I’ve been chugging away with my writing for five years now. My current complex manuscript is requiring draft after draft and while I find it difficult, it is also incredibly rewarding to see things falling into place – except when they don’t and I have to do it all over again, but then eventually I’ll be even more satisfied – if I’m not weeping because it’s still not good enough! Exaggeration but you get the drift.
Despite this joy (?!) in the process, it is nonetheless completely delightful to get external validation by being longlisted for the second time in the wonderful City of Fremantle Hungerford Award! It’s like getting a very very nice performance review from a respected boss!
Some of you may remember the first time this happened, in 2022. That was for my Young Adult manuscript ‘Treehearts’ about a seventeen year old trying to save a corridor of urban bushland while trying not to fall in love with a Deaf boy who didn’t date hearing girls. This 2024 nomination is for ‘Nowhere, Everywhere’ – another YA, this one about a boy dealing with grief and guilt while living on a holiday island with a dark history. It’s set on Wadjemup/Rottnest Island and I drew on memories, both mine and my brothers’, while writing Jack’s story.
I dearly hope this manuscript progresses further in the competition and ultimately finds a publisher. It’s a little bit funny even in the sad moments. My young adult son (and a dear Lit teacher friend) honoured me by whipping through the final draft in under 24 hours – so maybe it’s got something? That speedy reading felt like high praise indeed!
Anyway, whatever happens when the shortlist comes out later this month, I’ll still be here at my desk, wrestling with plot developments, and sentences that don’t sound the way I want them to, and characters who take themselves to places I hadn’t expected. I’ll still have my inspiring writer group friends, craft books to read and time to page slowly through novels. I’ll still be doing bookish things of all kinds and really, if that girl who loved nothing more than reading all through her childhood could see herself now, she’d be very content indeed.
It’s truly wonderful that such awards as the Hungerford exist. In these times that seem increasing lean for writers, they provide much needed encouragement and opportunity. Molly Schmidt and her wonderful Salt River Road were such deserved winners in 2022 and I have loved watching her success. To be even on the same list as Molly and others, both last time and this time, is really very delightful indeed.
For those of you beavering away with your own creative endeavours, I hope this week brings you all the time you’d like to do so! And to everyone, much love, and thanks, always, for reading 🙂
The other day I woke up feeling a little introspective. Not unusual for me, some of you will know, I mean, hey, I often live my entire day largely inside my own head. However, a few thoughts that have been hanging around semi-formed have crystallised and they just might resonate with some of you other mid-life people.
I’ve realised I’ve been inhabiting a liminal space for the last four-ish years. And this has been part of my silence on this blog. I was caught, grieving a stage of life that had changed very quickly and mostly without any choice on my part, and not yet held by a new way of living. It’s obvious to me now how suddenly the changes occurred and how freaking hard it was. Within a period of six months, I stopped teaching (to write), my youngest child (and last at home) finished school and moved to another city to study, and then my dear mum died, closely followed by our dear labrador.
Just in case that doesn’t sound so much, to recap, I went from being a working mother of school-aged kids and doggo who was trying to give her elderly mum as much company as possible, to someone with a lot of free time. (Yes, to write mainly, but we all know that it’s rare to be glued to the desk for 8 hours a day – my creativity only tolerates that when I’m really deep in my first drafts and then it’s absolutely necessary, but, most of the time, I need other things in my life.)
Those of you who’ve been through any of these changes will know that each one alone can throw you off course.
All together at once, it was a cyclonic blast into a void.
I guess I had an idea that I was adrift. I certainly mentioned it to a few friends and knew I had some processing to do. In amongst the grief, I kinda forgot that I’d only recently stopped working outside the home as well. I’d gone from having a meaningful role in the lives of quite a few people – and a golden gentleman of a dog let’s not forget! – to someone who occasionally counted the hours until her lovely husband got home. (And since he travels for work sometimes as much as three quarters of the month, let me tell you, that was some countdown.)
Of course, it’s far from the worst place it’s possible to be. I was burnt out from years of looking after others and to those of you still in that space I send energy. There was some complicated relief in the time I had to myself. And I wasn’t alone really. My children kept me in their social calendar (um hooray who isn’t grateful for that?!) whether remotely or face to face. My friends and extended family members were still there and generous with their time even though they were all busy with their own lives, just as they should be, working taxing jobs and/or juggling all the things I used to juggle. I completely understood that I was in a place of privilege, housed, fed and safe, with that hugely precious commodity of our era – time. I could hardly complain. I was in a unique space that was all mine and mine alone to rebuild.
So, what’s changed? I’m still here, in this liminal space, but the new feeling that I’m sharing today is that I’m coming up and out. I may not be published yet, but much of my time is spent writing, reading, and with people who write books and people who read them as much as me. I have daily rituals that spark joy and good health, things it took me a while to find as I groped around in so much empty space trying to locate them. I mean, that emptiness was scary, I’m telling you. But it was also profound. Without that sheer magnitude of loss and change coming all at once, would I have found the courage to shake myself into a new way of being? I’m not sure I would have.
Of course, this liminal space of mine does not compare to that of those who lose children or homes or whose countries fall into conflict or so on. No, this was just what I was given to deal with at this time in my life. And so, I have, to the best of my ability, in amongst the weeping and the wobbling.
I can’t help wondering if, somewhere, my mum is saying “Well done, darling.” And urging me on. She will always be part of my DNA. But I also wonder, sadly, if losing her, in among the rest of it, was a required piece of the puzzle in helping me understand how to finish growing up – and fully into myself.
