the psychi,” I suggest and move around the counter to join him on the other side. I stop when I realise my suggestion sounds plainly ridiculous. “Or perhaps just call her Dr Chamberlain,” I amend, knowing Matt will end the conversation and spare me any further indignity of my own making.

“Will do.” He looks back down at the computer screen in front of him, the cursor blinking like the arm of a metronome, although I could swear the longer I look at it, the more rapidly it flashes. The perception of reality is a moveable feast and an uncomfortable one sometimes. I look away.

When I go into my office, Dr Janet Chamberlain is sitting behind my desk, her laptop open in front of her and a crisp, fresh, white notepad of lined paper next to it. I shouldn’t mind. We’ve already agreed she will use my office when she comes on her six-monthly visits. It’s the only place in the station with any privacy because the interview room can be monitored from the outside – and what she does requires a sequestered space. Still, courtesy would dictate that she wait politely for my invitation on each day of her visit. She doesn’t.

Perhaps some of the silly old-fashioned values in this town, the ones I grew up with, the ones I managed to shake off while I was at the academy, are worming their way back under my skin. After all, it’s the north side of the desk compared to the south side of the desk. And we’re the only two people here to witness a power struggle over approximately eighteen square feet of wooden real estate. I’m not even really sure what it is we’re fighting over.

“Good morning, Janet. Good to see you again.”

She looks up at my voice but doesn’t smile. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s not at all unpleasant, I would consider her the most unpleasant person I deal with. I have to keep reminding myself that she isn’t a friend or a colleague or a confidante or someone even remotely on my side. She’s here to assess and assist with our mental health. I also have to keep reminding myself that she’s here on my invitation.

Given the relative remoteness of Hope Springs, there are some work benefits my officers and I find inconvenient to access. Like the employee assistance program. And also given that sixty-six point six six six recurring per cent of the employees in this station are men, I have concerns about whether certain members of my staff would be proactive in using the service even if it were more accessible. So Dr Chamberlain visits us every six months for a conversation.

It’s entirely confidential. Thank God. I wouldn’t like what she and I talk about to get back to anyone. Like I said, it’s hard to keep secrets in a small town. But hopefully doctor-patient privilege covers that.

It’s also entirely up to each of us – Matt, Sarah and me – what we choose to talk about. For all I know, Dr Chamberlain’s a Giants fan and that’s what she and Matt spend two hours discussing. My only concern is that if he gets to a point where he needs or wants to talk about something else more personal, he knows she’ll be back every six months without fail without him having to take the difficult step of asking for help. Help automatically arrives on schedule.

“Ah, Sarah was supposed to meet with you today but she’s been called out to a reported theft. I’ll send Matt in instead.” I turn to call him but Dr Chamberlain’s words halt me.

“You could meet with me today.”

“I would,” I say, “but I have a meeting with the mayor in forty-five minutes. I’ve made sure Wednesday is clear. We’ll meet then.”

The expression on her face doesn’t change. She simply taps her fingers rhythmically on the keys of her laptop keyboard, which means she is thinking about how far she should push it and whether it would actually get her anywhere. I know this because during our sessions, she does the same thing on the arms of the chair she sits in when she approaches topics of conversation I am uncomfortable with and I give answers she doesn’t like. “Fine.”

With that one word, I am dismissed. I leave quickly. Dr Chamberlain is constantly assessing everything, the faces we pull, our body language, how much we sweat. I don’t want her to think that this is anything other than a scheduling conflict.

It isn’t. I don’t have a meeting with the mayor. The mayor and I have been running into each other at the diner at nine o’clock on a Monday morning every week for at least the past five years but I don’t think it really counts. Still…

I send Matt in to talk with Janet and redirect the main switch incoming calls to my cell phone before heading over to the diner early. The mayor is there early as well. I’m not really surprised. We have a lot more in common than we would prefer.

“Chief,” he says when I join him at the counter.

“Mr Mayor.”

It’s been nearly twenty years since either of us has called the other by our names rather than by our titles. I’ve been the police chief for five years and he’s been the mayor for six. Before that he called me “Officer” and I called him “Councillor”. Before that we didn’t speak for a long time. And before that we called each other “best friend”. A lot can change in twenty years.

