Book launch: Solace and grief

Yesterday, Foz Meadows, one of my SuperNOVA writers group, launched her first book Solace and grief. I'm a great believer that we all feed each other as writers, that we all grow from reading each other's work and from critiquing -- not just from the comments that other people make on our stories, but as much from the comments we make on theirs. However, we didn't have any input into this book -- it was written and perhaps even accepted before Foz joined SuperNOVA. (If not accepted, then this followed shortly after, but the book was certainly already with the publisher.) But none of that stopped us coming out in force to help Foz celebrate.

Finishing a draft is a huge thing, so is whipping the book into publishable shape (or finishing the redrafting process) and getting it out there, and having it accepted and published is the hugest of all. Each stage should be celebrated because each is a success. And we should take joy in the success of our peers. One writer whom I was in a workshop with once, both as unpublished novelists, signed a seven-figure deal awhile ago. I'm ecstatic for her. Such success helps all local writers -- it opens doors for all of us.

Every so often I hear of writers, often published and successful writers, who hear of somebody else's success and get their noses put out of joint because they see that as a success they've missed out on. There are many different readers and many different books to meet those differing tastes -- to hear of someone else's success and see it as a loss for you is not only likely misguided but a path to self-destruction. Such small-mindedness harms you.

It astounds me that people are so competitive in this sort of pursuit. You have control over what you do in terms of perseverance, you have control over how much reworking you do, how exacting you are, you have control over whether you research a publisher to make sure you're giving your book the best chance, but you have no control over whether that publisher will take on your work or not -- whether the editor who reads it falls in love with it enough to go out and bat for it. That's what you need -- and it's not easy to find, so rejoice when you find it, and rejoice too when your friends do.

Foz's launch was unusual in that it was the first book launch I've been to where the books weren't actually out yet. Don't get me wrong: they were there. I've been to launches where there were no books because they hadn't come back from the printers, and to launches where there was no author because of illness. But this was the first preemptive book launch I've been to. Anyway, Foz, I hope it's strike is long, hard and successful! I look forward to the launch of the sequel! (And in a side-note, I haven't been able to lay my hands on it for reading yet -- my daughter took one look at it and said, "You must've been reading my mind. I want that book. And she's had her nose in it ever since.)

Missing brunch

Damn it! I missed our SuperNOVA brunch meeting this week. It was scheduled a week earlier than usual, for various reasons, and this suited me perfectly. On Tuesday I have assignments due for my novel class, and a test for my editing students, so I'm going to be busy marking next week. Plus I've just accepted a commission to edit a novel for a small press publisher, and it's on a rather short timeline. (I had thought I was going to be busy on it this weekend, but as things have turned out, I haven't received the manuscript yet. I do try not to take on editing jobs as editing time replaces writing time, but usually my jobs have been nonfiction, and fiction is where my heart lies, so I thought I should take this on. Plus it's good for me to keep my hand in. I like to do at least a job a year, and I didn't do one last year, so it was time.)

Instead of brunch, I spent the day sitting in a hospital waiting room with my son. He'd hurt his arm the previous Thursday, but hadn't been too fussed by it. It was nicely bandaged up, but I was getting suspicious by the fact that a few spots were tender, but most movement was okay, so I didn't think it was a sprain, but perhaps a fracture. Sure enough, a bone is broken, and he's now sporting a cast, and I'm feeling like a heel for not having it attended to earlier. But I suppose I walked around on a fractured pelvis for three days too, till I told my mum it was hurting badly enough to warrant a trip to the doctor's.)

Instead of talking writing with my SuperNOVA friends, I got to do some reading, some people watching and thinking about issues (mainly to do with hospitals, funnily enough). Perhaps it was important to my son that I gave up my brunch (which he knows I value) for him. Too often he makes the accusation that I put my work (whether it's my teaching or my writing) before him. This time he was first. It's often a matter of priorities. If I have to have student papers marked, I have to have them done, and I'll stay home to do them rather than attend the family picnic. It's just the way I've been brought up to be: my dad's working class work ethics: work hard and never take a day off sick unless you're nearly dying. But family is important too. We have to make time for them. 