For those of you out there who are at a similar stage of life, or a different one that has its own ‘betweenness’ going on, take heart, my friends and keep sniffing out the joy. It may be lonely, sad, tiring or feel never-ending, but it’s opportunity. I have finally learnt, more than halfway through my life, that it really is only by falling that we learn how to get up. More importantly, and boy I wish I’d known this earlier, I’ve also learnt that it’s the wobbling and the failing and the still not knowing what we are looking for that is where the real living happens. And I don’t know about you but to me, that seems like something worth knowing.
Meanwhile, and this bit is about writing, I’m deep in the fifth draft of my Illawarra manuscript about a grieving woman searching for meaning. Huh?! Where did that come from?! Unlike me, Carrie is caught up in the mystery surrounding the death of a politician who was once her student and events that occurred twenty five years earlier. It’s a hard, messy story but it’s what wants to be written right now so that’s where I’m at!
Much love to you all – and strength for whatever challenges life is throwing your way,
As someone who has come late to an acceptance that I was partly put on this earth to write, could we please talk about the perfection that was that airport segment in TheMarvelous Mrs Maisel Season 5 Episode 1? I’m not talking about it containing one of those moments where the sheer beauty of what is said and unsaid by characters lifts the experience to another plane – although it must be noted that any scene with Lenny Bruce written into it hovers on such a level. No, I am talking about the technical wizardy that brought strands of story together.
Firstly, let’s acknowledge that that set was goddamn beautiful. A section of my brain spent the entire time wishing we still got to fly from such places of architectural elegance instead of the purely functional, maximum capacity cattle sheds that these days qualify as airports. Imagine my delight on discovering the setting was not recreated but real. Though no longer operating as a terminal at JFK, it is now a hotel and newly added to my list of places to visit if I ever get a chance.
The use of such an iconic backdrop enhanced the already magical delight of this show based on the life of Joan Rivers. The excellent Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam Maisel is ably abetted in the first few minutes of this airport segment by the relatively new, and wholly quirky and intriguing Alfie. I watched with complete absorption and trust as Miriam efficiently dispatched the magician on his travels, then bumped into her parents, the ever-contained Rose and always a little emotionally leaky Abe, before finally coming across elusive, compelling Lenny in the process of dropping the troublesome contents of his suitcase.
It is a sign of first-class writing that it wasn’t until this morning, my mind again on the beautiful TWA terminal designed by Eero Saarinen and used from 1962 until 2001, that I thought about these unlikely meetings being brought together in one place. Which is where my writer’s brain did a little backflip of joy. I have so many questions and pondering them reminds me of that exquisite feeling when story strands weave themselves together successfully. Usually, but not always, through much effort from one or many creators.
I can almost hear the writers’ room putting together this segment. What came first? Did someone say, “Hey, we must use the TWA hotel at some point in this show. Any ideas?” If not, which scene came first? Surely the final scene with Lenny? “Okay then how shall we get Mrs M to be at the airport?” “What about if Alfie’s a reluctant flyer and needs to be chaperoned onto a plane?” “Wouldn’t Susie (another excellent character and Alfie and Miriam’s agent) do that?” “Good point. Okay, what if Susie can’t take him and asks Miriam to do it?” “That could work but what is the reason Susie can’t do it?”
You see where I’m going with this. Whether it was a similar or an entirely different sequence of strategizing, that’s pure writing artistry, right there. Maybe then someone said, “I feel like we need more action at the airport before the big scene. What else could happen?” Did Rose and Abe’s sudden win of a free trip result from needing to get them to the airport too? Or did the trip (cancelled by an as yet mysterious other – cue allusion to and development of the absolutely inspired warring matchmakers sub-plot) come first? When you think on it, it’s all very contrived and yet, in the hands of experts, entirely convincing.
How much of my delight in this is due to what I am still learning about writing? How far into the ten thousand hours required for some level of mastery am I now? Perhaps none of you reading this can understand why reflecting on the talent displayed here gives me such joy. But I’m willing to bet I’m not alone. Anyone who has spent any length of time working on a long-form piece of writing knows what it is to interweave strands, and if very fortunate, has experienced the elation of making multiple storylines fall together into something resembling coherence. Whether conversations like those I’ve invented above happen with a team or in your own head, aren’t they a critical aspect of writing successfully?
Hats off to you, TheMarvelous Mrs Maisel writers. Thank you for your work. Here, in a small corner of the planet, you have schooled a student, while also continuing to bring joy to so many of us.
Well. Here we are. Gently tiptoeing into 2023. Or, perhaps, you have never gently tiptoed anywhere and are striding forward with confidence. Whichever way, hello, we are here and the year will unfold as it will.
I am back at my desk today after an extended summer break. It’s lovely to be here again with the teapot my mum gifted me, the Totoro mug bought on a family trip to Japan, the piles of notebooks filled with scribbled thoughts. And looking out onto our familiar street, a flowering frangipani and the roses.
I’m struggling to settle though. I wonder if you are? It’s not that I have nothing to work on but rather that I am looking for a way in. I want to revisit my WIP that has returned to my inbox. For the first time with any manuscript, I resorted to sending it to two trusted readers knowing some major things were not yet quite right. It’s a big story with big themes and I want to do the best job I can. I’m still learning to drill down. I’m impatient to be better. And, at the same time, I know that perfection exists only in moments of experience, so how about cutting myself some slack?!
At least, I have started the year with two non-fiction reads that are helping me do just that!
In December, I spent some time in the art galleries and museums of our national capital and came across a little book in one of the gallery shops called WABI SABI:Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life. The author, Beth Kempton, writes wisely about how beauty lies in imperfection, impermanence and incompletion. It’s a wonderful read for anyone who wonders about this. Also, in my ongoing quest to understand why humans behave the way we do, I’m finally working my way through Bessel van der Kolk’s seminal work The Body Keeps the Score. It is an excellent reminder of both the limits and power of our own abilities. And, at times, hurts my heart as I feel for my veteran father surviving with PTSD at a time when such a diagnosis did not yet exist. And for my mother and we kids who survived it too.
