Copyright and greed

Let me say first off that I am not a copyright lawyer and don't fully understand all the complexities of copyright law. Working from time to time as a freelance editor, I've come up against copyright issues and have spent some time, therefore, perusing the Copyright Council's wonderful website and reading their free fact sheets, and have once or twice spoken to their lawyers about some of the trickier aspects.

As a writer, I'm a great believer in copyright and the protection it gives me. I think if someone borrows something from someone else, they should get permission and perhaps pay for the privilege. As an editor, I have sometimes sent writers scurrying off for permission, or advised them to remove something that I think is an infringement. They are often astounded that I could think it so -- but it's only two lines of a poem. Yeah, I know, but it's not about quantity: it's about quality. About how much craft went into something. And if that something is a poem or a song, then it might be a lot of craft for a few words.

Copyright protects all of us. It means you can't just take my short story, put your name to it and publish it somewhere else. Think that kind of thing never happens? Think again. It does. (Well, I haven't heard of it with short stories, but I have heard of a poet in the US who fortuitously discovered some of their poems published by someone else; I also know of a rather notorious Australian writer who plagiarised someone else's whole article and put their name to it and got caught out. Astounding, isn't it? Why would you do it?) It also means that you can't take that page I've reworked several times and drop it into your story without my permission. I may choose to grant you permission or I may decline. It's entirely up to me.

Having said that I've also heard of writers who've applied for permission and been asked an astonishing amount of money. Several hundred pounds for the reproduction of a couple of lines, for example. The writer decided not to use them. The owners were within their rights -- but, really, does that sound fair? It sounds somewhat excessive to me.

So, what has set me on this train of thought is the copyright battle that has been playing out in the music industry. Men at Work and their iconic song, and that other iconic Australian song "Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree". I'm not going to comment on whether or not I think there was a case to answer to because my opinion is irrelevant and in any case a judge has made a decision. What I am astounded by (all right, I've used that word already, so let me say appalled by) is the amount of money that the plaintiff's have been demanding. One newspaper reported it as sixty per cent of the profits. Sixty per cent! The more the better, I read that their lawyers had said. Is that attitude really about fairness or about greed? (Yeah, I know. Wake up and face the real world! The real world runs off greed. And some professions seem to embrace it more than others.)

Part of deciding whether copyright has been breached includes an assessment of how much work went into the original -- perhaps part of the consideration of recompense for a breach should include an assessment of what percentage the infringement makes up of the new work it appears in. I'll be waiting with interest to see what amount is awarded. I hope I'm not astonished.

Currently reading

Short story and poetry entries for the Friends of Newport and Williamstown Library literary competitions. I love seeing the inventiveness of children's writing. It reminds me of the fun we forget to have as adult writers when we're trying hard to be literary or serious. Or even sometimes when we're not. That's what I loved about ... Oops, almost dropped the A-word, and I promised I wouldn't do that!

Travels in the land of my imagination: the beaches

My characters don't spend a lot of time at the beach, but there are a few beach scenes, all at a place called the Forgotten Beach, which I largely modelled on the beach at Tidal River, Wilson's Promontory, but with whiter sands -- something like Denison Beach, near Bicheno (below). It could otherwise have been the bottom picture, which is on the Southern Ocean. When I was at the prom (in Victoria), I walked part of the beach blindfolded, to see whether it could be done, because one lot of my characters have to walk the Forgotten Beach in almost total darkness. As well as finding out whether it could be done, I wanted to experience their sensory deprivation, to experience the cold mauling on my ankles the way they would, so did this walk late in the evening.

I've always lived near the sea, but on a bay, not the ocean. I know its moods, its scents and sounds. I know the birds that wheel overhead. It's amazing to me when I go somewhere like Squeaky Beach at the prom, or Denison Beach in Tassie, to hear the different sound that the sand makes, that sharp squeak on the ball of my foot. Or to go somewhere like Perissa Beach in Santorini, and feel just how hot black sands get -- quite different to the paler sands I'm used to.

I've never seen a beach with the sand rippled the way it was in the picture taken near Strahan (below). This was an estuary with day-tripping cruise ships moving up and down it, their wakes causing the rippled effect.