When I was early on my journey of taking my writing seriously and with small children, some of my friends would tell me to always put my family first, that I'd never regret it. My impatience didn't allow me to always do this. But I've never put it so far in front that it sidelines my family either. Both are important to me. I don't always strike the right balance, but I try. That's all any of us can do, really.

Unexpected pleasures

Last Saturday, we had our SuperNOVA monthly novel group meeting. This group is largely the love child (can I say that?) of Ellen, who for years kept thinking she wanted something more or something different to our crit group. Now, the crit group is a really valuable thing in itself, but for me, who already belongs to another crit group and who is doing critiquing every week for students as part of my job, I just found that it was too much. I came to resent having to spend hours and hours on other people's work, and because I was working on a novel, I didn't really have anything I wanted critted, and so I'd stopped going. But I also fretted about the loss of contact with the others, who were one major part of my network of writers.

Ellen's idea was that the novel writers of the group could come together once a month (as the crit group does, but not on the same day, obviously) and talk about their novels and novel writing in general. We would meet for brunch, get inspired and all go home early in the afternoon to write lots. Ellen's vision has largely come about, except the bit about all going home early to write lots, and that's because we tend to hang around for most of the afternoon. Sometimes lots of writing-based discussion takes place and sometimes not so much -- largely because we're all friends now as well, but there's always some at least.

Some members attend both the crit group and the novel group, and others (like me) just attend the one, whichever best serves their interest. Mostly, but not always, the novel group tends to be women.

I tend to come and go a bit. Like another of our members, I have children I'm often ferrying around, so sometimes I have to come late or leave early or can't make it at all. But I hate missing it. It's become dynamic and fun and inspiring, everything Ellen thought it could be. Last Saturday was a particularly good meeting, very much writing focused.

And then as if it wasn't a great enough day, Ellen commented that she was going off on a writing retreat for three days and, to cut a long story short, two of us decided we could go for part of the time, and so I went off in late afternoon to pack for an impromptu writer's retreat (even if I did have to spend one day on class prep!). It all sounds too easy, but there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing while I checked that this was okay with my husband. Still, he's pretty cool about such things and let me go, so that was all fine.

The scary part for me was realising that most of the writing I did last year was while on retreats. I had realised how much my work commitments, and the increased time fraction I'd worked last year, were encroaching on my writing time and have cut back on work, so this is my year for my balance, to keep things chugging along. And when they are chugging along, I'm not spending a day of each retreat re-immersing myself in the world of the novel, but instead can hit the keyboard flying!

Idyllic retreat

We're coming up to crunch time -- the end-of-semester marking spree, and never have I had more subjects to mark, so I can't say I'm looking forward to it. For a few weeks, it means I have to live, eat, breathe and sleep marking. I have had years where I've stayed up till 4 am and then got up again at 6 for another burst. Can't say it's very conducive to good health, but the mountain has to be scaled.

It also means my own work is pushed to the side. For a few weeks of the year, I barely even think about it, and I can feel myself get toey about it. So, with all this in mind, it was fantastic to get away with a few members of the SuperNOVA novel writing branch for a writers' weekend.

My mother tells me off when I go away like this. "You've got a family," she says. "It's selfish to leave them behind while you go on holiday." She's missing the point. This isn't a holiday per se: it's a chance to spend intensive time working on your novel. We do write. Or edit. And we do do it for most of the day. And the evening. And well into the night.

When I've been out with Western Women Writers, half the group wants to spend the whole time writing (I'm in that half), and half wants to spend half the time writing and half socialising. There's nothing wrong with this, of course. Balance is a good thing -- if you're not too time-pressured. I relish the time to be focused. And I get a lot done. 

There's something about being away with other writers -- we all inspire each other to write lots. Procrastination is frowned upon. My friend Ellen is the task-master and gently keeps us all in line. Like me, she's not there to muck around. We measure success sometimes in words, or sometimes in more esoteric terms -- the feeling of having reconnected with your novel after time-out, or of nailing that difficult scene.