Rosalie Sawyer, who runs the diner with her husband Ron, puts coffee down in front of both of us: for the mayor, a clean white cup in a clean white saucer that chinks every time he picks it up and puts it down and for me, a takeaway corrugated cardboard cup with a plastic sippy lid in case I have to leave suddenly on police business. All of us have this routine pretty well practised.

“Catch any criminals today?” the mayor asks, as he adds sugar to his long black.

“Working on it,” I say, then swallow a mouthful of my skinny flat white.

“Not too hard, by the looks of it.” He throws the empty sugar packet on the counter but Rosalie doesn’t let it sit there for long.

“That’s what I have officers for.” I wait until he has the white cup raised to his lips before I ask, “Shuffle any papers today?”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Chief. Council chambers are a paper-free environment. You should look into it.”

I wish the powers that be would let me. Instead I say, “I’ll take that under advisement.” Paper-free was one of his election promises at the last campaign. That was nearly three years ago and a new poll is just around the corner. The mayor never breaks promises once he’s committed to them publicly.

I wish I’d known that when we were best friends. I wish I’d known a lot of things back then. I might have considered asking him to wait for my first real relationship – with Ginny Forrest – to run its natural course and burn out, like almost all high school romantic relationships do, before making a play for her. I might have asked him to promise not to steal my girlfriend.

Can Women Write Male Characters? Can Men Write Female Characters?

Receptionist: How do you write women so well?

Melvin: I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability.

As Good As It Gets

Melvin wasn’t sexist – after all, he hated men and women equally – but this quote seems to be remembered when writing from the perspective of the opposite gender arises.

This is one of those questions that pops up in the writing community periodically. Contextually, it is actually a much wider question. Can humans write alien characters? Can white people write non-white characters? Can wealthy people write poverty-stricken characters? But it always seems to get boiled back down to women writing male characters and men writing female characters because of the ongoing gender wars that are much larger than writing alone.

Let’s just focus on writing here. My answer to these questions is that I hope authors can write from the perspective of the opposite gender because we are doing it all the time. In my debut novel, Enemies Closer, I transition between character viewpoints, both men and women, and I think I was successful in conveying female voices in my female characters and male voices in my male characters. I haven’t had any feedback suggesting otherwise.

However, as I was writing the book, I had significant concerns regarding my ability to write male characters and I shared them with fellow students in our Master’s program: “Inevitably, the worries I have as a writer in this most unfeminine of genres [action adventure] concern gender. Do the men I write sound like real men or like a woman trying to sound like a real man? Will the fact that the book has two female main characters put readers off? Will the fact that the book was written by a woman put readers off? Will I have to publish under a pseudonym or maybe just my initials to hide my gender? The most important question I ask of readers is, ‘Can you tell it was written by a woman?’ and when the answer is, ‘Yes’ I inevitably think I have failed in some way. Then it’s back to the drawing board in an effort to erase all traces of gender in the voice of the text.”

(On a side note, of course, I did end up publishing as L.E. Truscott. I probably haven’t sold enough copies to people I’m not related to or who aren’t friends to have enough data on whether it made a difference. I have to say I regret it. But at the time I thought, “If it’s bad, I want it to be because I wrote it badly, not because I wrote it as a woman.”)

Publishing Enemies Closer made me think I had answered the question of my ability to write male characters in the affirmative. I wrote my next novel, Black Spot, from the perspective of a woman so the issue didn’t arise. But when I started writing the sequel to Black Spot, I found myself suffering from an acute case of writer’s block. In December last year, I tweeted about what I thought the problem was: “I think I’ve figured out the root of my recent writer’s block problem – I struggle to write from the male perspective. #amwriting”

But I actually later realised that rather than struggling to write from the male perspective, I was trying to tell one character’s story from another character’s perspective and that was where my troubles lay. Writing from the male perspective had nothing to do with it.

However, I’ll always remember a lady named Rosemary in one of my very first Master’s classes talking about Clive Cussler, the American action writer, and one of his female characters whipping off her bra to bind the wounds of the hero. We both agreed it would hardly be practical, considering underwire and fabrics.

I suspect that when people fail in ways like this, it is simply that they haven’t given enough thought to what they are writing. And it’s not about being a man writing a woman, or a woman writing a man; it’s about a person writing “the other”. Some good research will get you half way to where you are going and some old-fashioned common sense will usually take you the rest of the way.