As for fiction, I have already devoured Jane Harper’s latest, Exiles, and adored it. A new favourite along with The Lost Man which, for some reason, I prefer to The Dry. My husband and I also did a deep dive into D.H. Lawrence after inspiration from the new movie. LOL that sounds a little blinkety blink where are you going here, Annie?! But it was merely that we found the novel form of Lady Chatterley’s Lover at a home we stayed in recently and were intrigued by the layers to be found in it that were not conveyed in the film. Lawrence’s acerbic observations of class and gender had us snorting on the couch. And disagreeing with much from our enlightened 100-years-later viewpoint – but fascinated and reading up on what is known of Lawrence.
All in all, a thoughtful start to the new year and one that I hope will bring new depth and bravery to my writing. I continue to practise yoga daily with gratitude that I find this possible and an understanding that I may yet falter before it becomes a lifelong habit! Kindness to myself, you see! I am grateful also to you for being here to read these brief ponderings, for being a willing and forgiving audience as I warm up for the big writing tasks ahead!
I will gather myself now and be brave! And I send you all bravery as you tackle your tasks for the year. May 2023 bring much happiness and bring the world to a more peaceful place.
The warm weather has returned to my part of the world and everything, including me, is unfurling and stretching with anticipation. Aphids are greedily swarming the new growth on my roses and I put aside my zen aspirations to squish and flick their green brown bodies every time I’m in the garden. It is too early in the season for many natural predators so I must be one, the gardener who places more importance on rose blooms reaching their full potential than aphids! (I have daily evidence that the aphid population is in no danger as a result of my interference and, thus, I can live with my actions 🙃)
Some of you may know that Treehearts got no further than the longlist for the Hungerford. Perhaps, when I heard, there was a frisson of disappointment that the fun of the process had come to an end, but, as explained previously, the joy of making the longlist has far, FAR, outweighed any other emotion. I’m looking forward to attending the awards night where 17 new Fremantle Press books will be launched, and the well-deserved winner announced. My calendar these days is crammed with literary events; book launches, author talks, writing workshops, time with my writing group and, of course, my own writing time. I pay for some of it, am paid for none of it, but – at the risk of getting really ‘out there’ on you – my soul is more nourished than it has ever been.
I am back at my desk this month, after a lovely September filled with family and friends and a little travel. In between, I have squeezed in some words, but I am well out of routine. Today is a list day. I plan to consider the six projects I have that are in various stages of ‘on the go’ and to make some decisions about how to move forward. Most are fully drafted, one needs some final chapters and a bit of revamping, another is half-finished. The most recent needs one more thread to pull it into the book I want it to be. I’m quite fond of a list! Recently, I’ve become a fan of handwriting important decisions; something about the movement of the pen, the pressing into the paper, helps me untangle things.
If you are writing or if your creativity takes another form, I hope all is going swimmingly in, at the very least, that part of your world. Do you handwrite lists or are you a spreadsheeter?! Did I just coin a new word?! My husband is most definitely one. He has created A POWERPOINT DECK about our plan to build a new house and organic garden in the south-west of our state! I exploded with joy when I saw it. We are so very different, but, somehow, most weeks haha, it works rather well!
Sending sunshine and bees and the promise of aphid-free roses to you all x
Well, it has been a beautiful three days of not quite believing my luck! In case I’m not in touch with you via social media, the luck is: my manuscript Treehearts being longlisted for the 2022 City of Fremantle Hungerford Award run by Fremantle Press. I know! I was surprised too.
I’ve come here to write about three aspects of this and, hey, I’ll try to be concise – but you may want to get that cup of tea first. 😉
Firstly, you know how people say they have no expectation of winning and the acknowledgement is enough? And, maybe, you’ve always thought yeah yeah but… Well, if, like me, the last prize you were in the running for was inside a Pass the Parcel, hold onto your hats. It’s really true! I am so freaking humbled to have got this far. I mean, I adore my little story about saving the banksia woodlands and trying not to fall in love, but there are so many people writing amazing manuscripts. As I said, humbled. And extremely grateful to the judges and Fremantle Press to have considered it worthy of longlisting. Thank you again.
Secondly, let me tell you about Monday. I was having a rough morning. Somehow, this year, I was in a place to submit three different (2xYA, 1xsocial fiction), many times drafted manuscripts into three different competitions. The reasons for this were not all happy. The grief I started dealing with in 2020 took its toll and stopped me submitting as much as I might have otherwise. But, it meant that this year, I had a few stories ready to go. Early Monday, I heard that the adult social fiction/women’s fiction MS that is my WIP hadn’t made it onto a longlist. This hit me in a way previous rejections had not. Of course, I could tell myself the disappointment would pass, remind myself about the luck factor, all the things we do. But my belief in that novel meant it REALLY hurt. Was my judgement about what worked actually very flawed? Had everyone just being saying kind things all this time? All the doubts hit me at once. Hard. I had to step away from social media and my phone, peruse the kitchen cupboards, step into the garden, think about what I was doing with my life, brush away tears, let a few leak quietly down. You know the drill. Some time later, I heard my phone ringing and braced myself. I have other things going on in my life; I needed to be contactable.