Visiting places gives you those telling details that you might not have otherwise imagined. I remember one of the surprises for me was walking on Corfu on a hot day (say 40ish degrees), and the hot wind (which I'll always think of as a north wind, because in Melbourne our hot winds come from the north) bringing the scent of eucalypts -- a startling smell that made me nostalgically homesick. Had I never travelled, I don't think I could have imagined this as something I might smell in Greece. You really do need to get out there.

One day, I'm going to set a novel in Delft in Holland. My father's from Holland, but not from Delft, which is somewhere I haven't been. Yet. But if I do write that novel (have to finish the current and next trilogies first), then I will be going -- going to track down its sounds and scents, its colours and textures, all the things that make it unique.

Honeymoon Bay, Freycinet National Park

Honeymoon Bay, Freycinet

Nine Mile Beach (near Swansea)

Denison Beach (near Bicheno)

Tessellated Pavement, near Port Arthur

near Strahan

near Strahan

near Strahan

Travels in the land of my imagination: the forests and mountains

I live in the city, but I'm not writing about city or suburban life -- I'm writing about a land that's been partially terraformed by humans and is essentially a medieval-type landscape and society. My characters are riding around on horseback, through forests, on beaches; they live in castles and in underground homes. In my imagination, I dwell in these places while I'm writing, but it helps to remind me of what that means by researching, by visiting places that are as close to the ones in my novel as I can find.

Perhaps one of the most famous writers maxims is to "write what you know". To me that doesn't mean I have to write about suburban life, but that I must try to capture emotional truths. I know what it is to be frightened, to feel horror and loathing and joy and love and embarrassment. Frustration is often a parrot on my shoulder. I know these things, and I try to give them to my characters: I try to write my characters from the inside out.

Visiting forests, walking through the leaf-litter and hearing the soft pad underfoot (not so much the crackle of leaves because of the dampness), feeling the cool air lace fingers through my hair, smelling the dankness, experiencing the quiet, the sense of being alone in the world, in a world that could be medieval helps me to know my setting too, to bring it to life (I hope) for my readers.

We've just come back from a family holiday in Tasmania, where I got to inhabit quite different forests to the Victorian ones I'm more used to. Below are a few of my holiday shots, all of which could be part of my novel. They remind me of what it was like to be there, what it's like for my characters, and help me enter that place in my imagination where I do know what it's like to be a soldier or a king or any other thing I want my characters to be.

Freycinet National Park

Looking across to Freycinet

near Strahan

Dove Lake & Cradle Mountain

Enchanted Walk, Cradle Mountain National Park

En route to Cradle Mountain

En route to Cradle Mountain

Contemplating the holidays' end . . .

It's that funny thing when you work in teaching that half of me wants the holidays to go on forever (who doesn't, right?), and yet the other half is excited about starting new classes with new students, wants to see how many students we'll get at enrolment, who will be in my classes.

Our course is more hands-on between year's end and beginning because we do so much work on student selection. Oh, in some ways, I envy the courses that just look at TER (Tertiary Entrance Rank). This is the least of our concerns; we do consider TERs, but only as part of a much larger package. We also get a statement of why students want to do the course, a folio of work, which we have to read and appraise, we get them in for an interview, we get them to do writing on the day, which we read and appraise, and we give them a short grammar skills test, which we then have to mark. Only when we've done all of this can we make our selections. The extra work is worth it because it helps us weed out those who won't be able to cope with the course.

But back to the end of the holidays -- the thing I love best is not having to live my life by a timetable: not having to get kids off to school, not having to be at work early to make sure I get a car spot, the more relaxed atmosphere in the house (ie not having to nag kids about homework, which I know doesn't work, but I find I can't help myself), not having to work and think when it's stinking hot. I'm less social and more family orientated in the holidays, and we do so much more. This holidays the theme has been Avatar, which I'm sure you've noticed! Last year it was "Spooks" -- we watched the first six seasons, averaging two or three episodes a day. We also do a lot of swimming. The kids play computer games, and I write. And read. I have this funny relationship with reading because I love doing it -- and really I read all the time, but not in extended bursts like I do over the holidays -- and I know I need to read lots as a writer, but I feel guilty if I sit down to read a book. It must be my mother's voice in my ear, telling me to clean up, or the writer telling me I should be writing! But in the holidays there's time to do both. (Note, I didn't say all three. My mother's voice is still in my ear!)