Book Review: Atonement by Ian McEwan

I thought Atonement was just okay. It’s a terrific idea, about how the smallest actions and mistakes can alter lives forever, and the ending is lovely – if a little contrived in that it ends at her birthday party to allow for a large gathering of people to tie up the question of what happened to everybody in the end – but the writing is extremely dense and I never got to that point where you think, “Okay, I’m really into this now.”

In the first half of the book, because you see the same situations separately through the eyes of the three main characters, it is repetitive, which might have been okay if there was a lot going on. But there wasn’t. Not a lot happened.

None of the characters are all that likeable and I actually wanted to know more about the story of Paul Marshall and Lola Quincey (supporting characters), which I suspect would have been more interesting.

Rather than a narrative that flows and links throughout, this is more like a series of small vignettes that just happen to involve the same main characters.

And the rejection letter that Briony receives after submitting her novella to a publisher, to me this read exactly like a rejection letter that Ian McEwan would have received after submitting this novel.

I can check it off my list now but I almost regret having it so high on my to-read list.

3 stars

*First published on Goodreads 1 January 2013

Writing Together: Will Collaboration Be a Dream or a Nightmare?

Writing is generally considered a solitary task and, for those of us who attempt it, it mostly is. However, a lucky few have found writing partners to collaborate with to lessen the loneliness. But collaboration is a skill in itself. All writers need to ask themselves two questions. Could you? And if you find you can, should you?

So exactly what is meant by the word “collaboration”? Ask four different people and you will likely receive four different answers. Because it’s the nature of partnerships. Not all of them are the same. Some people prefer fifty/fifty joint ventures. Some people prefer alliances where each partner focuses on their strengths (in a writing context, perhaps this might be one person writing dialogue while the other develops and writes the overall story). Some people might divide partnership responsibilities into concept (which can be quick, although it depends how good you are at concepts) and execution (which sounds like the more labour intensive part of the process but if you’re terrible with concepts and great at bringing concepts to fruition, it might be the perfect arrangement).

Ultimately, collaboration must involve at least two people both contributing in a significant fashion to the same project – generally by writing actual words that appear in a form in the final cut substantially similar to what was first written.

So what are the pros and cons of the collaborative approach to the writing process? It will often depend on what kind of writing is being done. Scientific and business writing invariably seems to benefit from the input of more than one writer. I think it is also much easier for a scientist or business person to feel good about collaborative writing, because it is less about the writing and more about the science or business.

But for fiction writers, it is about the writing, the story, the language and the way it is shaped. I must admit that I view collaborative novels with contempt, mostly because I think they are primarily about money and not genuine creativity. This is especially true of a number of successful authors who have started pumping out books with co-authors, who I suspect do the majority of the work, simply to cash in. It appears to be the writing equivalent of resting on one’s laurels. Who am I talking about? Clive Cussler. James Patterson. Tom Clancy (yes, I know he is dead but he was a prime perpetrator and may continue to be – novels written by a ghost writer continued to appear from the estate of Virginia Andrews long after her death).

Personally, when I continuously buy the same author, it’s not because I like the types of stories they write. (There are plenty of the same genre that I’ve never read.) It’s because I like the way they – individually – write. I like the way they – individually – execute the stories. I like the way they – individually – create characters. I’m not particularly interested in how well (or how badly) someone else can imitate their style.

Theoretically, I like the idea of collaboration where it is more than just a money-making enterprise. I like the idea of being able to bounce ideas off someone else and have them write the chapters I just can’t get right and vice versa. I like the idea of someone else helping to motivate me and motivate my writing. I can’t think of anything better than writing with a partner who understands what you are trying to achieve, has some idea of how to achieve it and wants to achieve it with you. But I also can’t think of anything lonelier than being in collaboration with someone who doesn’t understand, doesn’t know how and doesn’t want to.

And it just never seems practical. All my best writing is done between the hours of 9.00 pm and 3.00 am. They’re not the hours that most writers keep, let alone most people. Also nobody else seems to have the same enthusiasm or understanding of my writing and what it is attempting to do until after I’m finished writing it.

The most important thing for anyone considering a collaborative partnership is to agree up front who is going to do what and precisely how the relationship, including any authorial credits and financial rewards, will work. Then put it all down on paper so it can be referred back to if necessary. There are so many examples out there of how it can all go pear shaped.

