Ellie Marney's Blog, page 21

#LoveOzYAbookclub – October 2016 Discussion post: SUMMER SKIN (Kirsty Eagar)

When I first bumped up against Jess Gordon, I wasn’t sure I liked her. Or Mitch Crawford, Jess’s opposite number in Kirsty Eagar’s SUMMER SKIN. Both Jess and Mitch seemed abrupt, crass, careless of themselves and sometimes the people around them. But they were trying – that’s what brought me back to them, again and again. They were both trying to reconcile things – their opinions, actions, ethics, their dysfunctional approach to relationships, their hopes for the future. They were both stuck in the artificial environment and community of university college/pub life. They were both reaching for something more. And they were both stuck in a society that encourages women to be merely sexy decoration, and men to be so masculine that it becomes self-parody.

The themes of their respective colleges – Virile Agitur (‘Do the Manly Thing’ – no lie) and Nemo Me Impune Lacessit (‘No One Wounds Me with Impunity’) – set the tone of the whole novel, and sets the stage for an epic battle of wills between two chronically stubborn people who’d both rather die than give an inch. The background is Brisbane’s sultry tropic O-week extravaganza at University of Queensland (my own alma mater, yikes), and the book itself is a study in How to Do Things Right in YA: intelligent dialogue and character arcs, genuine emotional exploration, sexual tension to the max, a deep insight into context and sexual politics. If you haven’t got the drift yet, I love this book (and wish I’d written it!) and it comes from the pen of a master – Kirsty Eagar impressed us first with RAW BLUE in 2009, gave great genre in SALTWATER VAMPIRES, and then made me fall in love with Poe-like atmosphere in NIGHT BEACH.

Here’s a link to some nice things people said about SUMMER SKIN in the Sydney Morning Herald, where they called it ‘a romance for our times’.

Something that came up in the author chat with Kirsty Eagar earlier this month was the eternal ‘is it YA’ question – and it seems as if we return to this issue again and again with YA books that cover intense themes, such as with last month’s A SMALL MADNESS. I won’t presume to know the answer, but I can only say that I think SUMMER SKIN is a book that teenagers should read. The intricacies and intimacies of sexual relationships (in this case, het relationships) are something that are barely skimmed over in contemporary approaches to sex education – there’s so much more to sex than just sex – and are covered extremely well in SUMMER SKIN.

Let me know what you think! You can comment here on this page, give a 1-5 star rating if you’re time poor, or add to the conversation over at Facebook on the #LoveOzYAbookclub discussion thread. And stay tuned for next month’s title announcement – I have a feeling you’re going to love it…

xxEllie

Somebody else’s toothbrush

So I went on a road trip for the Stella Schools Program recently. Bec Kavanagh and I drove four hours from my place to Balmoral, west of the Grampians, for a school panel and workshops. The difficulty of driving through the night in someone else’s car, when you haven’t driven stick for years, and you’re tired, and constantly scanning the road shoulder for kangaroos, was offset by the chance to talk (so rare, getting the chance to really talk! Gig time is usually a time of fractured conversations and half-finished, interrupted sentences) and also the chance to listen to music from a different playlist, and know you’re on an adventure.

And I was telling Bec that I don’t know what’s going on with my new book.

What do you mean, she asked, and I explained how the book came into being. How I pitched a number of stories to my agent and editor, and they liked none of them. Then I finally found a pitch they liked, but it didn’t seem to be any different to the others. Like, what was it about this idea that seemed different? That stood out? I didn’t know. But they liked it, and after the arduous process of thinking up a bunch of original new ideas and roughing them up and pitching them, I was just so relieved that I’d found something they were happy with that I was like, okay, great  and phew, thank god.

I asked my agent and editor, What was it about this pitch that grabbed you?

It’s got more you in it, they said.

So I was like, Oookay. But I still didn’t really get it.

Then I went and wrote it. But the whole time I was writing it, I was not enjoying the experience. It was different – so different! – from my other books. The process was different, like, completely different. I was writing with a plan. I was writing to music, which I never ever do. I was writing during the day, not early in the morning, and there didn’t seem to be that emotional charge that possessed me (yes, it really felt like being possessed) when I was writing the Every series. I wasn’t excited about it. It felt dry and flat, on good days, and forced, on bad days.

I complained to my writer friends. Ugh, I said. This goddamn book, I said.

The writing was awkward and clunky and took too long. I didn’t even know if what I was writing was any good. When I was writing, I could dive into it, get caught up in it. But after the day’s writing was over, whenever I detached from my laptop, I thought the whole thing was awful.

How’s the book going? people would ask me. And I would say, It’s…going.

Such enthusiasm.

Maybe this is second book syndrome, I thought, because although I’ve written a 3-book series, maybe that was more like my first book, those three interlinked books, and this book – this stupid fucking standalone book in a new world with new characters – maybe this is actually my second book.

Or maybe I’ve just lost it, I thought. On my worst days, I thought that.

My friends patted me gently and told me I hadn’t lost it. I submitted partials to my agent and my editor. It’s great! they said. My agent sold the book, for good money. I applied for a grant, and got it. My editor was happy.

So all the external indicators were very good. But still…still this nagging, annoying voice hung around. Ugh, it said. This goddamn book, it said.

I was confused. I hadn’t felt this confused about my writing since my pre-publication days. A friend asked me for tips for an article about When You Know That Your Writing is Good Enough, and I felt like a fraud, because I didn’t even know whether the book I’d written and submitted was any good. So I wrote the tips and gave them to my friend, but then I turned around and looked at my book and I wanted to cry.

I asked my editor again, Are you sure this book is okay? Because I don’t know, it feels awful. I was bracing myself for an email from my editor saying, Ellie, this book doesn’t work, and we know you can do better. I was ready for that email. Like, really, I was prepared for it. And I was fully prepared to reply with, Okay, that’s totally fine, and I get it and I’m really sorry and I’m more than happy to rewrite.

