Write without pressure.

It's been six months since I last posted here! Wow-o-wow. I hope you've all been well. If not, feel better soon.
The reason I stopped blogging is that it started to seem like a chore. And I was in a tricky place. I was seeing a councilor and with his help came to realise that if I didn't want to do something and I didn't have to do it, why do it? So I stopped.
I also decided to go easy on myself writing-wise. Writing is something I really want to do. But the more pressure I put on myself, the less I write. Since the last time I posted, my writing has been going well. I attempted NaNoWriMo, and managed 30k (so I say I came second :P), but got stressed and remembered my promise to myself to write without pressure. And since November, I've kept going with the project. I might have the first draft finished by the end of January.

What else have I done? I've enrolled in a Postgraduate Diploma in Writing that will start at the end of February next year. I'm very excited, overly so. As in, already enrolled in all my classes and chosen tutorials excited.

And there's the West Coast Swing routine I'm doing for a competition in March. Yeah, I've kind of taken up Ballroom dancing too.

And I have two jobs! Ack! It's stressful, but there are things like rent and food that are necessary to life.

And! And! I've started researching an idea for the project I'd like to start once the first draft of the current WiP is finished. I won't let myself start writing it, but research is fine, and the more the idea brews in my head before writing it the better. So for now, I'm entertaining myself with pretty Steampunk pictures and cool facts about Sydney in the decade after Federation (naughty, I'm breaking my rule of not talking about future projects, but WHATEVER, I'm excited).

So, it feels good to be back and blogging because it's FUN. :D

Help with research.

1. If you could ask a witch for any kind of spell, what would it be? It can be good, bad, small, big, anything.

2. What trade does a bit of everything? A trade that has an apprenticeship, but might involve wearing a suit.

You're help is appreciated (I'll thank you in my acknowledgements, if this thing ever sees the light of day :D).

Happy writing!

Procrastination

A short post today.

In my last non-book review post, I was talking about my GAD. At my appointment with my psychologist today, we looked at some ways to tackle procrastination.
I procrastinate a lot. A lot of people do it. I even feel comfortable saying that everyone does it now and then.
But I'm not comfortable with the way I put things off. Especially things that make me happy, like writing.
Part of what we talked about today, was writing down the pros and cons of the task I might be putting off. If the pros outweigh the cons, do it. If the cons outweigh the pros, then you've stopped procrastinating and confronted the issue*.

So, regarding my NYWM project, my heart just wasn't in it. I'm sorry if you enjoyed it, but I've put it on the back burner for now and may return to it when I'm ready to put my heart into it.
Talking to a professional has helped me to look forward to writing time again. I've never believed in writer's block, until this year when I started yet another WiP while I had a two book series on the go too. I still don't believe in writer's block, not really. But I do believe that there are emotional and other problems that create the blockages, not the writing or creativity in themselves.

To be clear, I'm not just seeing a psychologist because I haven't been writing as much as I liked, but this is mostly a writing blog, so I'm posting my writing relevant thoughts here.

:D Not such a short post after all.

*That probably didn't make sense. I'll figure out exactly what I meant and get back to you.

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo

The Triggering Town: Lectures and Essays on Poetry and Writing by Richard Hugo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This might seem like a writing book by a poet, for poets. But it is just as valuable for other writers.
If you took each lesson or tip, and replaced the word 'poem' with 'novel' or 'story' (I can't say so much for scripts), you would have some great advice.
In my opinion, more prose writers could take a few lessons from poets anyway.
Of all the lessons, the one I appreciated the most was Hugo's sentiment that he was teaching 'his way' of writing, or showing us new writers how to find our own way. And that is so great. From high school through a creative writing degree to Twitter and the blogosphere, there is so much advice for writers out there. So when someone says they are going to teach me how to teach myself, I welcome it with relief and a smile.

Like many writing books, Hugo includes accounts from his life, and he uses the parts that inspired certain poems. I enjoyed these parts too, I always like to see what kind of life writers lead before/during their writing career.
Overall, this book is worth reading although some of it I'd heard at Uni. But it's always good to be reminded.


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Reassessing.