The last post on Avatar -- I promise (I think)

A recent article I've read on Avatar is all about how some people have become depressed and suicidal after seeing the movie because the real world now seems dull in comparison. Someone even wants people to get together and start our own Na'vi tribe. Does that mean we all have to grow a metre and a half and turn blue? How bizarre. (I do note the attractiveness of the Na'vi though -- tall, slender to the extreme, muscular, large eyes . . .)

It's been interesting looking at the criticisms levelled at this film. One said they hated the film because the theme was, basically, as long as you have one US soldier with you, you'll be right. ?Another said they hated the film because it was fundamentally just another attack on the US military. Did they both see the same film?

The Vatican has given the film the thumbs down because it says Avatar turns environmentalism into neo-paganism.

The Russians (or at least a few of them) are saying that Cameron took his ideas from Russian writer Strugatsky, who came up with the planet name Pandora and a race called the Nave (Cameron of course has the Na'vi). Hmm, I have a Hell's Gate Woods in my novel, which will feature a lot in the third book, but I came up with that all on my own. I note that Hell's Gate is the main human camp in Avatar, but that doesn't mean I drew on the film. I had this name years ago. I mean, Pandora's box -- hello? Sound familiar. I did like the rather hilarious adaptation of the summary of Pocahontas though, to make it sound like Avatar. Yes, lots of similarities in the premise but the delivery is quite different. There are only so many stories around (though the number varies -- sometimes it's as few as three, sometimes in the twenties).

A science fiction site says the film is an allegory for the fight between science fiction and fantasy, and fantasy always wins because people prefer utopias over dystopias, and in the end we have our utopian happy ending. On the other hand, in the article I read about the Russians, the film was described as being anti-utopian.

The racist comments -- that the Na'vi have to be saved by a white American male, I think are silly. I mean couldn't you also argue that the white "American" male can't become heroic until he gives up his white American ways -- until he abandons what most of his people stand for? (It's not black and white enough to say "his people" because the scientists do not embrace the corporate greed but the quest for knowledge.) And it wouldn't be "racist" as much as "speciesist" -- we are not the same race as the Na'vi. (And, remember, all of humanity is one race.)

One thing I've loved reading is a comparison of the original script and the final script. In the original, Tsu'tey lives but has had his queue cut off so can't commune with nature anymore, ride any beasts, or even mate. He begs Jake to kill him, and Jake does. I'm rather glad this was cut -- I'm not sure about the message behind that: that man who has escaped (rather than overcome, I suppose) his disability kills one who has become disabled because he understands the frustrations? Hasn't Jake found something worthwhile to do with his life? Mightn't Tsu'tey? I hope they do bring him back. I thought he was a great character -- he delivered one of the most moving moments for me, when he finally agrees to fly with his long-standing adversary who has now exceeded anything he (Tsu'tey) has ever dreamed of achieving. I could imagine all sorts of potential conflicts about leadership if he's around. Also, if he were to have broken his back or suffered the loss of his queue, there's lots of conflict potential there too, both for him or Jake. (But please don't have Jake kill him! Jake might stop other clan members from doing this or fail to stop them and then have to deal with his own demons.)

Having seen it multiple times, I can't tell you how many people I've overheard saying, "That is the best film I have ever seen!". It was about my third go when I decided that. People can criticise the plot and characters all that they are like: the bottom line is that this film is moving a lot of people. Part of it may be the special effects, but I think it's more than that -- I think that this is a film that has a great heart beating beneath the spectacle. It has great heart.

A short one on Avatar

Yeah, enough already, I hear you say.