But that didn’t happen. My editor assured me (again) that the book was great. She’s a great editor, and my agent is a great agent, and I just had to trust that they knew, even if I didn’t.

Talking to Bec about it, on the roadtrip, I felt like I finally had a bit of clarity about it.

Why do you think it’s awful? Bec asked. Because it’s awkward, I said. Because it’s a change of genre and process, and Because the words all feel messy, and Because I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.

And then I blurted out, Because more of me is in this book than in my other books.

Which is when I got an inkling of why this book has felt so weird and odd and awful.

Writing this book, I felt like my compass needle never pointed in the same direction twice. Like I was fumbling around in the dark, and the only torch in my hand had failing batteries. Like I was using somebody else’s toothbrush – which is apt, because I had to borrow Bec’s toothbrush on the roadtrip, on account of me failing at adulting and totally forgetting to bring my own.

Do you know that feeling? It’s the same one you get when you have the dream about walking into class naked, or when you realise that you need to borrow a tampon, or you’ve neglected to pack underwear. It’s the embarrassed, vulnerable feeling. Vulnerable with a generous side order of anxiety and slowly increasing panic at how much you’re exposed.

Now, writers are supposed to be exposed and vulnerable. I think I knew that, somewhere in the back of my mind. But I didn’t realise how much it would impact on my writing if I really gave myself over to it. I didn’t realise how it would undermine my confidence in my own work, and change my practice, and make me question whether I was doing the right thing, or even whether what I was doing had value. I didn’t realise how much I would subsequently rely on other people – my agent, my editor, the grants panel, my beta readers – to tell me whether I was on the right track. I mean, I’ve had to put absolute trust in those people. Because I honestly have no clue.

It’s really sucker-punched me.

Because all these years, I’ve been saying okay, I know that I write good, and I know the way it’s done. But this book… Ugh. This book, this stupid fucking book with so much more me in it, is giving me an object lesson in how being vulnerable in your writing is really different, and really HARD, in a way I’d never imagined.

So.

It’s okay, Bec said, and she patted me gently, like my other friends. I know lots of awesome writers who don’t think their writing is any good, she said. And she named a few people I know. Which made me feel…better? I think it made me feel better.

And even coming to that realisation made me feel better. I mean, I still feel awkward and uncertain, and I have absolutely no idea whether the book is any good. I only have external markers – what other people tell me about it. And I don’t know if readers will like it, and want to buy it – I hope they do, but that is a giant question mark which will only be answered when the book is released.

But at least I think I know why I feel this way now. And maybe – if you’re in the middle of writing something that freaks you the hell out because it’s so hard and awkward and it makes you feel exposed – then maybe reading this missive from the frontline will give you some clarity too.

xxEllie

 

 

#LoveOzYAbookclub – October 2016 title selection

Omg, it’s still freakin’ raining! It’s been raining non-stop here for weeks. Please tell me that it’s warm and dry somewhere in the world – I feel like I’m living in the middle of a swamp.

This month’s title is the first one I get to choose since the kick-off month of bookclub! And I had a book in mind (which rhymes with ‘Femina’, ahem) but unfortunately that book is not available for orders until the end of October, so I’ve chosen another excellent book for our reading pleasure…

SUMMER SKIN by Kirsty Eagar is a story about sex – in fact, it’s the story of blossoming love between a neo-riot grrl and a sexist pig, but it takes a deeper look at sexual relationships, intimacy, slut-shaming and hook-up culture in the world of modern college romance. “It’s all Girl meets Boy, Girl steals from Boy, seduces Boy, ties Boy to a chair and burns Boy’s stuff. Just your typical love story” as the blurb says.

Set in Brisbane (a strange land with which I’m personally familiar, having gone to UQ as an undergrad) it follows Jess Gordon, a Unity college girl, as she gets back at Mitch – a Knights boy – for the online humiliation of a college friend. But what Jess and Mitch didn’t count on is the way loathing can turn to lust, and how delightfully messy things can get when sex meets sexual politics.

The Sydney Morning Herald called SUMMER SKIN ‘a romance for our times’, and when I first read it, I was knocked out by Kirsty Eagar’s command of the twisty-turny complications of contemporary love. I’m setting up a Facebook chat with Kirsty Eagar for this month, so stay tuned for updates about it.

I hope you enjoy this month’s book! If you’d like to order it through our online friends, Boomerang Books, remember to use the ‘loveoz’ promotional code to receive free shipping. Now go forth and read!

 

xxEllie

Never kill the dog

Writing tips – every writer I know seems to have some. You have to have some ready, because people ask you for them. I’ve published three books, ergo people think I’m qualified to give out writing tips. Doesn’t seem to matter, as I frequently point out, that I’m no smarter at this business than anybody else. That’s not a lie; I fumble my way around in the dark, just like the rest of the world. People don’t seem to get that. They still ask me for tips, and because I’m chronically polite, I try to give them.

Best writer’s tips I ever read were by Stephen King and Margaret Atwood – obviously, cos they’re both geniuses.

King’s tip was: ‘Bum Glue’. That’s right, just stick yourself to that chair and don’t get up until it’s goddamn finished. Sticking yourself down until it’s finished can be really hard. Sticking your mind in place – in the age of YouTube, and DMs, and livetweets, and Netflix, and eBay, and all the rest of that shit – can be almost impossible. But if you want to write stuff, you have to do it.

 

 

Margaret Atwood’s tip was related to Stephen King’s. It was: ‘Get A Good Chair’. Because, as she pointed out ‘pain is distracting’. She’s onto something there.

 

So I’m not going to supersede these two excellent pieces of advice with my own twaddle. What I am going to do is go through a list of writing tips I read recently and tell you which ones work good and which ones don’t. Because there’s so many tips and suggestions and sure-fire-absolute-hundred-percent-if-you-do-this-you-won’t-fail recipes for writing. And it can get confusing.