“Why…don’t you…sound…excited..?” My clever author friend Karen Herbert asked, her voice growing more hesitant with each word. We established that I didn’t know why I should. You see, I didn’t know any other longlist was out. I hadn’t even heard an email ping in. Upside? I heard the news first from a friend. Nice, right? Somewhat amusingly, I was starting from such a subdued base that I barely reacted at first. We talked for a good few minutes about other things before it began to sink in! And I haven’t come down out of the clouds yet.
So, when I say to others who write that I understand how it feels if your number hasn’t come up thus far, I really do. I’ve had ups and down in this business before. Yesterday was just the most dramatic rollercoaster to date! Even in the morning, in the midst of the tears, it occurred to me to be proud of myself for putting work out there, for putting myself in a place where I could experience big emotions even if that emotion was intense disappointment. I wasn’t going to die not having tried. And eventually I would have got up and tried again.
Lastly, please allow me my Oscars moment LOL! Actually, it’s just that I have a heap of thank yous that I want to say now in case I don’t get another chance! I keep reflecting on how this manuscript, like so many, is not mine alone and how it took me half a lifetime to understand that it was not only okay, but better, to ask for help. Firstly to the Australian Society of Authors who awarded me a Highly Commended in their 2020 Mentorship Program right when I needed some outside acknowledgement; thank you SO much. Not only was it the first big tick from people (professionals at that!) who didn’t know me from a bar of soap, it introduced me to my incredible mentor Kristina Schulz. Kristina gets my work on a level that means everything she feeds back pushes me to do better. To be better. Who doesn’t dream of that kind of mentor?! My current place in the FAWWA Four Centres Emerging Writers Program allowed me to continue my work with Kristina as well as offering up numerous brilliant workshops I could attend. (Apply to these mentorship programs, unpublished writer friends!) Also, gave me another chance to meet more lovely people. Speaking of which, my writing group is sensational. Karen, Nic, Liz, Marlish, Susan, Ali, David, Fi – you couldn’t meet a more supportive bunch of people.
Brilliant journalist and writer Emma Young very kindly spoke with me about issues around the remnant bushland in our Perth suburbs. The incredibly knowledgeable anthropologist Dr Barb Dobson answered my emails generously. Twitter buddies: you know who you are and some days you’re the only ones around! Don’t tell me the writing community on Twitter is over; I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. Thank you! And those of you who support us creative people by reading these ‘blurts’, you perhaps know not how much your kind likes/loves and comments mean. This can be a lonely journey and I am so grateful for every one of you.
Old friends who’ve never once queried me chucking in paid work to sit at a desk and bleed onto pages – thank you! My sister-in-law Marie and brother Roddy so kindly employed their PhDs checking this story for zoological and botanical inaccuracies; my other brother Martin and his wife Tracy are helping me with a different book! Thank you. To my husband’s family, especially Brigid and Poppy, Jan and Tony, thanks for always having my back. Some people have been particularly patient and encouraging: my beta-readers (Alyssa, Fleur, Fi, Danielle, Sofia, Savannah xxx) and ohhhh my family (Andrew, Harriet, Fionn – you are THE BEST) Lastly, and as always with these things, in no way least, I am so lucky that Drisana Levitzke-Gray agreed to be my Auslan Consultant for the love interest story in Treehearts. I could not have had confidence in this story without her.
The Oscars music closed me out long ago – thank you for staying the course! May you get a chance to be with trees today.
Hello, all you lovely people. I hope today is a good day where you are and that you get a chance to stop and smell the roses. One of the upsides of my current writing spot is that I get to watch passersby literally doing that. I want to tell each of them how much I love that they stopped to appreciate a Just Joey or a Mr Lincoln, but that would be creepy and annoying so I restrain myself. Fortunately, there is also a window between me and them, so I have help in the form of a physical barrier.
Anyway. Thank you so much to those of you who have asked for an update on THE WRITING! (Also to those of you who did not lest I fall into a pit of despair and proclaim that it was all too hard! It is hard, but that’s okay and expected.) It’s been a while since I blogged because, frankly, I’m not sure how interesting I could have made numerous posts about waiting. Huh. How interesting that only one letter in that word is different from ‘writing’.
I did promise I’d share the up and downs, so I should have filled you in on my grumpy, what-the-hell-am-I-doing-with-my-life days – which there have been some of and it would be dishonest to tell you otherwise. But, generally, I continue writing furiously and with great joy and am learning to live with the realities of the creative world.
I am lucky enough to be working on three projects at the moment. Two of my Young Adult manuscripts and a new adult contemporary fiction novel. Squee, I’m really enjoying writing in an adult voice again! (Haha the ‘squee’ is so very adult!) I am 50 000 words into the first draft and it is a ride! There’s a lot of autobiographical aspects to the story. The protagonist is a teacher turned writer. She is dealing with a heap of loss at once and is in a long marriage to a good man. However, the story is set around a twenty-five year school reunion on the NSW Coal Coast, there’s a dead body involved, an old mystery and an ex-student with a crush. I hope one day you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I am enjoying writing it. Of course, there’s been tears too, as comes with writing about grief, but that is life, is it not?
In the meantime, I also continue to put some final touches to my YA manuscripts Treehearts and Paddling. The former is my story about a 17 yo trying to save the remnant banksia woodland next to her family’s dog shelter while trying not to fall in love with a Deaf boy who doesn’t date hearing girls. It covers a lot of themes very close to my heart: how we learn to communicate when we don’t share a common language; how we can’t fix everything but we can impact our immediate surrounds; how sometimes, when it matters, we can be braver than we thought we were.
I have chosen to employ a sensitivity reader for Treehearts, to be sure I portray the deaf/Deaf elements of the story as accurately as I possibly can. The feedback is beginning to come in and so far I haven’t made any major blunders so phew! Also, my reader is ‘loving’ it. Woohoo! I don’t want to name her until she has formally okayed associating with the book, but it has been lovely getting to know X through our email exchanges. (She is a West Australian living overseas.)