Just a quick thought -- I've been following the box office success of Avatar and noted in the lists of SF movies, District 9, which I saw earlier this year. I saw this movie twice -- because it was interesting, and I wanted to think more about it. But it was so ugly -- perhaps the ugliest movie I have ever seen. Twice was enough. Not sure I'll buy it on DVD. Maybe, when it's cheap. In comparison, Avatar is probably the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. I've told The Gadget Man that once it's out on DVD we're buying a home theatre system. (Similarly, when Gladiator came out, I bought the DVD even though we didn't have a player. When TGM pointed that out, I said that, yeah, we'd have to do something about that.)

And another one . . . hype

My mother won't see Avatar. She hates that kind of movie, she says. I know this is true, but I'm trying to convince her to see it anyway. I think it's worth it -- I think the three-D is done so well it's a game-changing movie, much as the first talkies must have been, the first colour movies. I think it's that good. However, I've heard a few people, including a girl we took the other day, say that it gave them headaches, which is a shame. Maybe it won't be game-changing if that's the case. If they can iron that problem out, which is what I think they tried to do with the new 3D-camera, then it will be game changing. Absolutely.

As for my mother, she steadfastly refuses, and I know I'm not going to win this one. I often wonder how she can be my mother when she hates SF and I am so into it -- and Avatar conflates my two loves: science fiction that includes space ships (I love space opera) and fantasy. Yeah, there's no magic in this, but I'm talking about the feel of it, and all the bits with the Na'vi, apart from the battles with the humans, feel like fantasy.

I have other friends whose responses to this movie perplex me more than my mother's -- my friends who love science fiction, but refuse to see this one, who say it looks stupid or cartoonish. Now, to me, those Na'vi were completely real. I'm not that into animation either, but I didn't see any in this film. I was there, on Pandora: those people were as real to me as the humans in the film. I wonder if my friends' responses have anything to do with the hype. This film is getting lots of hype, even from me! I can't stop talking about it.

I've read that way back in the 1970s, James Cameron went to see Star Wars and was seriously pissed off. This was the film he should've made. And so off he went and made movies and wrote a script for his Star Wars (yes, Avatar), but which he had to shelve until a time that technology could reasonably cope with it. I too went to see Star Wars, but a bit reluctantly -- because of all the hype! My brother had seen it and said it wasn't that good, and I remember going with a few friends and warning them about what my brother had said. They all said they'd heard it was fantastic. Somewhere in the movie, probably in the first thirty seconds, I went from doubting to loving it, and they went the other way. They were all lukewarm when they came out, whereas I was raving. I went back to my brother and said, "What about this . . . ?" and "What about that . . . ?" and he kept saying, yeah, that he'd forgotten that had happened. By the time I'd finished, he was as convinced (or almost as convinced) as I was that it was the best movie ever. I couldn't get enough of it and saw it more than thirty times in the cinema. (Admittedly, in those days, films weren't on in as many cinemas and had longer runs. Star Wars ran for over a year, something impossible to imagine for any contemporary movie.) The hype had put me off initially, but once I'd seen it I was on the bandwagon. Star Wars was unlike anything I had ever seen, and the battle to destroy the Death Star had me on the edge of my seat, in a way very few movies have (in fact the only other movie that did this to me was Gladiator, in Maximus's first contest at the Coliseum.)

There have been several other movies along the way that I've seen many many times, though none quite that many. There's finally a movie I could see that many times, if time allows. For me, Cameron's quest to make his own Star Wars has been a success. This is the first movie that has excited me to the same degree. (These days, however, I prefer The empire strikes back to what is now known as A new hope. But I didn't at the time. I like that there's a lot more character development in Empire, but at the time, notwithstanding that blood-chilling moment when I first discovered Darth Vader was Luke's father, I was disappointed in the ending as it felt unfinished. Because it was. It was much more part of a trilogy than stand-alone, whereas Star Wars did stand alone.