I have a tendency to take things a little too seriously. In this instance, it's NYWM. I started it because I thought it would be a fun way to start my character blog and challenge myself in a new medium as well as developing my protagonist from my book further.
Then I missed a day. Then another. And a third time.
I started to get anxious because I wasn't following through with my goals. And I started to get anxious because I thought it was crap and who would want to read it?
The best part was that I was concentrating on my other projects because I was putting off my NYWM goal.

Recently I've started seeing a psychologist, because this worry isn't something exclusive to my writing. He told me I have something called General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). It's treatable and already I'm starting to feel better.
However, I used some of the techniques I've been learning to manage the worry, and applied them to how I'm feeling about not following through with NYWM goals.
I've overreacted a little, and realised that the idea behind NYWM (besides the writing of course) was to have fun. At least, that's how I should have been taking it.
And it's something I need to remember about my writing. I write because I love it, and it is ultimately fun. As soon as I start taking it seriously, nothing happens and my projects lie stagnant. The same with Twitter and Blogging. If I take them seriously as 'networking tools', then all of a sudden, I'm overcome with anxiety and nothing gets done.

So, especially for the rest of this month, I'm going to have fun with NYWM. Who cares if my character blog doesn't go anywhere? Who cares if it doesn't make sense?

Right now, I don't. I'm going to have fun.

Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi

Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I finished this book a week ago. I finished it in two days.
I haven't connected with a book this emotionally since Going Bovine by Libba Bray.
This was different of course, being non-fiction. A book about Portia de Rossi's struggle with Anorexia Nervosa and coming out.
I'm not anorexic, nor am I gay. But the way de Rossi wrote about her compulsivity with food and the fear of losing control which then leads to a loss of control in a hellish loop, touched on some deep issues for me.
I couldn't break away from the beautiful, honest prose. I cried when my Mum and sister came over and I had to stop reading. Not because I had to stop reading. Because I was dealing with my own anxiety issues through de Rossi's journey.
The whole last chapter I cried for her and myself.
Then the epilogue. It brought hope, and I felt relief. If she can come back from that obsession, I can certainly deal with my own problems. There is brightness in the future.

Now, one thing I asked myself before reading was: Can this celebrity write? Was there a ghostwriter?
Yes and no, respectively. There were passages where de Rossi's love of words was clear: in high school, she loved reading out Shakespeare and Poetry and giving emotion to the words.
And no one else was mentioned in the fine print. De Rossi is amazing and I hope she writes more.

Lastly, I loved the sense of Australianness I felt throughout the book. De Rossi hasn't lost her roots.


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First day of NYWM!

I have started my new blog! The first post of Long Lost: A Diary, has been posted! Check it out, leave a comment. Or tell me what you think here on Asterisk That Thought.

In terms of responding to comments on Long Lost, I have decided to use them in improving my writing as I go. I won't be editing after I've posted. Just cause that would get messy.

Anyway, enjoy! And I will be back with non-fiction bloggy things as per usual on this blog :D

The Feminist Inside Me

That's not meant to sound dirty, I swear.

This is an issue I've been meaning to blog about for a while but haven't. I was re-watching a few episodes of Mad Men and it started me thinking about it all over again. Let's see if I can do this coherently.

I have always loved reading. And I've known I wanted to be a writer since I was ten years old and my teacher read my poems and stories out to the class.
But until I read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck in year Eleven, no single author had me captured by their language the way Steinbeck did. There are many reasons why I loved the book, but they will do better in another post.
I love Steinbeck, and he became my favourite author from then on. Since then, I've read East of Eden, The Pearl, The Red Pony and Cannery Row.

Now, onto feminism. I feel like even if I hadn't known what feminism was, I would have developed something of this sensibility anyway. My parents split up when I was ten (coincidence?) and from then, it was three women in my house. Three strong women.
Sometime after, Dad introduced my sister and I to our future step-mother. Another strong woman. A woman who helped me realise my dreams weren't so silly after all. She was teacher of screenwriting at a Sydney tertiary institution.
Aside from that, the strongest personalities in my life were women. My grandmothers, and step-grandmothers (lots of divorce in my family, something for yet another post), are very strong women. At the age of fifteen, my paternal grandfather passed away. It sucked. But it meant that I got to watch my grandmother survive beyond that and become an even stronger woman in my eyes.