Please keep in mind that ‘what works good and what doesn’t’ is entirely arbitrary. It might work good for you but not for me. It might work good for this book I’m writing now but not for the next one. Mileage may vary, as they say.

I got these tips from the internet, which is naturally where all writers of sense go for research.

Never open with the weather

It was a dark and stormy night… Probably one of the most famous opening lines ever. Actually written by a really awful author: Edward Bulwer Lytton.  Bulwer Lytton has an annual ‘bad writing’ competition named in his honour. So take that as a caution.

But yeah, you can write weather – if you really want to. You can write about scenery, too. I mean, think about it: Star Wars started with a scene-setting view of a starship. But if your story is about an actual person, I suggest you start with them.

Avoid prologues

See Star Wars, mentioned above. That long scroll of writing at the start of the movie? Most everybody read that.

Never use adverbs

Y’know, Stephen King always says he hates adverbs and avoids using them. For years, I have tried to follow this advice. And it’s been largely beneficial for my writing. Adverbs are qualifiers. They place conditions on the words around them. ‘He said gravely’ or ‘She coughed delicately’ or ‘It writhed awkwardly’ (like: ‘Jesus, that sentence writhes awkwardly’). But then years later, I re-read one of King’s books – I think it was The Shining. And you know what I found? Adverbs. Adverbs all over the fucking place.

If you must use an adverb, go ahead. But use them…sparingly.

Always use ‘said’

I agree with this. ‘She said’, ‘He said’ – it’s neat, it’s clean, it’s unobtrusive.

I do, however, have exceptions. The exceptions are – whispered, screamed/yelled/shouted. Sometimes I use ‘panted’, but only, like, once in 300 pages.

Never use clichés

I use clichés sometimes. It’s usually when I’m trying to paint a picture of colloquialism. Rural Australian people use a lot of clichéd slang, and sometimes I need to say that out loud. Or maybe I’m taking the piss – as they say – or I’m trying to make a point about the personality of a certain character: that they’re unoriginal, unimaginative.

I really like using clichéd Australian slang. It’s enjoyably familiar – like a comfy pair of Ugg boots – to Australian readers, and unfamiliar (and therefore, not clichéd) to international audiences. So I could say (although I’m still unlikely to say) he went ‘flat out like a lizard drinking’ and people in my hometown would get it, and US/UK readers would be all, ‘oh gosh, isn’t that quaint?’ and I would still have achieved my aim.

I never use ‘G’day’, though. That is just lame.

Avoid detailed descriptions

It used to be okay to do this. There’s a scene in Les Miserables (you know the one, but if you don’t – spoilers) where Hugo takes his characters through the Paris sewers. So the characters are being chased, they’re desperately running, in fear of their lives, and one of them is wounded, and it’s all hugely dramatic and tense – and then Hugo breaks off to describe the sewers. In fact, he gives you the whole history of the Paris sewerage system. It goes for, like, 40 pages.

Hugo published Le Miz in 1862. You can’t get away with that shit now. And I’m betting that half the people who read it in 1862 skimmed that part anyway.

Don’t write detailed, 40-page descriptions in your writing.

Have two or more projects on the go

Are you fucking insane? You think I can concentrate on more than one imaginative project simultaneously, while working two other jobs, and parenting, and householding, and blogging, and doing my taxes, and all that other shit? Seriously, people.

I know folks who can do this. More power to them. They are usually unencumbered people, though, so there’s that.

I mean, I will sometimes have another thing I’m fiddling with, that I can poke with a stick while I’m working out what went wrong with the first thing. And I will jot things down for other projects. I do that a lot. But to write something well, I usually need to devote my whole mind to it, and think about it all the time. That just seems to be the way I work.

I want to write more than one thing at a time. Believe me, I’d love to. If I’m ever unencumbered*, I will be totally on that.

Be disciplined

Yes, you need to be disciplined. You need to just sit yourself down and write that shit. With a good chair.

But don’t beat yourself up about it, either. I know lots of writers who are parents – I am one of them. It sounds great to say, ‘oh, now I’m going to sit up until 2am every night and get this novel finished, goddamnit!’ or ‘well, yes, it’s school holidays, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to break my writing discipline!’. Yeah, that sure sounds dandy. But in reality, my kids get up at 7am, so I can’t write until 2am or I’ll be a zombie (ie. a crappy parent) the next day. And sticking to my writing discipline in holiday-time means that my partner is the one who copes alone while I’m pursuing my writerly dream. That’s not fair.

I’m sure Stephen King has discipline. I’m equally sure that sometimes, in the early days, Tabitha King hauled him up from the doorway, saying ‘Stephen, if you don’t get out here and do the dishes while I sort out these kids, I’m going to bang on your head’, or something similar.

I woke up early in the morning to finish my first novel. But I don’t always have a set writing-time discipline. I have to make time, scratch it out of the margins. The discipline part is in your mind. You have to keep part of your mind partitioned for the work. Write when you can. Don’t torture yourself and your family by insisting that ‘no one is going to the beach/Disneyland/whatever until you’ve finished this four hours of writing, by god.’

Be pragmatic. When you have time, use it. When you don’t, work around it.

Think about structure

Or don’t. Y’know, it’s flexible. I wrote my last book with a plan in mind. The three before that, I had no fucking idea what was happening. I made it up as I went along. That’s what fiction writers do.

It’s different for every project. But nine out of ten times, I structure it in the edit.

Have your own workspace

Oh, I like this one! ‘Have a door you can close’ and all that. Which is always a hilarious little piece of advice for writers who are also parents. Writers-who-are-parents know that, sometimes, you can’t even close the door to the toilet. Closing the door to a writing studio sounds so wonderful! It’s the promise of a private creative space. But to many people, it’s like Middle-earth. It only exists in your own mind.