My other really major movies:

• Alien -- I saw the opening session in Melbourne and was completely freaked out. I have never been more frightened than I was seeing that movie, and seeing it over and over in no way diminished the fear.
• Battlestar Galactica -- yes, it had a cinema release, and I went about seven times, then had to content myself with seeing it on TV. While it wasn't quite a Star Wars in terms of movie experiences it still held me captive.
• Excalibur -- the film that turned me from science fiction geek to fantasy geek. I have loved everything Arthurian ever since, though these days have moved away from wanting to write my own King Arthur novel, maybe because I'm addressing aspects of this story in my own -- just things like the triangle of lovers, which is a stalwart in fiction, anyway.
• The right stuff -- my goodness this was an amusing movie (even though many others didn't seem to notice). Very, very clever. And tapped right into my love of rocketry. Yeah, rockets make me go all gooey. Nothing phallic in that, I assure you.
• Capricorn One -- did I say that rockets make me go all gooey? Yeah, so does all that NASA chatter -- "We have Outboard Engine cut off." "Roger that, OBECO at ten minutes after the hour . . ." (It's cool to be a nerd these days, right?)
• Gladiator -- completely swept me up, the politics, the unfairness of it all. And, as I've said, the first film since Star Wars to have me literally on the edge of my seat. (Alien had me jumping out of it!)
• Lord of the rings trilogy (especially The Two Towers). I'm not sure I needed all the endings in the last film, and there could never be too much Aragorn, but these were beautifully realised films, and I loved them. Love them.
• Avatar -- yeah, but I think you've gathered that already.

Which brings me back to my mum. When Star Wars came out, I argued and argued to get her to see it and eventually succeeded. She slept through the first half. Was asleep (it was a hot day, and we were on holidays) before the movie even started -- though how anyone can sleep through all those explosions is beyond me. By the time she woke up, she had no idea what was going on and so declared the movie stupid. I tried to get her to see it again, but failed. And so not even Star Wars was able to change her mind. I know if I get her to Avatar she'll hate it, but I still think she should see it and see if we can maybe expand her boundaries a little bit. Maybe I'm just crazy?

More on Avatar: three similarities to Titanic

Yes, I know I've already done a post on Avatar, but it's still very much in my mind at the moment (probably because I keep going to see it), so you might just have to put up with this for a while.

I know that Avatar has more in common with Aliens than it does with Titanic, but there are three notable similarities between Cameron's last two blockbusters, aside from the one piece of music that always sets me to thinking that the ship's about to hit an iceberg (it's in "Scorched earth" for anyone who has the soundtrack).

(i) the defining image. Both films have one image, above all for me, that encapsulates the unfolding disaster and that will forever remain in my memory. Both images do not include any of the main characters from the film, but are absolutely striking and absolutely beautiful, yet convey a real sense of horror. In Titanic, it is the image of a drowned girl or woman, splayed out underwater, her dress moving gently about her. In Avatar, it is the image of a pa'li (or direhorse if you prefer the English) on fire and galloping through the burning forest. Neytiri is observing this, but she's not in the frame. This is a nightmare image, yet slow-mo turns it into one of strange and compelling beauty. Beautiful and terrible at once.

(ii) in both movies, one of the main characters (two in Avatar) is (are) bound and trapped as the disaster unfolds all around. In both cases, neither really deserves to be there. Jack is handcuffed below decks for stealing a necklace, when in fact he has been framed. Jake is tied up -- for what exactly? I think it has more to do with Eytucan's being angry that Jake has distressed his daughter, and a general anger at the skypeople than anything Jake has done personally. Unless it is just a case of wanting to shoot the messenger? Or because he has withheld information that he wouldn't have been allowed to deliver and wouldn't have been believed? He has, in fact, betrayed them through his reports, but they don't know that. (And for him it wasn't a deliberate betrayal. I imagine he had forgotten, if he were ever aware, that Quaritch was looking at these as well has his official reports, which had become a lot more guarded.) In both movies, someone has to rescue the main character rather than their being able to get themselves out of trouble.

(iii) something big falls! Yeah, this is kind of obvious, I know, but it still leapt out at me -- hometree almost trembling in the air, as did Titanic, then canting sideways and going down -- both achieving the same kind of "splash". Maybe it's just the cinematography -- not sure -- maybe it's just that it is the same type of event!

Post script: For the record I'm an Alien (Ridley Scott) rather than Aliens (James Cameron) girl -- much prefer the suspense than the action-shoot-'em-up kinda thing in those two, and yet here I am absolutely loving Avatar . . .