The worst part, always, is having to come home, and this weekend was a particularly short one, because of traffic concerns. But it's wonderful to have had dedicated time to spend with dedicated people -- something every writer needs.

Busy week

This week is a full on social week, and all to do with writing:

(i) Wednesday morning: launch of the Ada Cambridge exhibition at the VU library on the St Albans campus
(ii) Thursday night: dinner out with my Clarion South buddies -- or family as we are now -- where we will reminisce about that crazy six weeks where the temperature varied between 31 and 33 degrees every day and we had no air-con in our dorms, and we workshopped over half a million words, and most of us churned out a story a week and a collaborative story. I know I did. And kept a journal (50,000 words worth)
(iii) Friday: lunch out with Effy whom I taught Text and Culture, part of the Diploma of Liberal Arts, with. (All right, this is a teaching one more than a writing one.) Effy drove the subject, luckily, and I scrambled to keep ahead of the class, because I did not have a background in Arts. When they start teaching Haematology for Writers, I'll be right there!
(iv) Friday night: dinner out at a special performance as part of the Williamstown Lit Festival with Western Women Writers, Ellen from SuperNOVA, and Susanna from work.
(v) Saturday morning: attending the first session of the CBCA conference to see Shaun Tan's speech, and then to see Sherryl's new book Tracey Binns is trouble launched. With a character name like that, how could that not be close to my own heart.
(vi) Saturday: go to the Williamstown Literary Festival sessions and attend the prize-giving ceremony of the Ada Cambridge competition. Can't wait to see who wins! I've just found out that at least two of our students have been shortlisted, which is rather nice. Of course, when you're doing the shortlisting, you're looking at blind entries and have no idea who has entered, so it's always interesting later on to find out who the winners are, and whether any of them are even names that you've heard before.

And around all this I've been getting Poetrix ready to go to print, which means finishing typesetting and cobbling together bios (and then paring them back because they were too long), writing an editorial, having it ready for proofing by (last) Wednesday, proofing in writing group, now making the final corrections and then doing one more proofing pass. Should all be ready by tomorrow! Then I better get into my assignments.

Draft over!

Last night I finally finished the 13th draft of my novel. Now all I have to do is save it as such -- I give my working copy a different name than the drafts, and each draft is preceded by its number. The minute I save this one as a draft, my working copy becomes part of the next drafting process (if there is one). Officially, I'm not redrafting my novel anymore. Time to work on new things. But I am going to do an editorial pass to look for typos and wordiness, and to look at characterisation, motivation, and to add some non-plot related thinking, because an editor who looked at a partial of this current draft suggested these things needed attention, and I want to submit copy that is as good as I can get it.

There's something immensely relieving about finishing a draft, an excitement. For me, it builds as I can see the end in sight, and I'm more and more motivated to work on the project. But there's also something sad about finishing a draft, especially a final draft, because it's a goodbye to characters. Though, of course, if you're working on a series the way I am, that's not necessarily the case. We spoke about it today in the SuperNOVA novel writers' group -- the what-next syndrome. If you're writing a series, do you go on with the next book and hope the first will be picked up, or do you start an entirely new project? I think that answer depends on whether you are driven to do something in particular, or whether or not you're a fast writer. Perhaps also in how much faith you have in your project. If you're a slow writer you'd better keep going because if you do get a three-book contract, and they want to see where you're up to, it's nice to have something to show them. Nice not to be put on the spot, having six months to write your next book, and, horror upon horrors, you haven't even started!

For me, the choice is easy. I'm not ready to leave my characters. And in any case I've already done 140,000 words of the second book. I'm driven. I want to write the sequel. When I did NaNo, this was the book I was working on. I have two separate storylines that run through both books, and I chose the more difficult to write for NaNo. Trouble is that I've just reworked the ending of the first book, and I have a feeling that a lot of what I've written in NaNo will now be redundant. Oh, well. I've done it before.