I am, for instance, writing this in bed, in my pajamas, while my kids are bugging me to come make them breakfast on the last day of school holidays. I do have a place I can go – out in the shed – but it is frequently impractical to work there when I’m supposed to be parenting. Not everyone has a workspace – Fleur Ferris, for instance, writes at her dining room table, surrounded by kids who are doing stuff. Stephenie Meyer did this too, apparently.

I also know loads of writers (*cough* – Sean Williams, Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff – *uncough*) who go on tour, and have to work on planes, in hotel rooms, on trains, in cafes, in waiting rooms. You work where you can. Like I said, the workspace is in your mind.

 Never kill the dog

I killed two dogs in my first book. Yep, just killed ‘em outright.

It was for character development, which I’m sure was the excuse Patrick Ness used. In what will no doubt be the only time I ever have anything in common with Patrick Ness, I got distressed letters from people saying that I was a terrible person for killing the dogs. I apologised to those people.

But they were readers. If you’ve made it to the end of this article, presumably you’re a writer. So here’s what I reckon: if you need to, kill the dog. People will get upset. That’s too bad. But if you really give a shit about what people think, you probably shouldn’t be in this writing business anyway.

 

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got

Like I said, these are not tips or suggestions. I’m sorry if I’ve horrified anyone by my laissez-fair attitude. But writing is not a prescriptive exercise, and everyone and every situation is different. If we all stuck to ‘the Rules’ we’d never get anything done. Be flexible. The only real rule is: if you want to be a writer, write.

For more details on writing tips by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, read this by Matt Haig (he still advises you not to kill the dog, though).

xxEllie

 

*Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha *laughs forever*

 

State of play – September-October 2016

What I’m writing

Yes, I’m still editing

*Sigh*

I’ve been trying out Scrivener this month, as almost every author I know seems to be saying it’s the best thing since sliced bread. After working with it for about two weeks, I’m still on the fence. I just don’t know if I’m mastering the software fast enough for it to be useful, and I’m concerned that my lack of competence is making it hard for me to feel confident that I’m backing things up correctly. A couple of other things are annoying – Scrivener adds additional quote marks to Word docs I’ve transferred over, and I have to go through manually and pick them all out; I can’t get page counts in any of my documents.

A few issues were more about my own personal working style. Yes, Scrivener’s fabulous for making pinboards and so on, but I find that the pinboard part of any book project is great only at the beginning – after that I use pinboards et al. almost exclusively as a way to procrastinate. I also start forgetting to update pinboards and notes and things once I start getting into the meat of the story – I don’t want to go back and keep my notes etc ‘up to date’, it just feels like a waste of time.

It could be that I’m making slow progress on the edit, which is making me resent the need to master the software – it could be an associative thing. But I don’t know if I’ll want to start my next project in Scrivener. If I get a chance, I’ll attend a ‘learn Scrivener fast and become a writing genius’ workshop of some kind, and see if there are things I’m missing in the DIY-learning approach that I could overcome to make the software more useful to me. But at this stage, I’ve abandoned Scrivener and gone back to re-organising the edit in Word again. (Oh dear! A recidivist!)

What probably disappointed me the most about Scrivener was that none of the following buttons was available:

1.‘Manuscript Auto-Edit’ button

2.‘Manuscript Becomes Instantly More Awesome Than Any Manuscript That Ever Was’ button

3.‘Daily Affirmation For the Insecure Author’ button

4.‘Glass of Wine’ button

5.‘Make That Two Glasses of Wine’ button

6.‘Cake – Because You’ve Worked So Hard Today’ button

7.‘Cone of Silence/Mute-Your-Family’ button

Call me picky (really, go ahead) but those were the buttons I was looking for with this software, and they just weren’t there. I honestly don’t think that adding these seven buttons is too much to ask.

What I’m up to

On October 8, I’m going to be at Nunawading Library with Danielle Binks, Floss the Fangirl, Lili Wilkinson (THE BOUNDLESS SUBLIME) and Shivaun Plozza (FRANKIE) for the YA Fanfest. Book here for tickets – it’s a free event, but they want to know how many TimTams to put out.

On October 11 and 18, I’m presenting another Crime-writing workshop for GATEways students, through Writers Victoria and the Wheeler Centre – sorry, folks, that’s by invitation only.

On October 14, I’ll be at Balmoral for the Stella program, talking to students there with Bec Kavanagh.

I’m also going to the GEMINA launch in Melbourne on October 21 at the SLV – be there or be nowhere!

What’s bugging me

The Lionel Shriver Thing – ye gads. So many issues. I’ve actually saved the links to every single bloomin’ article that I could find on the whole palava (one of my kids wants to do a school project on it), so if you want to find out about it, go here:

Lionel Shriver’s initial ABC Brisbane interview (prior to Brisbane Writer’s Festival)

Lionel Shriver’s speech (transcript)

Yassmin Abdul-Magied’s article

Yen-Rong Wong’s article

Nesrine Malik’s article

The Minefield (radio discussion with Waleed Aly)

The New York Times

The New York Times again (this is Shriver’s response)

Spiked

Sydney Morning Herald

Maxine Beneba Clarke’s article

Helen Razer’s initial article

Helen Razer’s follow-up article

The Age

Time

Flavorwire

Australian Business Review

The Conversation

The Washington Post

The New Republic

The Daily Telegraph

Adolfo Aranjuez’s article

Adolfo Aranjuez’s follow-up article

I’m not going to give an account of my position on the issue, if you were wondering. But I do think the shitstorm surrounding it has been divisive and negative for the entire literary community. I would very much like to see a broader cultural spread within the publishing industry. I would also really like to believe that, one day, we could all have a discussion about ideas without it turning into an online bunfight.

What’ I’m looking forward to

The GEMINA LAUNCH, whoo baby! (This is where I confess my secret love of post-launch karaoke. Not that there is any guarantee of karaoke. That is not my call.)