At some point during my teens, I realised that all the stories I was writing revolved around women, with very few male central characters. And, as many of my readers will know, so many of the classics and books in school, and many books in general, had male central characters. And I felt like I was doing something wrong, and tried to develop male central characters to write. I even had a male central character for the play I wrote as a final project in Drama. A project that many people praised, yet I scrapped it two weeks before it was due, in favour of a play that centred around a female main character because I felt like I connected with her better.

Fast forward to midway through uni. I realised something after reading East of Eden, which was driven home after reading Cannery Row. Steinbeck's women were more absent from his classic texts, than men were from my own writing. All women were either mothers, whores, or two dimensional girlfriends who were only referred to.
So became a flaw apparent in my idol's writing. As happens to a lot of people after high school, I had become a little more self aware. Studying my passion and becoming aware of the different types of Feminism helped too.
I came to the conclusion: so what? So what if I write about mostly women? Don't we need more texts like that? Non-chicklit* texts like that?

So, I decided that John Steinbeck was allowed to be my idol in style. I still try to keep my prose as spare as possible while still giving across the message**.

I still think that as a writer, it is a valuable tool to write from the point of view of the opposite sex, yet I don't put pressure on myself to create male central characters. There are enough.


* I have since realised that from a feminist viewpoint, that chicklit is often derided because it is just that: books for women, by women. Although a lot of it is in itself pretty sexist.

** You wouldn't think so from my blog posts. Trust me, my prose is edited a lot more :D

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Overall, this was a good book. It took me a long time to read, but that could be due to my busy schedule. But then, I'm one heck of a procrastinator, so if a book isn't so intriguing that I'm not putting things off to finish it, it's not going to be up there with my favourites.

One of the downfalls is something that many people praise in literary fiction. The imagery. Yes, it was beautifully descriptive. But sometimes the characters were so caught up in their little moments that I found my eye wandering down or across the page to the next bit of action.

The next thing, is that it's one of those books that has a few protagonists. I find these books really hard to read, and a books has to be really, really well written for me to be engrossed by every single protagonist.

My favourite story line in the book followed Caroline and Phoebe, maybe because I identified with Caroline the most, and thought she had the most to fight for in her story. Maybe because David was a self-involved piece of work and I just didn't CARE how much he was suffering with the decision he made. And Norah was insufferable too, but I tolerated her more because it wasn't her fault, and her character evolved enough that in the end I liked her.
In fact, considering what happens to David, I wondered why he was needed at all. Yes, it was his decision that the novel hinged on, but it was the way the other characters dealt with it that was more fascinating to me. The parallel stories of Caroline and Norah would have been sufficient for me, and maybe I would have liked the book better.

Anyway, good things. This book made me cry, and that says something for Edwards. And I was fascinated by what snippets were given to Caroline's fight to give Phoebe a fair life as a person with Down's Syndrome.

I do recommend this book to people interested in unlikely parents - I know I love this kind of story.


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Libba Bray

So, some great, fantastic, incredibly exciting news.

LIBBA BRAY'S NEW BOOK IS RELEASED TOMORROW! (or Thursday, considering time difference)

My excitement is so much that I had to talk about it. Libba is my favourite contemporary author. There are a few others who come close, but I've read all her books and LOVED all her books.

And Going Bovine? Guh. Cried, laughed and it got my Postmodern obsessed brain thinking about reality, perceived reality and everything else besides.

And, and, and the fact that the characters were so different to her Gemma Doyle Trilogy, just shows what an incredibly talented writer she is.

I know Beauty Queens will be new and original and crazy, just like Libba (or what I can tell from her blog).

So, yeah. I just had to get my fangirl squees out and share the love.

Sydney Writers Festival 2011!

I went today, after almost forgetting about it (sinful, I know), with my lovely Grandma. I went to two events, and I'm here to tell you what I thought of them, and what helpful hints I will be storing away for future use.