Here’s just one. Raymond Carver was an extremely well-regarded short story writer and after his death, both his editor and his wife tried to claim authorial roles in the creation of his works. We’ll never know for sure but neither made such claims during his lifetime, which makes it dubious.

In justifying her claim, the wife declared his ideas stemmed from hers, but ideas are not copyright. So while we might credit her with being some sort of muse to her husband, authorship appears to be a stretch.

And as for the editor! As well as being a writer, I am also an editor and I have edited many things, but not once have I tried to claim those works as my own, regardless of how little or how much work I have put into trying to make those works the best they can be. Unless the editor was in fact a ghost writer (and in that case not an editor at all), then he has less claim than the wife.

Whatever you decide, collaboration has to be right for you and for any potential writing partner. Me, I’m going to stick with my solitary pursuits. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything and I’m not sure I could justify inflicting my creative process on anyone else. Maybe I should add my novels to that old saying about laws and sausages: you should never let anyone see how you make them.

The Writing Books on My Shelf

I wasn’t sure if the writing books on the shelves in my library said anything about me but I thought they would at least have the makings of a blog post.

When I pulled them all out, I realised there were some themes that could be broken down into this:

*It’s clear I’m not just a writer but also an editor. The number of “grammar nazi” books (for want of a better descriptor) exceeds what is required by people who consider themselves just writers.

*I used to have a different focus. If you could go back ten years and meet me, you would encounter a writer convinced that her future lay in film and television writing. If you could go back fifteen years, you would meet someone who hoped she might be the next queen of romance fiction.

*I don’t discriminate by selecting writing books only by hugely successful writers. Yes, I have Stephen King’s On Writing but it was a gift. Yes, I have Emma Darcy’s The Secrets of Successful Romance Writing and although I know who she is, I doubt most people would have a clue. (She’s Australia’s most successful romance writer and was actually a husband and wife team, Frank and Wendy Brennan, until Frank passed away and Wendy shifted focus to write crime with the Who Killed…? series.) Most of the books were written by people I wasn’t even aware of until I found their books in the book store.

The Poet’s Manual and Rhyming Dictionary by Frances Stillman

A must for anyone who writes rhyming poetry – I love this book so much. No surprises there. It’s a dictionary, after all!

The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide by Pam Peters and Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Printers Sixth Edition revised by Snooks & Co

Guides for editors primarily but absolutely essential references as far as I’m concerned.

The Secrets of Successful Romance Writing by Emma Darcy

This is a terrific book if you are interested in writing what Emma Darcy calls “category romance”. It’s pretty good regardless of what you want to write actually. It’s also a quick read, which is what writers want so that they can get back to their own writing. Here’s a handy piece of advice from Emma: “Readers don’t want a short course on business ethics, environmental issues, feminism, sexual politics or any other issue. They want a [insert relevant genre here]. That’s why they bought the book.”

The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and EB White

This was the first book students had to buy when I embarked on my two-year writing and editing course nearly two decades ago. (Seventeen and a half, to be more accurate – where do the years go? God, I’m so old!) It was then and it remains now a classic on how to write well. While some entries are no longer relevant because English is one of the fastest evolving languages in the world, it is still chock full of handy tips. Like this one: “Revising is part of writing. Few writers are so expert that they can produce what they are after on the first try… Remember, it is no sign of weakness or defeat that your manuscript ends up in need of major surgery. This is a common occurrence in all writing, and among the best writers.”

Clichés: Avoid Them Like the Plague by Nigel Fountain

This book was a gift with purchase but it’s a handy reference – basically, if it’s listed in this book, then it should never appear in your writing. Although it doesn’t appear in this book, my pet hate is “You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.” Because, as this is a sequential statement, you can have your cake and eat it. What you can’t do is eat your cake and have it, too. Which is how this cliché is supposed to be written. The easiest way to avoid this mistake is to avoid the cliché altogether.

Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss

This book is a must for all grammar Nazis like me, even if only to understand how perfect the title of this book is. Will it make you a better writer? No. Lynne Truss asks, “[I]s there any art involved in using the apostrophe? No. Using the apostrophe correctly is a mere negative proof: it tells the world you are not a thicko.” And same goes for all other types of punctuation.

Usage & Abusage by Eric Partridge

I bought this book second-hand and it is essentially a dictionary of what to do (usage) and what not to do (abusage). You can probably tell by the title that the author takes spelling and grammatical mistakes as a personal affront but that doesn’t make his advice wrong. This on italics: “Italics should, in good writing, be used with caution and in moderation; their most legitimate purpose is to indicate emphasis in dialogue, and, everywhere else (but there too), to indicate foreign words and phrases and titles.”