On my TBR

I finished a bunch of books over the past month – A SMALL MADNESS by Dianne Touchell (which is the #LoveOzYAbookclub read for this month), WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN by Lionel Shriver (good timing, wot), THE ICE AGE by Luke Williams, GAMECHANGERS: FROM MINECRAFT TO MISOGYNY by Dan Golding and Leena Van Deventer, and a bunch of other stuff.

What I’m hoping to read over the next month is THE CALL by Peadar O’Guilin – I’ve heard mutterings about this YA fantasy dystopia that suggest good things. Also, I’d like to dig into THE PYJAMA GIRL MYSTERY by Richard Evans, which was lent to me by a friend. And I’ll be getting a copy of GEMINA at the launch, so I’ll be fighting my kids for that one soon.

That’s not to mention that I’ve had WORDS IN DEEP BLUE by Cath Crowley on the pile beside my bed for aaages, and I’m too scared to pick it up because I know it will be unmitigated awesome and while I’m ploughing through my edit I just don’t think I can face it. But as soon as the edit’s done – mate, I’m gonna be on that faster than lizard spit.

xxEllie

#LoveOzYAbookclub – September 2016 discussion post: A SMALL MADNESS

Right, it’s time to get into the meat and potatoes of Dianne Touchell’s A SMALL MADNESS. I’ve been looking forward to this discussion, as the book raises a whole heap of issues with its plot and characters, as well as with its form, and I’m very interested to hear other peoples’ opinions on it.

First of all, issues of form. A number of people have said to me that they didn’t feel A SMALL MADNESS was a YA book. What constitutes a ‘YA book’ seems harder and harder to get a handle on these days. The chief concerns, I understand, were that a) the subject matter was too dark; b) the style was too adult; c) the packaging and content didn’t seem to be designed with teenagers in mind.

On the latter charge, I would agree that the packaging didn’t seem to be aimed at teenage audiences – it was too arty and oblique to appeal to teenagers, I felt (if you’re a teenager and think otherwise, please respond and let me know!). Teenagers aren’t stupid, but they do judge a book by its cover, and they appreciate more hints about the actual content of the book apart from just the blurb. The US cover was perhaps a bit more direct (see right). While the Aus cover was extremely beautiful, and striking, I felt that it was designed more to appeal to adult readers (specifically, judges of children’s literary awards and teachers looking for curriculum content, in which case you’d say the design was a resounding success).

Which is fine, actually, but I felt that the subject of the book was too important to risk turning off teenagers with the cover – more teens should read this book. It’s a really important book. Then again, maybe teens would be nervous about reading a book that overtly revealed it was about teen pregnancy. Maybe the cover served its purpose by being a bit camouflaging. But I wasn’t convinced that the cover was designed with teens in mind.

And as I said, I want more teens to read this book. Because I think the content is dark, but also necessary. It’s about something that every teenager deals with at some point: first sexual relationships, and how easy it is to make mistakes that lead to pregnancy, and the potential terrible consequences of that. I couldn’t help but think of Lynne Reid Banks’s THE L-SHAPED ROOM. Was A SMALL MADNESS a cautionary tale? I’ll leave that for you to decide. But I don’t think it was didactic or preachy in tone, at all. I also think that teenagers are perfectly capable of dealing with dark or intense subject matter. And the book is written in such an interesting and beautiful way that I wanted to read it again almost as soon as I’d finished it – I had no problems with the style.

Finally we get to the subject matter, and for that I will commend you to the words of Anne Buist, who is both a writer (of adult psychological thrillers – see her books Medea’s Curse and Dangerous to Know here) and a professor of Perinatal Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. In her professional life, Anne has dealt with many cases of infanticide and pregnancy/postpartum homicide. I approached her for comment, as the book’s subject fitted so neatly into her area of expertise, and she graciously agreed to read the book (she read it in one night! She reads fast). This is what she had to say about the story of A SMALL MADNESS:

For these comments I have my “Professor of Perinatal Psychiatry” hat on, rather than coming from a writer or reader’s perspective, though there is some overlap; authenticity of character for me is an essential ingredient for a book to be “good”. (The inclusion of quote marks here is the writer part of me—the evaluation of quality has invariably some subjective component of taste and preference!)

I have dealt with probably a dozen cases of denial of pregnancy professionally, and heard and read about/discussed with colleagues many more. There is no “classic” case but there are some general commonalities, and though some I have seen have been denial at a deep psychological sense, some have been very similar to Rose as depicted in A Small Madness—that is, with a significant element of conscious knowledge but refusal to deal with it or manage it in any real way. Many have a family member who has asked “are you pregnant” but not pushed it, so Violet, too, is I think believable. The patriotic dogmatic authoritarian-style parenting of Michael’s father is also very commonly seen in the families of the girl. What is more unusual in this book, though I think still plausible, is Michael’s involvement.

Overall I think the author did a good job, and this could fit right in among my cases. If anyone is interested, read Helen Garner’s latest selection of essays Everywhere I Look. It includes one called Punishing Karen, a true story, not unlike Rose. Though the psychiatrist (who was me) is quoted (correctly) as saying “dissociation” i.e. a break from reality is the usual mechanism for what happens at the time of delivery, I think now it is much more complicated and may be more stress and panic, in not very bright young women with poor problem solving abilities, which Touchell manages well in both Rose and Michael.

One other thing… “Karen” in Punishing Karen was charged with Infanticide (and convicted) in Victoria but never did any gaol time – in NSW she may well have. If it had been her boyfriend who killed the baby he would have been charged with murder (and certainly done gaol time even if the charge was lessened to manslaughter). The Infanticide law is one of the few times the law favours women (it can’t be used for men – it has to be the biological mother, so not even adoptive mothers can use it).