I’m also continuing to work with the amazing Kristina Schulz through my mentorship via the FAWWA Four Centres Emerging Writers Program. She is the perfect foil for my inevitable insecurities, so kind and complimentary about my writing. With her I am tweaking Paddling, the first YA I wrote about feisty, ambitious Year Twelve Ellie Bennett. Ellie is horrified when the smartest boy in the school thinks she’s romantically interested in him instead of just trying to improve her chemistry grade. And yes, there is a reason her name is Ellie Bennett, if perhaps not the reason you might expect!
On a more philosophical note, writing these stories and others has helped me finally understand all that stuff about life being best lived in moments. It’s taken me a while to get here, but maybe, at last, I am making a reasonable fist of it. I am as active and concerned about the world as always. However, I am better at focusing my energies and that, in turn, gets the books written! Most days!
In other news, another lovely writer, Karen Hollands, recently asked me to respond to some questions for her blog. She is interviewing writers who have been at it for a while, had some success but are not yet published. The questions were quite wide-ranging, so I will link to that post when it comes out for those who are interested. Meanwhile you can see her interviews with Lisa Kenway and Tina Cartwright here.
I will finish today by wishing you all access to books any time you want them. Happy reading everyone…and writing if that’s your thing. But, most of all, happy living. Many are going through difficult times and I sincerely hope your obstacles today – or in this moment of today – are well and truly manageable. x
I just spoke to Karen Herbert, who suggested I was more excited than her about the release of her first book! Perhaps, perhaps! It’s not every day that you get to celebrate the launch of a novel that you have watched grow from an early draft to publication.
Karen, like me, is a graduate of Marlish Glorie’s excellent writing class at Fremantle Arts Centre. When we met, Karen was well into her first draft of Castaways – out next year with Fremantle Press. In one of those publishing twists, The River Mouth is Karen’s second completed manuscript, but her first to arrive in book form. It’s a cracker of a study of small towns and the stories within them. Essentially, it’s a rural crime novel about a woman torn between protecting a secret and finding the truth about her son’s murder. Read more about the plot of The River Mouth and find Fremantle Press book club notes here.
Last week, Karen and I sat on a bench in beautiful Jualbup Park and talked about the process of creating The River Mouth.
Annie:Karen, congratulations on the impending publication of ‘The River Mouth’!As a woman who’s had a busy life doing other things until fairly recently, can you tell me about sitting down to write your first novel and what brought you to that moment?
Karen: So, I came to writing really late, although not as late as some people I understand now! I was working in aged care; I was in an executive position. I was loving it, loved my job so much, worked with some wonderful people, some wonderful clients, and it was made redundant. (laughs) I was gutted, just gutted.
Annie:I can imagine
Karen: You know I was gutted. I met you around that time!
Annie:Mmm, it throws you for a six right, when you’re just going along this path and then…
Karen: Ohhh, I went home and drank a couple of glasses of wine and, um, pulled my boots on the next morning and sat down and started to write.
Annie:I just can’t believe it was the next morning!
Karen: Yeah, it was. It was the next morning! I just went oh f@#k it, I want to do something! So, I started to write, and I wrote every morning after my husband went to work and when he came home, I was still there, laughs writing. I shut my computer down, made dinner, we did our evening routine. I did that 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, for three months, and I had the final draft…hah! The final draft?! The firstdraft of Castaways written. And I hadn’t managed to get a job by that point, so I started The River Mouth! Laughs And both of those were subsequently accepted for publication. I think Castaways was accepted nine months after I was made redundant, which was just, it seemed like forever, but I knew nothing about the publishing industry then and now I understand that it was actually very fast!
Annie:Right?
Karen: So, I do count myself very fortunate.
Annie:And were there things previously in your life…like did you say to yourself, in my fifties, I’m going to write a book…
Karen: Laughs hard No! I mean, writing was something I was good at. At school, that was my thing. I was cleaning out stuff the other day and I came across all these merit certificates with little red dolphins on them from when I was seven. ‘To Karen, for writing a beautiful poem.’ Laughs. Or ‘an interesting story’. It was there but, I don’t know, in the 70s, in the 80s, when you’re a girl in Geraldton, maybe it’s the same for you too, who becomes a writer? What is a writer? What does a writer do? How do you live as a writer? It’s not something I could dream of. I didn’t know anything about that. Only people who were exceptional got to be writers, I thought. It just didn’t occur to me as something I could do.
Annie:Mmm, interesting. My dad was a book critic as one part of his job as a journalist, so I think to me it was almost like, how dare I aspire to that?
Karen: Yeah, you know, you’d be a bit full of yourself, wouldn’t you? Both laugh
Annie:It was like that, wasn’t it? You were good at it, but it just didn’t occur to you to make it into a career.
Karen: Yeah, yeah. There is something else in that, too, I think. When we have stuff that we are naturally good at, I believe that we tend not to value it. We only value stuff that we had to acquire.
Annie:Mmm, yeah, isn’t that interesting?!
Karen: There’s actually a feminist slant on that as well. A lot of women skills are naturally acquired skills; nurturing, coaching, organising, developing people. They’re the things that, traditionally, women are good at. And they’re the things that are really important in the workplace as well, but we don’t value them as much as being able to manage finances, which is a learned skill. Which typically men learn, so there’s an interesting Venn diagram in there.
Annie:Mmm, I can totally relate. And maybe, also as girls of the 80s, we felt like we had to, in order to beemployable, we had to do something that men did.
Karen: Absolutely. We had to learn an acquired profession.
