writing – Annie Wilson

Hungerford Longlisting 2024

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 🙂

Not really about writing except also isn’t everything?

Hello dear ones

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,

Annie

Musings on Mrs Maisel from the writing viewpoint

*no big spoilers

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 The Marvelous 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, The Marvelous 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.

Happy New Year

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.

Aphid Days

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

Smelling the roses

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

What I’ve learnt about writing novels – so far

Words: I like them a lot, but that’s cheating because I actually knew that before. I now know I need about 80 000 of them to claim I have a novel-length manuscript. This can change between genres; fantasy is longer, Middle Grade fiction (for 8-12 year olds) shorter.

First Drafts: Best thought of as ‘word vomit*’ or you telling the story to yourself. It is a starting point and you just need to get it done. Do what it takes. Bribes can work. Make yourself sit at the computer when it’s not coming easily. About 35 000 words into my last manuscript, I ran out of steam even though I knew where the story was going and wanted to write it. I gave myself a couple of days off, but it didn’t recharge me. So, I simply had to make myself write for however long it took to get 2000 words done, every day. I wrote whatever came into my head, just to keep going. It looked awful on the page and I had to keep dragging those sentences out of myself for about two weeks. Like, seriously, dragging. I can honestly say it was the hardest work I’ve done while sitting in a chair. But it worked. At around the 50 000 mark, the words began to come easily again and the very end was written joyfully in a sweet 6000 word flourish. Best of all, when I reread it, the words I’d despaired over were better than I’d believed at the time. Go figure. Wading on through seems to work.

Other Drafts: Necessary. Mostly very enjoyable. But naming them is misleading. Some sections get rewritten 4352 times. Other parts, maybe once or twice. Like everything to do with writing, it’s not simple to explain. Apart from the seat of the pants thing, there’s no arguing with that.

Other Writers: Such a good bunch. Find some. Make them your friends. Have regular meetings (if you want to write yourself that is – otherwise that would be kind of weird 😉 ) Read their manuscripts when they ask, ask them to read yours. The technical term for this is beta reading. (The first MS I ever beta read was top notch and the author, Karen Whittle-Herbert, will have her first book, a crime novel called The River Mouth, published in September. Buy it. She’s a star on the rise.) Also, the writing community on Twitter is supportive and friendly. I believe some of the action is moving to Instagram now, but this may only be a rumour. I’ve learnt a lot from links and news shared on the bird platform. #AusWrites is a good place to get started if you’re Australian.

Finished Manuscripts: 1) A misnomer. Very hard to ever definitively say, “That’s it, I’m done.” I’ve heard authors say they never read their published book because they know they will want to change parts. But, at some point, one must send it out to the wide world. 2) Satisfying. Celebrate the moment. Whatever happens from here, I have finished three books. Yay, me. 3) Must be formatted properly before being sent off to agents/publishers. REMEMBER to do this. Who knew a title page was necessary and that chapters are best started twelve lines down the page? Everyone except me, maybe?! I think I’ve got it sorted now 🙂

Final Thoughts: I always imagined satisfaction from writing would only come with getting published. I can honestly say, I no longer feel this way. Having a serious writing habit has enriched my life more than I can properly explain. All you book people, readers and writers, are MY people. Wrestling with language in the written form and talking/reading about it is my happy place. I still plan to continue sending agents and publishers my work until someone ~~cracks~~/ ~~sees it for the brilliantly insightful work it is~~/wants to print it. However, meanwhile, I’m having an excellent time. (Except maybe when I was writing the middle bit of that book just finished, but let’s not get bogged down in details…)

All this is to say, if you’re living with that feeling that you’ve got a book or three in you, get to it. I can pretty much guarantee you’ll learn an awful lot about things you didn’t know that you didn’t know, and, if you play right, meet some great people. Also, I’m available to beta read if you get in quick 🙂

*I don’t know who came up with this brilliant way of describing a first draft. If you do, perhaps you could let me know?

P.S. I promised to share the roller coaster. I don’t think I got an ASA mentorship this time around and I haven’t yet heard anything back from the publisher or agent who asked to read my first Young Adult novel. It’s to be expected. I am alternating between sulking mildly and pulling up my big girl pants. I have another pitching opportunity next week and more publishers to try. I’m learning Auslan (loving it) because of a Deaf character I’m writing. I’m thinking of pulling the first manuscript I wrote out of a drawer and revamping it. Either that or continuing on with my half-complete third Young Adult story. The first draft of my second YA novel ( the one I’ve just finished) needs to percolate for a bit before I can read it with a clear mind.

Are you writing?