So this has turned into a very long discussion post, and I’ve not included links to any reviews of the book this month, but if you’d like a more rounded idea of how A SMALL MADNESS was received, check out here and here. I’d like to thank Anne Buist for her contribution to the discussion, which was both enlightening and extremely generous – thanks Anne!

I’m interested in what you all have to say about this one! Remember, if you don’t feel up to providing a longer comment, feel free to give the book a star rating (1-5 stars). But I’d love to hear your views, either here in the Comments section or on the FB group thread.

xxEllie

#LoveOzYAbookclub – September 2016 – author interview: Dianne Touchell

We have not been washed away in the rains here, although it was a near thing (for those of you living far away, south eastern Australia has had some of its highest Spring rainfalls and worst flooding in about ten years – at left is an actual picture of our actual access road during last week’s deluge).

I’m not that bothered by flooding in my vicinity because I’ve always felt that I could cope quite well with being cut off – so long as I had a stock of teabags and condensed milk, a few bottles of wine, and a stack of good books. Hmm, priorities.

One of the books might well be our September 2016 bookclub title, A Small Madness by Dianne Touchell. After being nervous to tackle what I considered grim subject matter, I found the book utterly compelling, with gorgeous writing. It was listed this year as a Notable Book for Older Readers by the CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia).

Dianne is originally from Fremantle in Western Australia, and is also (if she’ll forgive me for mentioning it) a gifted musician. Her first book Creepy and Maud was released in 2012, and her most recent title, Forgetting Foster, came out this year through Allen & Unwin (and I, for one, will be reading it as soon as possible). I encourage you to get along to her blog – she’s posted some fantastic things there.

I asked Dianne a number of very silly questions, which she was kind enough to answer here for #LoveOzYAbookclub:

1) One curious or unusual thing about you that most people don’t know:

I am an introvert with a collection of hip flasks.  Is that two things? – (I also have trouble following simple directions).  Being an introvert means I always want to go places, join in, be involved, but then realise I’ve already taken my bra off for the night and don’t really like being around people anyway.  It’s not that I don’t like people – it’s just that they have easy smiles and relaxed blather-banter and incomprehensible expectations.  Whereas my cats just want to be fed and loved.  The hip flasks are to cope with inescapable blather-banter.

 

2) One of your favourite words and why:

‘Fuck’.  I’m not sure you will publish this response but I hope you will, and believe you should. (Note: I most certainly did, as you can see – and see further notes below)  I do not use a lot of profanity in my writing because I think it is unnecessary.  I don’t use a lot of profanity in my everyday speech.  However, in situations where all methods of rational dispute process and patient rhetoric have failed, there comes a time when a shock-slap word is needed, be it to flabbergast the other person back into the moment or to simply deal with one’s own terror.  Marilyn Manson once said: “It is far better to use a curse word than to hurt someone, I find.”  This is where I use it in my writing also.  I draw your attention to this exchange in A Small Madness:

‘I’ve been thirsty,’ Rose said, and then slowly tilted forward until she slid to her knees on the floor, landing with the grace of a cat on Liv’s chest.

          ‘Oh fuck.’ 

          Liv eased Rose onto the floor and grabbed her phone. It slipped out of her grasp. She realised her own hands were bloodied and quickly wiped them on the edge of Rose’s bed before making the call.

          ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck…’

          ‘Hello?’

          ‘…oh fuck, oh fuck…Mum?’

          ‘Livvie? Is that you?’

          ‘Please come. Please come to Rose’s. Oh fuck, Mum.’

          ‘Jesus, baby. I’m still in bed. What’s going on?’

          ‘Please come to Rose’s, Mum. She…she…’

          ‘Tell me what’s wrong – now!’

          ‘I just need you.’

          ‘On my way.’

          When Liv’s mother pulled into the driveway, Liv was waiting for her on the front steps. She had been running back and forth between Rose’s bedroom and the front steps of the house for the past twenty minutes. She imagined her action, some action, any action, could both speed up time and create a bubble of it that could never be pricked. To keep moving in this immediate moment became more and more senseless and more and more essential. So she ran. And then she ran to the door of her mother’s car, yanked it open and began pulling on her mother’s clothes before the seatbelt was even disengaged.

          ‘Jesus Christ, is that your blood?’

          ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck Mum.’

I challenge anyone to find the word ‘fuck’ offensive in this situation.

(Further note: In our email exchange regarding this interview, Dianne said, ‘ I remind you they are called “messy” and would hope you would include all of them and not ask me for an alternates.’ And I replied, ‘I will most certainly be publishing your replies in their entirety – ‘fuck’ is also one of my favourite words, and I use it frequently in both writing and life’. And I would imagine that everyone in bookclub is similarly okay with a bit of swearing.)

 

3) Horror Challenge – which fave horror movie would you cheerily inflict on your friends?:

As a horror genre devotee it is difficult for me to choose just one.  And as you know I can’t follow direction.  So my top three would be Funny Games (directed by Michael Haneke), 28 Days Later (directed by Danny Boyle – who borrowed heavily from John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids) and Psycho (directed by Alfred Hitchcock). 

 

4) The zombie apocalypse strikes, but it’s okay, cos you have your choice of weapons, and you choose…:

Other people!  I have arthritis and have had a hip replaced.  My son already told me he wouldn’t wait for me in an escape situation.  So I figure I’ll hook up with a geriatric ward.  The ones on stretchers and in wheelchairs are basically kebabs for crying out loud!  I’ll be the fastest one in a slow pack.  I’ll be Meals on Wheels for the Zombies.  And therefore…always one step ahead!  Up here for thinkin’!