Breakfast With Sharks: A Screenwriter’s Guide to Getting the Meeting, Nailing the Pitch, Signing the Deal, and Navigating the Murky Waters of Hollywood by Michael Lent

Big Screen, Small Screen: A Practical Guide to Writing for Film and TV in Australia by Coral Drouyn

The Script Is Finished, Now What Do I Do? by K Callan

Successful Television Writing by Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin

All these books are specifically to do with screenwriting, which I don’t do much of anymore, but the principles of one kind of writing usually transfer to other kinds. The majority of these books are about making it in the US and if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. As I’m sure is patently obvious, I have not yet made it in the American market but that has little to do with the quality of these contributions. Practical and useful, although sometimes depressing.

Story by Robert McKee

Robert McKee is a legend in Hollywood and runs highly regarded writing seminars. He was also written into the movie Adaptation by screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (if you haven’t seen this movie, you must – as a writer, you can’t not have seen this movie.) I haven’t read Story for many years but I remember having very strong feelings about this book – and not in a good way. I should read it again to see if I still feel the same way and to remind myself why I had those negative feelings because I just can’t recall.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Part how-to, part autobiography, this is a cracker of a read but the thing that really makes Stephen King memorable to me is something he had absolutely no control over: being hit by a car while out walking. Stephen King is a cautionary tale for creative types (stay away from the substances, people!) and by rights should never have done so well, but he has and it’s a testament to talent: it can overcome everything else that works so hard to keep hard-working writers down.

From the final pages: “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid or making friends… Some of this book – perhaps too much – has been about how I learned to do it. Much of it has been about how you can do it better. The rest of it – and perhaps the best of it – is a permission slip: you can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”

Book Review: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

If you like Jeffrey Eugenides’s books, then you’ll like this effort of his, too. I think he is a terrific writer with terrific ideas but I am constantly frustrated by his endings. He loves the story without reason but personally (as a Gemini) the why is important for me, otherwise I can end up thinking I’ve wasted my time on a book that doesn’t have any answers (and what do we read for if not to find the answers to some of life’s great questions?).

Part of the problem with this book – telling it through the eyes of teenage boys – is also part of the charm. They are inexplicably respectful of the mysterious Lisbon sisters, certainly not reflective of any teenage boys I know, but it is set in the 1970s.

This is a very literary piece but, as with all good literature, it’s easy to read because it’s written so well. I would recommend it but if you’re looking for something uplifting, this is not the book for you.

3 stars

*First published on 1 January 2014 on Goodreads

White Wash: Original Chapter One

Two days ago I posted the first chapter of White Wash, the currently unfinished sequel to my currently unpublished next novel, Black Spot. What follows below was originally the first chapter of White Wash until I realised it wasn’t working. It wasn’t working, I believe, because this series of books is Livia Black’s story, not Sebastian White’s story. I hope you agree that I’ve made the right decision.

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white wash n a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts

Sebastian White doesn’t dream. He sleeps, he wakes, but he doesn’t dream. That wasn’t always true. He used to dream. Normal dreams. Running. Falling. Being unable to ride a bike. Being naked in public. Being unable to see the faces of the people he was dreaming about.

But something changed seven weeks ago. Something inside his brain changed and now he’s either not dreaming or he’s unable to remember any of the things he is dreaming about. He’s a psychiatrist so he knows it’s more likely that he just isn’t remembering. But in paranoid moments an irrational and confused portion of his brain makes him wonder if there’s something deeper to such a sudden alteration.

One thing he’s certain of – the décor isn’t helping. White. Everywhere. Every wall, every ceiling, every piece of furniture, every knick knack devoid of personal meaning, even the carpet. Before he arrived, he was told he wouldn’t need to bring a thing. They were mostly right. Apart from his clothes, his toiletries, his reference books and his electronic devices, he left everything else he owns in his apartment in Seattle and so far he hasn’t needed them. Wanted them, maybe – to bring a splash of colour and familiarity to these unfamiliar surroundings – but needed them, no.