When I first sent out book 1 (3rd draft stage), it was a far different book to what it is now. It weighed in at a mere 120,000 words. A publishing house commissioned a reader's report, and one of the things they commented on was the structure: that it was too linear. Okay, I thought. I was about 100,000 words into book 2 at that stage, and had incorporated a second storyline, which at that stage was absent from book 1. To me it was always part of the story, but I thought it was too-ambitious a project for a first-time writer. These days, I hope I'd have more courage, more foresight. Anyway, I knew I could make the book less linear by dragging that storyline back into book 1 and weaving it through the book. I usually write sequentially so this doesn't present too much of a challenge, and though tricky at times the rewrite was an immensely rewarding and enriching experience. Trouble was, when I looked at book 2, one of my major characters was now dead. And I do mean major characters. Now I had 100,000 words in serious need of a rewrite. Which happened. But now, I may have done it again. I'm circumspect about such things: all writing is a learning experience. And enjoyable. I like the fact that there have been many incarnations of my book. I can't imagine ever finishing a book and feeling that it didn't need rewriting. I know some people do this -- more so those who labour over every sentence along the way -- but it's not for me. I love the rewrite.

And am I happy with my new ending? Absolutely. Every draft I've looked at it and wondered what to do with it. It felt like a good ending, left the reader with the emotion I wanted them left with -- trouble was it was a little cliched. This time, because of changes I've made throughout the book in adding a new storyline, which really only minimally affects the first book but will become successively more important as each book goes on until it is the driving force behind the plot by the end of the third book. This new element really suggested a new ending for me. Out it popped as I was editing. Persistence -- that's what helped me find it. It's a long haul writing a novel, especially a big one, and you just have to be prepared to stay the distance. Believe me, the rewards (in terms of personal satisfaction) are worth it.

Writing groups: part 2: organisation/politics

Something else to think about in finding the perfect writing group is the organisational side of things. How often do they meet? Is it going to be too often or not enough for you? Most of the groups I'm in or have been in meet once a month, but Western Women is weekly, and SuperNOVA is talking about having a second, different kind of meeting every month, largely thanks to Ellen who came up with the brilliant idea of having a novel-writers' get together to talk about writing. For those of us not keen on workshopping, this is a Godsend. There's nothing I like more than getting together with writers and talking about writing. (Oh, except for writing, of course!)

Something else that affects organisation is the size of the group -- and this can dictate where they meet. Western Women used to meet in the Footscray Community Arts Centre, which was great when they had us upstairs in a gallery, but gradually we were "downscaled", first to a room in the dungeon (which I quite liked), then to a room where the potters met to make things, so the benchtops were often slathered with wet or flaking, dry clay. This didn't work nearly as well. Western Union used to meet at people's houses, but then the group got too large and found a space at a neighbourhood house, but many didn't find the atmosphere as convivial, so the group eventually went back to meeting at houses. Similarly, SuperNOVA (in its old Nova days) used to meet at a pub in Williamstown, but as it got too large it too moved to having meetings at people's homes, which works better for them. Melbourne Writers met at the Bailleau Library at Melbourne Uni -- this group, with about 80 members, was far too large to meet at people's homes, which is not to say 80 ever turned up for a meeting while I was there. Meetings seemed to average 15 to 25 people, but this brought in another set of considerations, because you had to book your workshop place months in advance, and the month before you would duly bring in 30 or so copies, hand them out, only to find the following month that only about three people at the meeting had attended the previous meeting and so had received your story, and the other twelve had never read it and had nothing to contribute.

SuperNOVA is another big, sprawly group, but one that eschews the regimented organisation of Melbourne Writers Group and tends towards a more anarchic approach. No booking schedules for crits. No hard and fast rules about when meetings are -- well, there are supposed to be hard and fast rules, but there's often someone who will say they can't make a particular meeting and ask if it be moved. The answer to this question should be no. Especially in a big group. But it often isn't. Then there is an awful lot of to-ing and fro-ing about when and where the meeting's going to be. Sometimes so much so that no meeting eventuates. I know it drives some of the more organised members balmy.