Annie: Mm, okay moving on!It’s clear from the novel that you are someone who reflects on the social ills and strengths of communities. Did you consciously set out to address as many issues as you could in this book, or did it just come about as you explored the characters and story? (Both laugh)
Karen: Yeah, my publishers’ marketing manager said, “There’s almost too much in this, isn’t there?!”
Annie:She meant that in the best way, I reckon!
Karen: I hope so! No, I didn’t. What I tried to do…after I’d written that chapter with the boys on the rope swing and started to wonder what had happened to them…it occurred to me that, whatever it was, it was very deeply rooted in the community. And I wanted to hold up a mirror to the community without whitewashing it or glossing over stuff. For me that meant including people in the community that I’ve had a lot to do with in my life; older people, homeless people, people with disabilities. The more I started to write the story…and be unflinching about what that looks like… and talked about it to other people, the more I started to understand just how much those people are invisible in the community, and invisible in literature, and I think that probably made me more determined to have invisible people quite clearly portrayed in the story and as part of the storyline – not as just a background Greek chorus.
Annie:Mmm, so, I’ve got two questions coming out of that. Firstly, was the rope swing scene the first scene you wrote of The River Mouth?
Karen: Yes. I wrote about stuff I’d seen a kid and the setting was how I remembered it when my sisters and I used to roam, down on the Chapman River. And, you know, we weren’t allowed to be there! We were expressly told! We were unseen, unsupervised and there was an element of danger. There were submerged rocks. There were hairy caterpillars. There were odd people lurking around. But, it’s in those environments, on the edges of things, that kids learn. They get to test out their relationships, push their boundaries…
Annie:Mmm, and stories happen!
Karen: And stories happen, don’t they?
Annie:Mmm. You also said, as I learnt to address this unflinchingly. Can you talk a little more about that?
Karen: Yeah. So, there are scenes in the book…I wrote them and I sat back and thought, am I allowed to say that? Is that ok? Is that going to upset people? And some of it’s not particularly politically correct either, some of the things the characters say. I’m quite aware that authors do get torn apart for allowing their characters to say things that aren’t politically correct and then have those views ascribed to them as authors. Sometimes, people don’t seem to be able to distinguish between the views of the author and views of the character. And I thought no I won’t resile from that. Because that’s what people do say and maybe I can be careful about the way that I write it, so it’s clear that I’m not endorsing things that are problematic. But, people do say those things. The example I’m thinking of is where Sandra, the mother of the boy who dies, and Stuart, the husband of the woman who dies, they’re sitting on the riverbank and they come across each other in the dark and there’s a little bit of frisson of fear and tension and danger there. They start talking about Stuart’s wife Barbara, who is Sandra’s best friend. They start trying to make sense of her death and why she was where she was. They’re trying to comfort themselves and they do it in a way that perhaps puts a little bit of self-serving spin on it.
Annie:Self-serving themselves?
Karen: Yes, Stuart in particular, and second-guessing things that may or may not be true about particular types of people in society. I came back to that over and over again and reread it and reread it. And I thought, well that’s what we do, when we’re grappling with issues we don’t really understand and we’re trying to make sense of them. We do say things that might be a bit clumsy or not quite right and that’s okay. I want that to be okay because that’s the pathway we have to walk to come to a more accurate understanding.
Annie:Mmm, I get it. So, similarly, did you think much about the accepted realities of crime fiction when you were writing or did the story take over? And that question came out of the fact that it’s so great that the book doesn’t just revolve around the death of a woman at the hands of a sexual predator or similar.
Karen: Oh yeah. I wasn’t going to write a crime novel that centred around the death of a beautiful young woman in gory, sexualised circumstances. It wasn’t necessary. Death is…untimely death is awful enough without having to put in details or to sexualise it or to continue the trope of here we go with another young woman dying and a grizzled, disaffected male detective is investigating it. Those books are great! I read lots of them myself, but I just didn’t need to write that. But there are other tropes in crime fiction that, as I wrote this book, I realised I did need to follow. And one was the bringing together of all the narrative threads at the end. One of the big things that happened when I was editing was I removed two whole chapters after discussing them with my editor. She explained to me that at this point your reader is expecting this to all start narrowing down to a conclusion and what you’ve done with these chapters, Karen, is take them on a new route and widened it out. And I didn’t realise I’d done that, and I was annoyed because I didn’t want to get rid of those chapters! I liked them! But she was right. That is what readers expect in a crime novel. And if I’m going to call it a crime novel and people are going to pick it up off the shelves and hand over their money thinking they’re getting a crime novel, I need to deliver on that. And maybe when I get a bit more experienced, I can play with that a bit more, in a way that’s a bit more finessed. Maybe.
Annie:That would be fun! So, I’m curious if there is one character in The River Mouth that you came to know better than you’d expected?
Karen: That’s hard. (Thinks) Colin. I’ve been wondering about Colin ever since I wrote the book. Because I started to hear conversations, after I’d written the book, about Own Voices. And started to think about just how much can you write if you haven’t walked in a character’s shoes? And obviously I’ve never been a teenage boy. And it’s quite a while since I was a teenage girl. Laughs.
Annie: Yes, there is so much to discuss around the subtleties of Own Voices, but we’ll be here all day, so we better keep moving! I know from reading an earlier draft that Sandra and Greg’s relationship was explored slightly differently in the final version. Could you talk a little about that process?
Karen: Sure! With Sandra and Greg, as I wrote the book, I didn’t know where Sandra’s relationship with Greg was going to end up. I didn’t know it for a really long time. I knew how she was feeling about Greg and I knew she wasn’t very open with herself about how she was feeling about Greg, but I think I was still, in Chapter 40 or 38, I was still not really sure. I don’t think it was until the denouement, where she’s saying what’s going to happen from here on, that I really knew where she was going to go with that. I followed her, almost.