His phone on the bedside table starts playing a gentle tune, meant to wake him subtly, but he’s been awake for a while. He always wakes up before his alarm now. Not before while he was living in Seattle. Then he would resist waking up with everything in him. Then sleep was an indulgence. Now it is utilitarian. He sleeps only because he has to.

He throws the sheets back and swings his feet to the floor, grabbing the shorts and t-shirt already laid out on the end of the bed in his left hand then scooping up socks and his runners in his right. He changes in the bathroom – twice the size a bathroom needs to be – and thinks about smoothing his hair down as he catches a glimpse of himself in the big silver mirror. Instead he heads back to the bedroom and grabs a baseball cap to hide his unruly waves. He wears his hair short but it’s unruly sometimes anyway.

Sebastian goes into the hallway and emerges into the lounge room at the open end. It halts him every time. Because it is exactly as he heard it described before he ever saw this place. Hard, cold, white interiors. Big empty spaces. White furniture. White lights. Modern. No soul. It’s also damn hard to keep clean. He’s spent a lot of the past three weeks since he moved in vacuuming, dusting, sweeping and wiping down benches. Now when he’s not sleeping or showering, he confines himself to the kitchen and leaves the other rooms closed off. The kitchen is as soulless as the rest of the house but at least he can keep to a minimum the amount of cleaning required.

He doesn’t stretch before he heads out the front door. He likes the transition between barely moving and suddenly running to hit all his muscles like a shock. And he also likes knowing he can run fast without notice, without having to prepare his body. There are times when a skill like that can come in handy. Living in a big city taught him that lesson.

It’s overcast this morning. Summer is starting to fade into autumn but not enough to call it cold or even cool yet. The day will turn pleasant later. But now it’s the perfect temperature for running.

Deciding he will skirt the edges today, Sebastian proceeds to the perimeter of the town to run around it and head for the highest point. The highest point isn’t that high – maybe two or three storeys – but every other structure in town is a single level dwelling, apart from the eight-storey glass tower in its geographic heart.

From what he’s been able to glean, Doveton used to be like any other small town. Families who could trace their lineage back hundreds of years right in this very location. Farms bordering the edges and raising everything from cows and sheep to corn and wheat. A community where everybody knew everybody else. A community where everybody pitched in and helped out. People proud to call themselves locals.

But a decade or so ago, the farms started being less profitable than they had been. People were laid off and had to leave town to look for work elsewhere. And because the farms were struggling, the businesses in town that supplied them started to struggle, too. It was like a neatly lined up set of dominoes. One fell, then the next, all the way through to the last local standing. For sale signs went up one after the other. Perhaps more strangely, they came down quickly, too.

A pharmaceutical company named Evergy started buying up all the property they could get their hands on. Initially, the locals thought that Evergy might be their saviours – pharmaceutical companies need a lot of farmed products for research – but eventually it became clear that wouldn’t be the case. Instead, Evergy razed the entire town, then set about constructing their headquarters and surrounding it with rows and rows of identical flat-roofed, rendered brick, white houses. Those who held out eventually gave in and sold up, too. This wasn’t their town anymore.

None of it had been hard to find out. Of course, there was no Doveton library, no local newspaper, no one left who had been here to see all of it happen. But it was all on the internet like a living time capsule. The websites aren’t maintained anymore but they are still there for anyone who wanted to read them. And Sebastian had little else to do since he arrived.

He was supposed to have started his new job with Evergy three weeks ago but the project he was hired to work on, which he still doesn’t know anything about, has gone on temporary hiatus – their words, not his. They told him to be patient – are still telling him to be patient – and that they will let him know when the project is back up and running. In the meantime, they suggested, he should settle in to his new place.

Settling in was always an unlikely prospect. He knew that the moment he saw the house. He still hasn’t managed it. The house is unsettling. The town is unsettling. And their refusal to tell him anything is unsettling. Particularly because he really only wants to know one thing.

Where is Livia Black?

White Wash: Chapter One

This is the first chapter of the currently unfinished sequel to my currently unpublished next novel, Black Spot. My next post will be what was originally the first chapter of White Wash until I realised it wasn’t working. When you compare them, I hope you’ll agree that I’ve made the right choice.

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white wash n a coordinated attempt to hide unpleasant facts

It is the briefest of moments and the longest of moments at the same time. She goes from nothing to everything, from one end of the scale to the other, like fingers up and down the keys of a piano. Black and white. And every colour in between. Hot and cold. And numb. And pain. And then nothing but pain.