Another consideration is the politics of the group. Does everyone write the same kind of thing, for example, in SuperNOVA it's speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror)? If you're writing something outside of this genre either often or occasionally, are you going to be able to workshop it? Mostly, people are workshopping SF in SN, but occasionally someone will apologetically ask if they can workshop something outside the genre. I don't think they should be apologetic. We should all use our writing groups as best we can -- and while people may not have the writing or even reading experience outside their genre, we are all experienced readers, and can comment on things like characterisation, setting, words on the page etc. Nothing annoys me more than people who say, "I don't read this kind of story, so I've got nothing to say." That's a cop out. Melbourne Writers had a preference towards more literary fiction and poetry. In Western Women, I'm the only spec fict writer, though Sherryl does occasionally dabble. She's the only crime writer. When I first joined, they all seemed to be writing poetry, and I told them I didn't write poetry. I had no intention of starting either, and now I've had more poetry published than anything -- so a good writing group can expand your boundaries, as long as you leave yourself open to the possibilities.

Writing groups: part 1: critiquing

One of my students asked for information about what to look for in a writing group. I feel like something of a connoisseur of writing groups, having been in four: Western Women Writers, Western Union Writers, Melbourne Writers Group and SuperNOVA (formerly NOVA). Each of these groups has been different in structure and in what they offered me. Some have been a better fit for me than others, but what is important is finding the group that offers you the best fit.

You need to decide what you want out of a group. Do you want a group that critiques your work -- that tears it apart and analyses it and says what's working and what isn't? A good critiquing group is worth its weight in published manuscripts. However, a critiquing group is not for everyone. Some people are not robust enough to take honest criticism, whether they are new writers or experienced. I've seen published writers come and sit through a critiquing session at Western Women Writers and quaver at the level of criticism. If you think hearing negative comments about your story may destroy your confidence, then you're not yet ready for this kind of group. Find another type of group, one that's more encouraging, until you're ready.

There is more than one kind of problem that arises in a group with a member who is not ready for workshopping. Firstly, it can destroy that writer's confidence -- especially if they're a new writer. (This can arise from both constructive and destructive criticism -- more on destructive criticism later.) The second problem that can arise out of someone not ready for workshopping is when they feel compelled to argue against every suggestion made. Nothing annoys workshopping members more than someone who is not receptive to comments. The workshoppers wonder why they have wasted their time when they could have been writing! Another form of this is the writer who seems to accept criticism but never learns from it, and continues to make the same mistakes, or even worse who re-presents the same piece over and over with virtually no changes, and all the workshopping suggestions ignored. (Actually, there is something that annoys workshoppers more: when the critiques are all delivered and the new member sits back with a smug grin and says, "Well, actually, you're all wrong, because that story's already been published." Don't do it. It's a sure-fire recipe for ending what could have been a beautiful beginning.)

Some groups are more supportive than critical. Western Union Writers is like this. If ever there was a group suited to the nervous beginner, it's this group -- and it offers plenty for more-experienced writers too. Writers take their work along and read it out loud and the the rest of the group offer gentle criticism and lots of encouragement. It's a great way to practise your reading-aloud skills, to network with other writers so you don't feel so alone -- the writer-in-the-garret syndrome -- and they do run workshops and have a writers' retreat once a year. Great stuff if that's what you're after and many writers are. And that's fine, but if you're really serious about getting published, at some time you're probably going to need a good critique group.

A professional-level critique group will give you far more criticism than pats on the back -- professionals hardly ever pat each other on the back. What they're after is ways to make this story the best story it can be, not an ego-stroking. If you want to be a writer you should shelve that ego right now! (Shelving it is good both to stop you getting a bighead when things are going well, but also to keep you from despair when they're not.)

A word about destructive criticism, because I said I'd come back to it. Destructive criticism helps no-one and shouldn't be tolerated. Ever. If you do want a critiquing group, make sure the criticism is constructive -- ie that it helps you by suggesting ways you could fix things. Years ago, after a masterclass at the Melbourne Writers Centre, I had one writer who reacted badly to a critique I gave on his story (which I thought worked very well overall) by sledging a piece of my work. He started out with, "I wish I could say something good about this story, but there was nothing." Luckily for me, the workshop convenor, Jack Dann had plenty of good things to say about it.

