Aug
Couple of things that I seem to have upset readers with:
1. The ‘no guarantee’ lemon and garlic’ drink I gave the recipe for last week leaves very little garlic taste if you follow it carefully.Don’t let the amount of garlic turn you off. Garlic is a well known natural blood cleanser and lemon has heaps of Vitamin C. All healthy and natural.
2 I have changed my mind about those questions I suggested emerging writers might like to answer. They can be changed for the following. I have been told that the previous questions were too confronting:
a.Describe yourself in a short paragraph, likes, dislikes and what you most enjoy writing.
b. If you have completed something, anything, tell me about it.
c.What do you hope to achieve in the next 10 years.
Hope these are easier.
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Also, because I now have ebooks up on every ebook site, I’m still trying to work out which ebook to buy (So far I have been using my laptop).
I’d love to get some opinions on this. please????? Someone respond to this.
I am going back once again on only reporting literary matters. The thing is, I have been asked to supply the recipe for a lemon and garlic drink that might help protect us mere mortals from colds and flu.
I call it the NO GUARANTEE lemon and garlic drink because I don’t…. guarrantee, that is.
So far it’s working. At least for us.
Ingredients:
• 5 chopped up lemons (include skin and all)
• 40 small cloves of garlic (be sensible about this as some cloves are larger than others)
• One pint of water.
Method:
Place all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Simmer for only a few seconds, then wait for the mix to cool down. Once the mix is cool enough, use a blender to churn the ingredients together and push the final result through a wide sieve. Bottle the result.
Drink a shot (equivalent to a shot of vodka) with a little warm water in the morning.
Please let me know if it works for you.
The First Grevillea Murder Mystery
Some friends have had problems logging into Amazon ebooks and my murder trilogy. I have to admit that the site isn’t user friendly. However, this specific site may help.
View the Book on the Amazon book store.
Presenting ebooks to readers is so unlike promoting and introducing a hardcopy, we authors will have to learn a totally different ballgame. Here, it is perhaps quantity rather than quality. The more people write a few words in the review columns and give stars, the better chance of a book appearing in the ‘popular’ lists. Can books be plagiarized this way? No more I suspect, that any hardcopy. But I’d like to hear other people’s views.
As well as using this blog to report on personal writing matters and books I have recently read, I have decided to use it to feature established and emerging writers and illustrators. But I don’t intend to let anyone off lightly. Rather than the usual questions, I intend to make contributors think. So here are some I have in mind:
Introduce yourself in one shortish paragraph as if to a class of unruly youngsters.
Explain how, when and why, you decided to become a writer or illustrator.
How will you cope with the changes occurring right now? What innovative techniques might you have to develop?
If you have had anything published, take what you think is your very best, most interesting or challenging piece and place it here.
If you have yet to be published, do the same.
How would you like to see yourself as a writer/ illustrator in twenty years time?
The Youngest Cameleer
My latest historical novel “The Youngest Cameleer” is about one of the lesser known explorations into the interior, that was led by William Gosse in 1873. The various members of this exploration (both European and Afghan) did exist and my story is based on Gosse’s own journal. This expedition was the first non-indigenous group to come across Uluru. Without the use of camels and Afghan cameleers they might not have survived those harsh conditions. Though it is the first time any cameleer was praised for helping open the interior, these facts are not well known. Nor that an aboriginal boy was an invaluable member of this party. Some cameleers even lent their name to landmarks, such as Kamran’s Well and Alannah Hill. My intention was to bring this expedition to life by creating a fictional character that was part of it. Thus I came up with Ahmed Ackbar, a fourteen-year-old Afghan and my ‘youngest cameleer’.
Dialogue and first person narrative help create characters, so Ahmed tells his story in fluent Pashtu, but his English is poor. He is the only surviving male in his immediate family. In late 1872 he sails into the prosperous city of Adelaide to help look after four camels. Yet he has other things on his mind. What if his uncle Kamran isn’t as innocent of his brother’s death as he seems? As the expedition treks into the interior, Ahmed must cope with Jemma Khan’s enmity, his own homesickness, and the difficulties of exploring unknown territory.