So You Think You Can Write: International Edition

This was a fascinating event, where anyone in the audience could pitch their book idea - any book idea - and have the pitch critiqued by Barabray Rozycki, UK literary scout; Lynne Missen (Penguin), Canadian publisher; Alexis Washam (Crown Trade Paperbacks US), US senior editor. Lenny Ann Low was the referee.

As I don't consider myself to be at the stage where I need to worry about a pitch just yet, I thought I'd go along and take note what the panelists had to say*. This is what I scrawled in my notebook:

• Comparisons are good. For example, "Tamora Pierce, crossed with Margo Lanagan."
• If it is for children or YA, giving an age group is recommended.
• You need to introduce a character who the audience will identify with. It's no use just to talk about the setting without providing the reader with someone to follow.
• Concentrate on the story. Again, try not to delve too much into the setting without revealing the central story.
• Providing a character and a moral dilemma are good, to hook the reader in.
• Keep it simple. 

Culture Clash

This event was a fun one, being an interview with the author Amara Lakhous by Anne Maria Nicholson. His novel, Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio has recently been translated into English and the interview was mostly about that. Lakhous grew up in Algeria and moved to Italy in 1995. Some of the inspiration for the novel came from his experience as an immigrant in Italy. It's a humourous novel from many different points of view, set in an apartment block where one of the tenants has just died. The themes are (to me) truth, discrimination and diversity. With these themes, some of which I am trying to explore in my current WiP, it sound like a book that I very much want to read. Immigration is also an issue relevant to Australia, so I'm glad it has been translated into English, for us Aussies to read. We might find something to identify with there as well as something to learn from. 

And would you look at that paragraph! What a block. Anyway, that's me, so I hope you learned something new or now have a new book on your list to read.

*Unfortunately I didn't write down who said what, so I apologise. 

Descriptions paraphrased from the Sydney Writers Festival website. 

So many things.

Isn't that always the way? Over the past few days I've been cataloging things I wanted to write about here. And now there are three things I want to talk about, two of them related, the other thing not, but it's put me in a good mood so I'm gonna sing about it.

I got a job yesterday. Weee! I had a swim teaching trial and they were 'very impressed' with me. And I remembered what I love about teaching kids how to swim. Being active, working with kids, the thrill of seeing students get the hang of new techniques. And knowing I'm good at it helps boost the enjoyment a little too, not to mention my ego.

And I've been on a role with my WiP lately, the one that I'll be basing the blog diary entries on when we get to June and NYWM. It's still on the first draft, and it's so enjoyable, yet scary. It's liberating knowing I can go and do whatever I like with my characters and story and I can just edit it all into something nice later. But knowing that's coming also intimidates me, I think "What am I doing, oh god this is awful!"
All I can do is keep going because I know there's something in there. Even if it takes fifty drafts (I really hope it doesn't) to get to the good stuff, I will find it.

Which sort of brings me to my last point. NYWM. Yay! I now have more reason than ever to stick to my initial goals. Despite all the insecurities I may be feeling, I just have to get those entries out there. For audiences to read. I don't have to tell you (knowing most of my readers are writers too) all the thoughts circling my brain telling me I'm stupid for doing this and that it will be really bad and that no one will want to read it.
Enough of the negativity, I'll do it anyway, because now, now, I have been linked to on the NYWM blog. Along with a whole bunch of other participants. So, I have something other than myself to commit to.

And on that note, I'm going to go check out some of the other participants' blogs. Spread the love, go check them out too. :)

ETA: Also, the button on the right side of my page is another link to the NYWM site, but the picture has gone funky for some reason.

National Young Writers Month (NaYoWriMo)

One of the great things about being the member of a writers centre, is you find out about great things like National Young Writers Month. It's going to be in June, so I've got a while to prepare, or psych myself up for it.

The best part about NaYoWriMo, is that us young writers get to set our own goals for the month, and work towards it for all of June.

My initial idea was to finish a draft of something I'm working on. But, there's another idea in my head that's been there for a while, that ties into one of the drafts anyway.

I'm going to start a new blog! Well, it won't be 'me', it'll be one of my characters. After the book takes place, she starts writing a diary to help herself remember what has happened to her.