Merry Christmas

After enjoying the Victorian State Singers as part of yesterday's "Carols by Candlelight" on Channel 9, we've been listening to their "Nine Lesson Carol Service" while unwrapping presents: a new King Arthur novel (never can get enough of those), and the soundtrack to Avatar -- some fantastic writing music. Lucky Cat Sparks isn't here -- I know I drove her mad with the Return of the King soundtrack while at Clarion, and I'll be the same with this one: playing it on loop while I write. Beautiful!

Anyway, here's the link in case anyone else wants to listen to some beautiful Christmas music. (VSS is a youth choir in Melbourne, led by Doug Heywood. They're centred in Williamstown (in Melbourne) and looking for new members, so if you're 30 or under, love singing and live in or around Melbourne, here's their website!)

Avatar -- 3D

Mild spoiler alert . . .

Tonight, my kids and I went to see Avatar in 3D. As I walked out of the film, I heard a man lean across to his wife and say, "This is the best film I have ever seen." Princess Sleepyhead said to me, "That's a keeper", meaning it's one we have to buy the DVD for, and I said, "No, that's not a keeper, that's a let's-go-and-see-this-again film, as in right now." The film reminded me of the passion I used to feel for Star Wars (known these days as Star Wars: Episode 4: A New Hope or just A New Hope to some of the younger generation). I saw Star Wars more than thirty times in the cinemas, could hum the entire soundtrack in order and recite the whole movie. My friends thought I was a freak; my parents thought I was a freak. Well, not really, but it's in their interests not to believe that seeing as I had to inherit such freakiness from somebody. To me it was a passion -- and it's the same thing I get from my writing, or perhaps take to it.

I came out of Avatar tonight at 8.40, and the next session was at 9.00. I said to the kids, "Do you wanna see it again? We could go to the 9 o'clock session", and Princess Sleepyhead nodded yes, and grabbed my arm and said, "Really?", whereas Sir Talkalot tilted his head to the side and said, "Are you joking, because I can't tell whether you're joking or not?" I assured him I wasn't, and only then did he give me an enthusiastic endorsement.

Now, unfortunately for all of us, I didn't have a mobile to contact my husband and tell him what we were doing, so we went out in search of a public phone box. There were some inside the shopping centre we were at, but it was already shut. We found one nearby, but someone was in it. Can you believe it? We headed to the nearest large train station, and I was so busy spotting the two there that I didn't notice the traffic island in the middle of the car park and straddled it neatly with all four wheels, crunching the undercarriage of the car, much to my own horror and that of the bystanders. Whoops! No damage done to anything luckily, but by then I was too shaken up to do anything but drive home. The repeat will have to wait now until Tuesday as we have something on tomorrow, and I have a solstice party tomorrow night.

The 3D aspect was interesting, especially the breathtaking views of the planet and spaceships. OMG, was I in heaven, or what? But there were some scenes where the effect was ruined by the painted backdrop. These were only occasional though, but it did effect suspension of disbelief. Sometimes this is noticeable in 2D films, but the effect was more marked in 3D, but aside from that -- I *love* this movie. (My one other critique was I wanted a little more on Trudy's motivation to make her role completely believable for me, just a little more . . . And also Avatar # 3, whose name I don't remember, seemed to disappear for a lot of the film. I thought he hadn't made it to the Na'vi camp, but he was there at the end.)

So, what exactly do I love about it? The story, the world, the characters -- all of it. Also the soundtrack, the special effects. In many ways the Na'vi (alien race) remind me of my own Myrads, except my Myrads are neither as tall nor as elegant. (And there are no romances between my aliens and humans, nor are they capable of having sex -- they're too anatomically different. This isn't a criticism of the film -- after all the Na'vi are interacting with avatars that are anatomically the same as they are, not humans. Whether or not such unions could produce a viable offspring isn't addressed in the movie, so there's no stumbling block there in the science for me. Not that this is a big part of the movie anyway -- it's not.)

I completely bought into this film and was swept up by it and its splendor. James Cameron's wait for the technology to catch up with his vision so that he could do this film was worth it. I believed in the Na'vi in a way I could never believe in the Ewoks. To me the believability is all in the eyes of the character, and whether they can use their eyes to express emotion. The Na'vi could. Chewbacca could. The Ewoks had buttons for eyes. Go figure.