Readers might like to track Ahmed’s journey on a map. They can delve into how our Aboriginal people behaved when they came across these explorers, suggest reasons, and their appearance was back then. They can research contemporary Uluru, both as an icon and tourist attraction. They can ask: what route does the Ghan railway take? What was there before the railway? What is the climate and terrain around Alice Springs like? What happens to that land when it rains.
If we don’t have Aboriginal ancestors, we are all migrants. My parents arrived in Australia in the first part of the twentieth Century and settled happily in Melbourne. Our great migrant waves have occurred at various times: during the gold-rush, straight after World War Two, and in the seventies when the ‘boat people’ arrived. It’s good to recall that Afghans have been responsible for opening up our vast continent and that without their camels the task would have been harder than it already was.
When I was young I always longed for a machine that would allow me to become part of a story. I always wanted to befriend some of the characters I read about. Then I could have had a fresh start with a whole new set of people. Back then as a somewhat solitary child who spent her life reading and imagining I was somewhere else with a ‘nicer and far more sympathetic’ family, I would have given anything to be assured that my loneliness would surely pass. I hope that maybe I can interest my readers into thinking the same way. I would like to help them look beyond the immediate present to see life as the continuum that it surely is.
The problem with blogging is that you have to be prepared to maintain it regardless of how busy you might be with other projects. I can see how a blog could take over from ‘more serious writing’! So I have left off blogging these last two weeks. Mostly I have been out of town and when I returned, I was too busy marketing ‘The Youngest Cameleer’ and the ebooks ‘The Grevillea Murder Mystery Series.’ (I’ll use a future blog to discuss some ways and means of successful marketing)
Sometimes I feel like I’m juggling too many projects. However, I have found that a blogging platform seems to be a popular form of presenting material that might interest other writers. Since publishing ‘Mentoring Your memoir’ I get many requests for help in writing up other people’s material. There are tips on my website as well as in that ‘how-to-text’, but perhaps they aren’t enough. So if you’re feeling a bit lost here are three important ideas to keep in mind as you create your story.
• Try to include a balance of males to females. It makes for more interest. Spend lots of time creating convincing characters. You should know them as well as you know yourself.
• Make your text ‘gossipy’. Above all use dialogue to show how your characters think, speak and behave. Insert body language between pieces of dialogue.
• Always remember: SHOW DON’T TELL
• Don’t give up, no matter how bogged down you get in the middle. Instead create a plan. When that won’t work try taking a long walk while thinking about other things. I find that process usually works.
Perhaps I have already mentioned that I belong to a book group that discusses kidlit. We make a point each month of reviewing a story picture book, a junior novel and a YA novel. Many have not stood the test of time – though we mostly felt illustrators did better than writers. This month we covered Shirley Hughes. Her illustrations still work, though we had doubts about her texts. But my local librarian tells me that they stock every SPB she has ever written and they are unfailingly popular, maybe because every child can relate to the simple action. Our junior novel, ‘Snugglepot and Cuddlepie’ led to an interesting exchange on ‘political correctness’ and whether authors are more hamstrung these days about what they dare tackle. ‘The Changeover’ by Margaret Mahy led to intense discussion between those who love it – I do- and those that felt the prose had become cumbersome.
Perhaps the same goes for popular adult fiction. While in the past I loved Armistead Maupin’s ‘Tales of the City’, his latest ‘Mary Ann in Autumn’ does little more than tie up loose ends. I think it might be to do with style. Whereas writing ‘gay’ lit in the past was exciting and novel, now it has become so acceptable, it’s ended up as somewhat boring.
Someone out there please, please disagree???