 

5) The best opening line from a book, in your opinion, is:

A surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

‘The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (Greening Publishing, 1905)

 

I have loved this first line a long time.  I used it in Creepy & Maud (Fremantle Press, 2012)

 

Thank you to Dianne for participating – I was particularly impressed with her quoting of Marilyn Manson – and all of you for reading, and I hope you’re enjoying A Small Madness. I’ll put up the discussion post for this book early next week.

xxEllie

#LoveOzYAbookclub – September 2016 title selection, August Hiatus results

Welcome to Spring here on my side of the world!  It’s time for flowers to bloom, baby chicks to hatch, sunny skies, and…er…hayfever. So while I’m sniffing and nose-blowing at my place, here’s something to take us on to a new era in bookclub.

Our August hiatus is over. The competition we ran, asking for responses from bookclubbers about how we might value-add to the group, was very useful – a lot of suggestions and ideas were provided about how we might improve the #LoveOzYAbookclub experience, and here’s some of the recommendations I’m adopting:

* Title Selection: After long consideration, I’ve decided to change the title selection process for bookclub. The current system allows the authors of the month’s title to select the upcoming title. This was making it a bit tricky for me to plan and contact prospective authors in advance. So from now on, I’ll be selecting the titles every month, cos I’m bossy like that, with the occasional guest selector popping in to choose. I do solemnly swear I’ll make sure the titles we read are varied and diverse. If you have a recommended title that you’d really like to read over the next few months, let me know in the comments thread here or on FB.

* Posts: The group will still be blocked to author/review blogger posts and book promotion posts.

* Posts MkII: On the upside, all bookclubbers are heartily welcome to post up recommended reads, keep us updated about cool books you’ve come across, and add links for book events and book news. Did you know, for example, that Fleur Ferris’s book Risk won the 2016 Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards for YA? Now you know

#LoveOzYAbookclub – August 2016: Hiatus Contest

Hey bookclubbers!

So here we are, having a little breather.  I’m totally okay with that, and I hope you are too – if you’re anything like me, you’ll already have a pile of books on your bookshelf (or nightstand, also on the floor next to your nightstand, in my case) that you have had a chance to reacquaint with, and a change is as good as a holiday I reckon.

I decided to give everyone, including me, a chance to catch up this month. #LoveOzYAbookclub has officially been going since October last year – that’s when people first started signing up – so it’s been ten months of non-stop action, and we’ve read lots of amazing books.  So far we’ve covered these books below:

 

It’s been a pretty incredible ride so far, but I noticed that discussion has slowed down a bit, and personally I’ve been struggling to keep up the last few months (I’ve had some difficulties with our woeful rural internet, but that’s another story), so I thought we could take this month as a rest stop that might give us the opportunity to see how things are going.

So how are you going with bookclub? Next month’s book has already been selected by Ali Cobby Eckermann, the author of RUBY MOONLIGHT – but after August, I’m open to shifting things around a bit, to make sure everyone’s having a good time. Are we covering the books you like, and giving enough opportunity for discussion? Do you think there are other features we could provide? Are there books not yet on the list, that you’d like to see included?

Questions I’ve always wanted to ask people include: Is one book a month too much, too little, or just right?  And is our free-delivery arrangement with Boomerang Books working out okay?  Are you getting your book-parcels as required?  Is our domino title selection system (in which the authors choose the title of the next month’s book) working out? Should we relax our policy of prohibiting review blogs? – is that rule understandable, or are people unsure of what to post? Maybe you’d like to see me hand the reins to another host sometimes too, that’s a possible option…

We have quite a few members now – nearly 400 in total – but not so many of those people participate in discussion. Is there something we can do more of to encourage you?

Please do get back to me on some of these questions if you can!  It will help to make #LoveOzYAbookclub a thriving space. Also, if you have any other queries or suggestions, here’s the place to put ‘em, either here in comments, or on the FB thread.

And here’s the contest part:

To encourage all you folks to join in with your ideas, I’ll be awarding a free copy of next month’s book to the person who contributes the most useful suggestion, and a free copy of the American edition of my book to whoever answers the questions most thoroughly.

There you go. What are you waiting for?

Anyway, wherever you are in Australia or the world, I hope you’re having a relaxed and productive week, and I hope the sun is shining for you more than it’s shining for me at the moment – we’ve had a run of crappy weather now that winter is dragging to a close, although the daffodils and other bulbs are all starting to spring up.  Soon we won’t have to light the fire inside anymore, but that time is not yet with us. I’m still wearing a cardigan, a jumper and a coat when I go into my unheated shed to use the internet. But the end of the Olympics means I now have television access! I’ve really been wanting to get into Stranger Things and the most recent season of The 100…

Take it easy, and have a good week!

xxEllie

State of Emergency – August 2016

I always feel a bit like I’m in a state of emergency, so this title is something of a misnomer! Actually, it’s not an emergency, but life gets very busy.  I’ve been neglecting my blog lately to do other Very Important Things, but it’s time to pull my finger out…

What I’m writing

I’m in the middle of edits for my new book. I was having a pretty hard time of it, but I had a bit of a brain wave (while listening to How To Make Gravy by Paul Kelly) so now I feel like I know what I’m doing – insofar as its possible to feel like you know what you’re doing during early edits.

I always try, at first, to get rid of things that have been bugging me: certain phrases that seemed a bit clichéd, or maybe just didn’t quite ring true, anything that I didn’t feel 100% comfortable with in the initial draft.  Those bits are easy to delete. But it’s harder to cut scenes and dialogue that you’ve become attached to. You justify retaining them by telling yourself they’re important for the set-up for the next scene, or that you need them for the flow of the narrative, or to flesh out a character… It’s incredibly hard sometimes to be dispassionate about it. It’s also hard in the early stages of edits, when you’re just figuring out what the true shape of the story will be.

But you have to be a bit brutal – does this scene really move the story forward? That’s always what I end up pushing myself to remember. This book, like all the others, will go through more than a few edits to make it streamlined. Anything that I cling to now, that I’m reluctant to part with, might seem more obviously extraneous as the process goes along.

