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.


View all my reviews

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?