Clarion is an intensive workshop experience, and there's stories of writers who go and never write again. I know afterwards my own output dried up for a while, but I was suffering burnout as much as anything. I went into Clarion at the end of teaching,and in my six weeks living in a student dorm with no airconditioning in Brisbane's hottest summer on record (at the time), I wrote six stories (including a trunk story I wrote just before going up) and one collaborative story, 50,000 words of a journal, worked a little on my novel, critiqued over 500,000 words and then went straight from Clarion into a teaching round that had already started. Too much. But I can see why some writers never write again: it's a hothouse of emotions as creative energy is sapped by the relentless pressure, and the crits are hard (but fair). It's like the most intense writers' group you could ever imagine, but, yeah, you have to be ready for the criticism!

New directions for a writing group

SuperNOVA the spec fic writing group I'm part of is going through a period of change. It does this periodically, such as when it exploded from being Nova (and, really, there was a problem with the name, given that Melbourne already had a longer-established and well-recognised group of writers, known as the Nova Mob) because of the sudden influx of Lita and the Clarionnites. At the party the other night, we were talking about the changes the group goes through, and how new members bring an influx of new stories to workshop and then the quantity drops off. This doesn't bother me so much because I do so much workshopping for work that, frankly, I have better ways to spend my weekends.

The reason for the current drop-off is that many of us seem to have switched to writing novels, though I must say that this has always been how I spend most of my writing time. And while certain members of the group sometimes make noises about pushing me back to short story writing, I confess that it isn't really my genre. I've never really felt comfortable in the short form, and a criticism my stories often draw is that they feel part of something longer. In any case, I can't really see the point. Short story writing is great -- if it's what you want to do. It requires a precision of language, a mastery of form, and I do think it's a great way to learn how to write novels because it teaches you stuff about structure, about finishing things, and about making every word count that all novelists should know. Yes, it is different, and yes there is more room in a novel to move around, but that doesn't mean there's any excuse for flabby writing. Short story writing teaches you how to hone the craft.

Workshopping novels, however, is a very different prospect to workshopping short stories. There is the one-chapter-a-meeting method, or the one-writer-subbing-big-chunks method, but neither of this are ideal, and some writers (hi, Mr Browne!) don't want others seeing a work in progress.

Ellen came up with the inspired idea of having a new kind of novelist's meeting, where novel writers get together and talk about the process, any difficulties they're having, what inspires them etc. This could also be a chance to do some plot brainstorming. Really, it's like taking the discussions of our dinners out and bringing them to the meeting. What a great idea! We have often talked about having a breakaway group: either a novelist's group or a fantasy writer's group, kind of a sub-group, but never got past the talking stage. But that was still going to be a workshopping group; this is something different. Something both more and less; something that excites me. I can't wait to see it happening.

Saturday

On Saturday it was more of a SuperNOVA day. I headed across to Adam's to watch Claire shoot another scene for her SF movie Liminal. (I always hear her referring to it as The liminal but the opening credits of the film, as shown at the con, just had it as Liminal, so I'm going to go with that.) Adam's baby is the newest cast member -- so she had to grow a few tentacles for the filming. It's an interesting process to watch someone's house being transformed into a movie set. Claire's set design is cleverly portable, which made everything easy. We all know the adage of not working with children and pets, I presume. Is that because they're cute and steal all of the limelight? Or because they're rumoured to be difficult? I'm not sure. Ours was definitely cute, tentacled and all, and no more difficult than any small child would be (and a lot less so than a lot of Hollywood starlets, by all accounts). Anyway, after a clever suggestion from her mum, it was all done in a matter of minutes. Fait accompli! A new star is on the ascendant. Must say that I can't wait to see the final cut of the film. It's great to see Claire seguing so easily into the role of scriptwriter, director -- the lot really. Wonder if the people at Project Greenlight know what they've started?

I would post photos -- of this and the writer's party -- but I'm not sure of the etiquette of doing so without people's permission. Sounds anal? That's the editor in me talking.