Her throat hurts. She tries to raise a hand but then her hand hurts too and it doesn’t seem worth the effort. Her legs hurt. Just the slightest movement in her toes echoes throughout both limbs. But her head hurts the most. Right at the point where her hair meets her forehead. Down along the line to her cheek. And then deep down, deep inside, behind her eyes, at the centre of what makes her who she is.

“Livia?”

She didn’t think she could hurt more but the voice – she doesn’t think it’s her own – is unwelcome. More than unwelcome. It is resented. It seeps into both her ear canals where it damages her from within.

“Can you hear me?”

She can but she wishes she couldn’t. She wishes the voice would fade away. She wishes the noise would fade away. Because it’s not just the voice. There are other sounds. There are machines hissing, there are people breathing, there is paper rustling, there is the hum of electricity, there are raindrops on the windows – definitely more than just one window – beating down relentlessly. She wants someone to puncture her eardrums for the sweet relief of never having to hear another sound ever again.

Her closed eyes tighten in reaction to the agony of the clamour. A warm hand slips into her cold one and then a softer voice, as if it can sense her thoughts, says, “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

Instinctively, she knows the instruction is for her. She tells her brain to send the impulse to squeeze as hard as she can but instead her fingers merely curl and slip on skin that is soft in the middle and hard around the edges.

“Good, that’s good.”

It doesn’t feel good right now. Given the choice between this harsh existence and the sweet bliss of death, she might very well choose death. But it’s too soon for that option. The pain is intense but it has only been intense for a short period. Time isn’t passing slowly or quickly but at the same pace it normally does and she can tell the pain is new. Not so recent that it’s only the shock that is truly registering but not so longstanding that her body has forgotten the relief of its absence.

“Can you try to open your eyes?” The piercing voice again that sounds like it is coming from someone who doesn’t really care if she can do what she is being asked to. She doesn’t even bother. Instead she tries to form words. She relaxes her jaw. She attempts to wet her lips but there’s no moisture in her mouth. Eventually only the weakest of sounds makes itself known.

“Water.” Even that is a struggle.

“Pass me that cup.”

It’s the softer voice again. She feels whatever she is lying on sink beside her, then the plastic waxiness of a straw against her teeth and a hand brushing her chin as it holds the drink near her. She tries to suck the liquid up but no matter how hard she tries, it never reaches her mouth. She’s about to start crying when she feels the straw being taken away. But then the straw is put back in her mouth and it’s already full. She doesn’t have to do anything but let the droplets fall onto her tongue, let the clean and pure absence of flavour splash down, and make sure she swallows instead of breathes.

It’s harder than it should be. But she does it. And she opens her mouth again and again until all the droplets have added up to a decent mouthful. She doesn’t feel like she can ever get enough water. But she doesn’t have the energy to keep swallowing. The hands by her face pause then move away but the weight of the body sitting next to her on the bed doesn’t.

“Your throat is going to be sore for a little while. You’ve been intubated. That means you had a tube down your throat to help you breathe. We’ve just taken it out.”

Tubes and pain and too clean odours and voices that think they know everything. She knows this place. Maybe not this place specifically but places like it. Hospitals. With nurses and doctors. With linoleum floors and squeaky shoes. With harsh lights and persistent beeps that are supposed to be a good thing but make her mind wail. It is wailing now.

Salty droplets appear at the outer corner of each eye, the moisture tracing a path of little resistance down both sides of her face. She has passed the point of quiet endurance. Now she cannot help the little signs that escape her ability for self-control. Later, if there is a later, she will scream, if she can scream. At the moment all she can do is enunciate a single syllable at a time.

“Pain.”

“Where? Where does it hurt?” Another voice. A different voice. A woman’s voice.

“All.” Every side, every surface, every nerve ending, every cell, every atom is calling out to her with the pain, all competing for her attention, to be declared the winner, to be declared the most painful. But it’s a draw. Each battle is a draw. No one wins. She loses over and over again.

“You can self-medicate.” The warm hand takes hers and folds her fingers around a small cylinder. “Just press the button here if you need pain relief.”

She doesn’t even wait for him to drop her hand. She presses the button over and over, manically. It takes seconds but even those seconds are too long. But finally she is released from the grip of her body torturing itself. She returns to nothing. Less than nothing. She ceases to exist. She is free.