Annie:So you knew the end of your crime story, whodunnit that is, but there was still a part of it, quite an important part of it, that was a mystery to you. Which, would kind of satisfy both plotters and pantsers! A lot of pantsers would say, why would you want to write a story when you already know what’s going to happen at the end? (Both laugh.) While, of course, plotters are like, what are you talking about?! (More laughter.)
Karen: It’s the driving to Geraldton analogy. I know I’m starting in Perth, I know I’m going to finish in Geraldton. I don’t know what time the westerly is going to start blowing, I don’t know what the traffic conditions are going to be like. I haven’t quite decided whether I’ll take the coast road or the inland road. I know I’ll stop and get a Chiko Roll at some point!
Annie:Haha, you are an 80s girl! Both laugh
Karen: But aside from that, the rest of it’s a bit of a mystery. I don’t know if I’m going to get stuck behind a road train or a procession of grey nomads heading to Exmouth.
Annie:It’s a great analogy. To continue with the Greg aspect, I was lucky enough to read an earlier version and I was a little confused with him. I think for writers it would be really interesting if you could elaborate a little bit on the process you went through to clarify that
Karen: OK, so I’ve done this with quite a few storylines. So, you know you get, as a writer, you get deep down in the detail and are tapping away and then you go back and you start reading through stuff and there’s stuff you forget and you think oh that was really good or what was happening here? So what I do to keep track of that is have a spreadsheet. I have the numbers of the chapters down one side and I have the names of the storylines across the top, so I get all these little boxes. In each box I put the main things that are happening, so then I can read across a chapter and all these things all happened in this chapter. Or I might find a chapter that actually doesn’t do anything and it could be beautiful writing and I might love it, but it just needs to go because it doesn’t need to be there.
So, I did find a few holes with Greg in the book. When I was editing with Georgia at Fremantle Press she said Now, look, it’s really great what happens with Greg, but I don’t understand why! She started laying out Greg’s circumstances and going so given all of that what is his motivation for doing this thing? and I was sitting there on the phone ’cause we’re in the middle of Covid thinking oh you stupid woman it’s this of course and then I spend the next 10 minutes explaining why Greg did all these things and she listens, bless her, and sort of pauses and then she says that’s great I totally get it now – let’s put that in the book shall we?(Both laugh)
Annie:Thanks for sharing that! I just think your success story is so amazing that I think it is helpful for us other writers out there to know that even Karen doesn’t quite get it right first pop! (Laughter) Sometimes little bits and pieces of characters, at least!So, that gets us to the “How are you feeling?” question! Now that the book comes out so soon!
Karen: It’s like riding a wave. It’s just a beautiful feeling but, like riding a wave, it’s also a bit terrifying too because you don’t know when it’s gonna closeout and there’s rocks over there and you’re heading towards them and you don’t know how to turn the surfboard yet!
Annie: A Geraldton girl with a surfing analogy! Excellent. Because you do surf, right?
Karen: Yep and I don’t know how to turn yet! Laughing Every part of the journey has been lovely. I loved drafting the first draft. It was such an adventure. Then, working on the second and third drafts, you’re deep in your head, and you’re problem solving, and you’re pulling stuff apart and discovering, and that’s lovely too. Editing takes you to the whole next level and now, I’m in that bit where I’m learning how to talk about the book! That’s a bit daunting, but Josephine Taylor, who wrote Eye of a Rook, said to me every interview you do, every article you write about your book, you learn more about what you wrote and how you wrote it. You discover things and you become better at understanding. I’ve only done a few interviews so far, but I can really see what she means.
Annie:That’s, actually, really nice to hear! It comes a little bit back to what you said about how we don’t always value what we know, and when you go into writing a book, you bring so much with you that you forget that it’s not everyone else’s reality as well, right? And you have to learn to talk about that!
Karen: Yeah. pause So, I’m feeling good. Nervous but good.
Annie:Okay, two quick questions to go! First, what has been the most eye-opening part of this whole journey for you?
Karen: The writing community. It is amazing! Who knew that there were all these people out there in the community, working away at novels and poems and short stories and writing amazing stuff, and they’re just so damn nice!
Annie:Yes! So true! Okay, lastly…what would you say to people who think it’s too late to start writing?
Karen: I know it sounds all very amazing that I’ve managed to do this in such a short space of time, but the reality is: I’m financially secure. I’ve got a husband who works, our children are grown up, I’m not cooking dinner every night or running kids to sport and school and stuff. I’ve got time to write and I have a part time job now, so I’m doing my bit for the household. I couldn’t have done this when I was working full-time and raising kids. And I’m not sure that I had anything to say! I say to people if you’re out there writing and you just can’t find the time or you’re looking at what you write and just going oh for goodness sake, don’t give up your day job. Life is long and there’s lots of time to do stuff. Put the manuscript in your bottom drawer and go and eat ice cream with the kids. Just wait until it’s time.
So, that’s it! The River Mouth by Karen Herbert is out today from Fremantle Press. If you’re in lockdown or otherwise find it difficult to get out, you can buy it straight from the publisher: https://www.fremantlepress.com.au/products/the-river-mouth
It’s cycled around to the first day of the month again and I am still in this wonderful space where I’m waiting to hear back from publishers. It’s as if I am poised, teetering, on the edge of so much possibility and it’s not such a bad place to be. It’s statistically likely that I will need to pick myself up from disappointment, but that knowledge still loiters around the corner, so for now let’s bounce onward – by going backward! Back to our younger selves.