So! My goal for the month of June, will be for Sal (I may as well tell you her name now) to write three entries a week. This will be a challenge, but I thinks it's time more people met Sal, and hopefully it will give me more insight into this character as well.

Excited!

Goodreads!

I discovered Goodreads about a week ago, and have been wanting to tell you about it. I don't have any friends on there yet *pouts*, because no one knows I'm there, and I don't know of anyone who is on there as well.

Also, I did a review of good ol' Sookie Stackhouse: Definitely Dead: A Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mystery #6. Otherwise known as True Blood for those familiar with the show. Because of the large volume of books I've read over my life, I'm going to only review the books I started reading since joining Goodreads.

In future, I'll try and cross-post my reviews here. I'd like to add a gadget for you guys to see what I'm currently reading, but tonight my 'Interwebs skillz' failed me.


PS My writing is coming along nicely.

Staying away.

Just for a week, I've decided to stay away from Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is worse because it's just so easy to read through everyone's little things, and then click the links that are posted, reply and remember other people I wanted to follow, and go read all their latest updates. 

Yeah, it's a time suck. As much as it's a great networking tool, it's also a great sucker of time.

So, the reason I need less distractions at the moment, is I'm looking for a job. It's been a nice few months being free and not tied down, but honestly, I miss the structure that a job gives. The money helps too, I won't lie. 

I need to seriously focus. Focus leads to success.

Also, I need to focus on my writing. As much as all the encouragement from all the fabulous people on Twitter give by being in the same boat and posting little snippets of advice to wannabe authors, I think I waste more time perusing all this than opening up the Word document and actually writing*. 

I will keep on with the Blog posts though, and this will be the only time each day I will post on Twitter, so readers can link through. I find Blogging is also less of a time vacuum. More structure, perhaps?

So, I will be around on Blogger :D but the other social networking sites will be put on the back burner. 

WiP2 (there are three at the moment, gah!) is at 13334 words. By Monday next week, I want to be at 20k. Hold me to it!

*Meandering sentence much? 

How to make a book (but not why).

I was with my friend (the one I'm living temporarily with) having coffee today. We're both looking for jobs at the moment, and she showed me a flyer for an acting/extras/modelling agency. I was interested for about two seconds but then she told me that after the interview, you don't get payed until you get a job.
 "No, I need something that gives reliable money. I'm already doing something that needs hard work way before you get payed for it. I'm not going to have two jobs like that."
From here, this came up:
 "How long does it take to finish a book?" she asked, being a person who rarely reads book-length prose.
 "What do you mean by book?" She was confused, "first draft, ready for an agent, or just before it's published?"
 "Well, before you send it off."
 "Well, before I send it to an agent, I have to finish the draft, leave it a few months, edit it. Then when I think it's okay, I send it to some other writing friends who tell me what needs changing."
 "That's before it's even sent off," she said, her mouth and eyes three round O's already.
 "Yep, then I send it to a few agents, hopefully one of them takes me. Then they tell me what to edit, I edit again. Then they send it to a few publishers, and hopefully one of them takes the book. Then they tell me what to edit, and I edit it again."
 "Woah, writing a book is really hard work."
 "Yeah, at the earliest, my first book will be out when I'm 25. And that's if I'm really, really lucky."
 "And then you have to worry about, will it sell?"
I nodded, "and if it doesn't sell well, the publisher might not want my next book."

So why am I doing this again?

Oh yeah, because I can't imagine doing anything else.

Recurring Characters

I was walking along the other day. I forget where, I think it was somewhere near my Mum's house.
So I was walking along, thinking about one of my characters, and how I had come to realise not long ago that I had got one aspect of her character wrong. And now that I knew more about her, I wondered how I had come to know that about her. I mulled over other aspects of her character, like personality and appearance. And then I realised what had happened.

 Tawny (the character I was thinking about) is a younger, fantasy version of Joss. Joss is a character I wrote about in a short story for class over two years ago now. She is one of my favourite characters, and I've always wanted to write about her more. And then unwittingly, I did, albeit in a completely different circumstance and scenario. It makes me happy, but also makes me feel a little foolish. Have I done this before?