What I’m up to

I had a great time at last weekend’s Bendigo Writers Festival, where I stepped in for another colleague to take part in a panel with Gabrielle Tozer (Faking It, The Intern) on ‘Happy Endings’.

This week, as part of the Stella Schools Program, I’m speaking with Bec Kavanagh and Simmone Howell at Braemar College in Woodend this Wednesday 24 August – I’m looking forward to that a lot, especially audience questions about writing, and women and writing. And working with Bec and Simmone is a dream, they are both so lovely.

I’m also attending the Sisters in Crime Davitt Awards on Saturday night 27 August, where Every Move is in contention for the best YA crime award, so it’s time to break out the frocks and champagne.

 

Not that I anticipate celebrating – the YA category is very strong this year, with Risk by Fleur Ferris, In the Skin of A Monster by Kathryn Barker, and Stay With Me by Maureen McCarthy also in contention, and those women are all on form. But I’m looking forward to dressing up (compared to my normal writing clothes, which usually consists of trackie pants and ugg boots) and having a great night with the Sisters.

On Sunday 28 August I’m attending the Melbourne Writers Festival, as part of the audience – I’m hugely excited to see David Levithan and Rainbow Rowell, but most especially to hear Melina Marchetta (my literary hero!) speak about her new book.  Then on Wednesday 31 August, I get to actually be onstage for the MWF Schools Program – I’m holding a session on Writing YA Crime, and I’d love to see you there, if the tickets aren’t already booked out.

What’s bugging me

Look, I hate blagging on about stuff that should be freaking obvious to everyone, but this is worth repeating: do not, I repeat, DO NOT slut-shame. A number of Melbourne schools were recently notified that male students had been sharing intimate and non-consensually-acquired photos of female students over an internationally-run social media platform. One school’s response was to herd all the female students into the assembly hall and tell them to make sure their skirts were below the knee, and not to wear make-up.

People, this is the wrong approach.

While it is vital that every teenager who uses a phone understands that pics sent via phone or online are not private, and that it’s hugely important that you think carefully – and slowly, and very warily – before you click Send, telling girls that their clothing and behaviour and level of modesty are the Big Problem is wrong. Women have put up with this shit for way too long.

What horrified me more was the comment response to the news articles about this issue. People were saying that if a girl sends an intimate photo of herself into the world, she’s asking for it. Wrong again.  Women are not the ones who should be changing or restricting themselves to mitigate predatory male behaviour – we’ve done it for centuries and it never works. Predatory sexual behaviour isn’t about sex, it’s about power. We’ve put ourselves in burkas and we still get raped. How does lowering our hem length and forswearing makeup help us, exactly?

I would like to know if the boys involved in this case have been prosecuted, and (hopefully) educated about how commodifying and objectifying girls is part of a cycle of violence against women. I’d like to know if the school in question gave any kind of talk to the boys (it’s a co-ed school) about their behaviour and how it impacts on women, and in the long run, themselves. I’d like to know if the boys were asked to avoid wearing short-shorts and going bare-chested in gym class.

And I’d like to know why, in this century, we are still telling women that male behaviour is a female problem.

What I’m looking forward to

Okay, I’m looking forward to Melbourne Writers Festival and the Davitt Awards night, big time. Those events are always incredibly fun, and I get to connect with other people in the literary industry – what is still called ‘networking’, for some reason, but actually means ‘hanging out with your mates who you have a lot in common with to talk shop and life’.

I’m also really looking forward to some fine weather. It’s been raining pretty constantly here at our place, as winter recedes, and I’d really like to get out in the garden! Sure, I could put on my mac and gumboots and go out in the cold, but…well, it hasn’t been hugely motivating. Bring back the sun!

#LoveOzYAbookclub

You might have noticed that bookclub is on a month-long hiatus – after posting the final discussion thread for RUBY MOONLIGHT by Ali Cobby Eckermann, I decided to give myself and everyone else a bit of a break from our TBR piles. I need it as much as everyone else sometimes! I had also gotten behind with my bookclub posts, and noticed that there wasn’t as much discussion, so I thought it might be time to take a minute to regroup.

I’m putting out a blog post tomorrow, asking for feedback about bookclub, and running a competition to win a free copy of our next bookclub pick – so stay tuned for details here, and have a think about bookclub, and what you’d like to get out of it. The best suggestions, I’ll be taking on board (and rewarding with a free book!)

On my TBR

I’ve been dabbling in non-fiction a bit lately – sometimes when I’m writing or editing I find it’s easier to read a non-fiction work, rather than get distracted by another author’s narrative.

So I’m working my way through Curious Pursuits by Margaret Atwood (literary hero!), a book of her occasional essays and writings, which covers everything from Writing the Male to eulogies for people like Angela Carter. Yes, it’s fantastic.

Another literary hero of mine is William Gibson – that man’s mind moves in extraordinary ways. His book Distrust That Particular Flavour was amazing. It’s a mix of forewords to other people’s books, talks he’s given, essays he’s written for magazines like Wired etc and it was another glimpse into a unique perspective on the world, a perspective that somehow seems to leap over all the current ideas about science fiction and give us something original and fascinating and totally unexpected.

 

In fiction, I’ve been reading through Jay Kristoff’s work – I’ve already read Illuminae (with Amie Kaufman – still my fave) and the Lotus War trilogy, but his new book Nevernight is glorious. Outstanding marks for world-building. I love seeing how some writers mature and grow in their craft, and I think you can really see that with this book.

I’ve also read his short story ‘Sleepless’ in the YA horror anthology Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, edited by Genevieve Tcholke, and it was great. I actually loved almost all the stories in that book (Marie Lu’s story – whoah – and shorts by Leigh Bardugo and Jonathan Maberry were my other favourites), and I’m a big fan of horror, so I’d love it if this ushered in a new YA horror trend. How cool would that be?

 

So that’s it from me for this month. Hope you’re all going great, and catch up again soon!

xxEllie