I’ve been listening to a lot of online wisdom lately. Many festivals and workshops have gone digital for the obvious (hint Covid..well that 19 is misleading, huh?) reasons, and I’ve been able to listen to talks given in NSW in the morning and Queensland in the afternoon, all without leaving my home in WA. It’s a silver lining to what is a tough time for many. These talks, and several social media chats I’ve had recently, have reminded me what a shortcut to friendship-land it can be when you find someone who liked the same books as you as a child.
If you’re a parent, perhaps, like me, you’ve been befuddled by the reading habits of your children. My daughter often has multiple books on the go at once, a concept that nearly makes me break out in hives. Is it her early exposure to modern tech that allows her to keep several storylines running in her head at once? Or is that something other people in older generations could do too – just not me? Meanwhile, my son prefers to read the same books over and over. This worried me for a while, until I thought about how many times I read my favourite series when I was younger. Those of you who know me well, or knew me way back when, will immediately know I’m referring to that series so many of us bookish types found comfort in: Anne of Green Gables.
My mother worked in the library at my primary school, and I can still remember the sage green, hard-backed copy of Anne that I first discovered there. It had black and white photos in it of a movie version that I have never seen. I’ve never seen that edition since. I loved that book. I read it and the entire series over and over again. I caused my moustachioed Grade Four teacher some concern when he found me weeping in class over Matthew’s death…which taught me not to read books under the desk…and I still remember that Anne’s son (Walter)’s dog howled when he died, away at the front. Luckily, I was at home for that one. But, most of all, I remember that Anne loved words and names and making happiness out of sadness. Something little me liked too. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Gilbert was in there as well. The kind of hero I could respect. He liked smart, loud Anne , something that girls of my generation, and perhaps my particular persuasion, needed to hear.
There were other books too, many of them, but none ever took the place of the Anne series in my heart. I haven’t read them for ages, I think because I almost know them too well and there are no surprises left. But they have left an imprint on my soul, so much so that when another claims a similar love, my warm feeling of Hello! A kindred spirit! has to fight with an instinctual bristling of What? No! Excuse me, I’m sure you didn’t love Anne like I loved Anne!Oh, you did?!
And, of course, that is the thing about books. They belong to no one, not even the author really. They arrive to patch us up or fill us up or inspire us. And at the same time, they may be patching up or filling up millions of other people. It’s humbling and delightful.
If you have time and inclination, tell me about the books that made you.
My goodness, it is August. Yesterday, I was too busy processing a rather exciting Saturday to post this month’s update! More about that in a minute, as first I must tell you about my time at the bottom of the emotional roller coaster, or this blog would not be the fair exposition of the writing/publishing process that I had promised you all.
There are many wonderful writing prizes that are presented annually or biennially here in Australia. In a good year, there are four that accept unpublished Young Adult novel length manuscripts from someone of my age. (I say that not because middle-aged YA writers are rare, but because one of the prizes is for writers under 35. Sadly, that is no longer me, although hopefully I make up in wisdom what I lack in youthful exuberance these days. Otherwise, I feel short-changed! However, back to the point.) This year only one of those prizes was run and while I entered it hopefully, I knew I would be up against many other excellent manuscripts.
Sure enough, I missed out on the shortlist, which was the height of my aspirations, and I was disappointed. More disappointed than last year, when I’d felt in my bones that the MS I’d entered wasn’t quite up to scratch yet. I had a bit of a pout this time and allowed myself a few days to feel like a very average – possibly less than average – writer. Feeling your feelings is important, people tell me! It sucked. But it sucked less than it would have when I was under 35. Because I don’t think I was ready then for ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’ that are the reality of the publishing world. Some people are. I was not.
At the grand age I am now, throughout my sulk, I knew the feelings would pass, that at some point my writer self would stand up again and say, um hello, i ‘m still here and i’m not going away and you need to get back out there. Knowing this helped immeasurably. The following week, I was getting back on the horse, eating less chocolate and drinking less wine – LOL not LOL! – when a dear little email popped into my inbox. It was from an agent requesting ‘a full’ of my first YA – which means she had read the ten pages and the synopsis I’d sent her and liked it enough to be interested in reading more. Well. Prize shortlist? What prize shortlist?! (Though seriously it was a great shortlist with amazing writers on it and you can find it and the deserving winner here!) I am just so heartened that, whatever happens, this particularly wonderful agent wanted to read more of it! 🙂
Then, this Saturday just gone, I attended the Kidlitvic online conference and had a double request for manuscript from the two publishers I pitched to! Well, knock me down and pick me back up again! Here we are at the next upswing of the Luna Park roller coaster, looking out across Port Phillip Bay and St Kilda, wind rushing through our hair! (Actually never in real life…. literal rollercoasters make me pass out ….shhhh, keep that to yourself. Oh and also, I don’t live in Melbourne anymore, but let’s not get bogged down in details!)
So, that’s where we are now. There’s still an awful lot of waiting going on with a few spikes of intense activity at times! I’m working on my next story, which is taking a little longer than usual, possibly because I’m writing from the viewpoint of a 17 year old boy, someone I have never been, not even in the distant past. And the story has a sad beginning, which takes time to do well enough.
It’s been three years since I sat down and started writing seriously. My first manuscript – a contemporary adult novel – is still in its drawer for now. The next two are out trying their luck in the big world. They have to be marketable as well as decently written. I have little control over the former, but I can keep working on the latter and hope for the best of luck!
To all my fellow writers seeking publication, may the words and luck be flowing. To those of you reading because you are an important person in my life, hello and may it be a good day in your world. And to you all, thank you and blessings.
Annie Wilson 