 And just as I was thinking that, I realised that Caroline*, the protagonist from the recent short story, is very similar Molly, from the same WiP as Tawny. Granted, the similarities are less obvious, but they are there.

 Character similarities across different works isn't exclusive to me, because this train of thought reminded me of those personality tests on Facebook. I did two within a short space of time, 'Which Firefly Character are You?' and 'Which Joss Whedon** Character are You?'. I got Wash, then Xander (from Buffy). These guys are almost the same character.

 And there are many other authors and film makers who do this as well as recurring themes and plots. Whether it's a good thing, bad thing, or just a thing, I haven't figured out. But it makes me feel better that I'm not the only one.

Has this ever happened to you?


*Named after my cousin, because she asked me to name a character after her.

**Joss partly was named after him.

Inspired

Just doing one of my rounds of blog-reading*. And I came across this post by Karen Healey. She says so many things on her blog that I agree with (actually, I agree with all of it). The post addresses sex and teens in YA fiction. One element that stood out to me in particular was addressed by this comment in the comments section:

I read a post lately on a blog that claimed to be Feminist in which it was stated that it's okay to call a girl a slut so long as you apply the same standard to men. I nearly swallowed my tongue.*** 


And with this too, I agree. The tongue swallowing, that is.


I am a Feminist. And one thing that gets me with the media and the pressure that is put on women to look a certain way is response to feminists when they call it out. Rather than lessening the pressure, more pressure is put on men**. So of course, we are all equal now! The women AND the men have to conform to what it 'normal'.  


It would be nice if we could all relax and be who we are, and let others be who they are, instead of who we and they 'should' be. Whether that be in body type or sexuality or self expression.




*Unfortunately growing less and less frequent.


**Funny thing, when you look at the moisturisers and 'men's products' that are appearing, the ingredients are all the same as the 'women's'. And most of the ingredients are not all that good for the body or environment. 


***Commenter was Redzolah.

Short Story

So I finished a rough draft for a short story competition today. I haven't even looked at it yet, and I suspect that I will take one little paragraph and make the final story out of that.

I'm not really nervous about entering, although I feel like I should be. Maybe I will closer to the entry date. But I won't feel confident or nervous (or both) until I edit at least once.

I have three WiPs at the moment. But I'm impatient. In order to feel like I'm going somewhere, I want to start spreading my work. I've decided to enter into a few short story competitions this year.

I have toyed with the idea of posting short stories here once a week, or once a month. But a competition raises the stakes. I have to edit, and think about audience. Here on the blog, I could just give you guys the most random cobbling-together of ideas that you wouldn't know what you were looking at.

I may (I would like to) post my competition stories here. With the competition aspect, whether I make it through any round or not, it'll at least be closer to my best work.

Unlike my stream-of-conscious blog posts, written when I should've gone to bed an hour ago.

I can't believe -

I haven't written anything since Christmas. I also haven't read any of my favourite blogs since then (sorry).

So much has happened since then, in the world and in my own life. Therefore, there are a lot of things I could write about right now, like:

1) My overactive imagination that's been keeping me awake since NYE, despite the educated, rational person inside me debunking all my irrational qualms. The latest events in Japan and New Zealand (yeah, there was an earthquake there too, I didn't forget) haven't helped. Not to mention the massive moon that came around two nights ago, which is actually kinda cool.

2) I'm half way through Los Peregrinos, and have put it on hold for the next item on this list. And I'm 9000 words into a new project which I'm a little excited about.

3) I've spent the last five weeks traveling around the USA, visiting family and friends, and checking out cities I've never seen before. I decided this trip was reason enough to put on hold the WiP, and the relaxed attitude towards writing has caused me to start the new WiP (currently being called Apprentice Witch). So it's been an amazing experience, and has caused me to muse on different options for my future in terms of writing career and personally as well.

4) Now that I'm heading home, and arriving two days into the future (love time zones), I'm going to have to get a job, and possibly go house hunting. I've been staying with a friend in Sydney, and it's supposed to be temporary.

So, now that I've finished this post, I might just wander by and check out what's new with some of my favourite bloggers.