I have the website open as I'm writing this, listening to the soundtrack. I can tell already that I'll be buying it in the next day or so: it's good writing music -- my last four writing albums were the three Lord of the Rings soundtracks and Gladiator (oh, and also "More music from Gladiator"). This is similar and different, just what I'm looking for. Already some of the leitmotifs are embedding themselves in my brain.

Okay, so see the movie already. This one has shot up into my top ten favourite movies of all time, and that's saying something considering I've only seen it once!

EndoWriMo

Day....Written....Wordcount

1..........0..................0

2..........0..................0

3..........4209...........4209

4..........227..............4436

5..........1802............6238

6..........0..................6238

7..........0..................6238

8..........3439...........9677

9..........0..................9677

10........0..................9677

11.........0..................9677

12.........0.................9677

13.........0.................9677

14.........0.................9677

15......... 3193...........12870

16.........0.................12870

17.........3061...........15931

18.........0.................15931

19.........0.................15931

20.........4133...........20064

21.........1944...........22008

22.........0.................22008

23.........6422...........28430

24.........0.................28430

25......... 2626...........31056

26.........0.................31056

27.........8239...........39295

28.........0.................39295

29.........8015...........47310

30.........7439...........54749

So, here's the summary of my NaNoWriMo stats, taken from my official NaNo stats on the site -- three big days at the end. This table isn't quite accurate (although two of the last three days are), because I was NaNoing on a computer that doesn't have internet access, which saves me being interrupted by the ping of emails landing in my inbox, a great distraction, particularly if the writing's not going so well. So, for example, the first three days I wrote every day. Most days I did something, though sometimes it was only a couple of hundred words. The stats are also out because sometimes I updated after midnight. I mean, really, when does a session end at midnight? I did have a couple of days where I wrote till I was so tired I didn't make sense anymore -- one time I realised my sentences were no longer coherent, and another they were individual coherent sentences but had no bearing on the sentences before or after them, so I had a sequence of sentences with not only no logical progression of thought but no one thought in common! At this point I left them and they were included in the day's count, but then deleted the following morning, so there were words I had to make up. (And, yes, the NaNo rules are you don't edit or delete, but I always do. I know I'm not alone in that. Horses for courses.)

So, the crazy month is over, and I'm left feeling excited and very much "in the zone". That's what I love about NaNoWriMo, sometimes I hate it, and it's hard, and I ask myself why am I doing this crazy thing to myself, but when I get to the end, I have something substantial to work on, and it's amazing to have done it and been part of it. But some days . . . some days, to use a cliche, it really is like getting blood out of stone. Some days the blank screen is god and it dictates there shall be no inspiration, but countering that is the NaNo dictation: thou shalt write regardless of whether thou feels inspired or no. And so I put my head down, bum down, and plough on, plough the most rugged of fields, hating every moment, every word that comes out mired in crap, hate it, hate it, hate it. Less often are the gifts: days when inspiration is there for the taking and the story flows. I could have wished for more of these, but it's good for all of us to know we don't have to wait for them. I always remember hearing John Marsden talk about the days when the writing was agony and the days when it was gold (not his words, but I can't remember exactly how he put it), and I asked if he could tell the difference in quality between the two, and he thought about it for a little while and then said that no there was no difference in quality. That was a particularly enlightening and liberating moment for me.

The whole NaNo thing -- the loving and the hating it is my relationship to writing really. Sometimes I love the first draft, but mostly I don't. Mostly it's hard work. For me, the pleasure is in the rewrites, the editing passes. The reimagining. The redescribing. The fleshing out and the cutting back. NaNo gives me something to wreak my pleasure on! To take my pleasure from. It's hard but exhilarating and hard and fun and hard and hateful -- look at all those zeroes -- and hard, most of all, but it does say something about the power of deadlines. At least my stats do. There were times when I thought I wasn't going to make it, but I remember last time I did it, two years ago, when I really had to pull some big numbers and thought that I could do it again if I had to. And I did have to. More often. But I did it, and never mind that my husband had to cook dinner every night and no cleaning got done. Writing got done, and that's the main thing.