My first piece of news this week is that the launch arranged for 8th July for ‘The Youngest Cameleer’ at Readings Carlton has been postponed. Hopefully I haven’t mentioned this event to many people. But if someone should happen to turn up please forgive me. It was becoming too much of a battle for my publisher to make this event on time.
Though I have earnestly promised to never talk about what I cook for dinner, I have been asked to divulge the recipe of my ‘fresh fruit’ cake. This is of course my opportunity to PR my oncoming my new ebooks: “The Grevillea Murder/Mystery Trilogy” which is filled with the simple recipe my heroine, Olivia Beauman, often uses. Here is her recipe for a Pear and Chocolate Cake.
Ingredients:150 grms melted butter
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 ½ cup SR flour
pinch baking powder
½ teasp lemon juice
stewed apples or pears.
Method:
Combine everything but the fruit _ this batter should be very firm- and place in oiled cake tin. Arrange fruit to cover the batter completely and bake @ C160 for approx an hour.
Use icing sugar, a spoonful of butter and 2 heaped tblsp of good cocoa to cover cake when it’s cool enough. Don’t worry if the icing is liquidy. Let it seep through.
THis week’s novel was one of the best books I have ever read about mental illness. Alistair Campbell’s ‘All the Mind’ is compelling reading. if anyone suffers with bouts of depression I think they would learn more from this fictional account of a psychiatrist’s clients than from months of therapy.
Grevillea Murder/Mystery Trilogy
I am totally grateful to my local library. There is no other way I could take out so many books without being able to borrow this freely. I couldn’t afford to buy this many, nor would I have enough book shelves. (Both these problems may change once I decide which ebook reader to buy.) However, borrowing also means I take out what currently is on offer. Or having to wait – sometimes over a year – before a particular book comes my way. eg The Slap. Perhaps I should also admit that I don’t always finish those books I take out. Life is far too short to waste it reading bad fiction!
One of my library’s quirks is the number of vampire books that turn up on its shelves. I’m not a fan of this genre – whether it be for YA or adults- and hope to see all vampires, ghosts and other supernatural forces disappear into some deep dark cavern way, way back in their storeroom, which is where they surely belong.
There are also those novels best described as ‘literary’. In my humble opinion too many are first novels from youngsters with ‘promise’, unfortunately seldom followed up. Many are written in the present tense using short sentences that circle the narrative rather than taking a direct approach! Okay. I’m dumb but sometimes I don’t understand what they’re about unless I read the blurb. They’re almost always far too long. Also, many are imported. These imports are often set in the southern states of the US. My personal bias is to find this setting, character development and dialogue tedious. Others may not agree.
Please… please feel free to comment on this.
Two other genres that make regular appearances on the ‘new book shelves’ are fantasy/science-fiction and CRIME. Thinking about it, what with so many crime novels on offer, this is probably the chief reason I wrote my ‘Grevillea Murder Mystery Trilogy’ (these will shortly appear as ebooks.)
While some crime fiction is overly predictable, others use this genre in innovative ways. When it comes to crime writing, the difference between good and bad shows up very markedly. Also bad editing (think about the last of the ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ which needed severe cutting)
What all this is leading to is this week’s find. Set in a cattle ranching family with an unsolved murder dating back many years, Mary Pickard’s ‘The Scent of Rain and LIghtning’ (what a great title) is captivating. I intend finding more books by her.
If there are others who would like to attempt this genre, the following few hints might help:
• Storyboarding the plot is important to anyone writing detective fiction.
• Your characters talk to each other and to everyone else even remotely involved so there’s lots of dialogue (talking) and action. Above all, your characters have to be interesting!
• Each new speaker should have a new line.
• You have to provide suspects that your detective interviews. These will give the reader lots of red herrings and some clues.
• Make sure there are enough exciting bits where your detectives are prevented by someone apparently powerful or in authority to continue their investigations.
• Before the criminal is brought to justice your detective or his friends might be in a frightening situation or some kind of serious trouble.
The points I mention below are relevant to all kinds of writing whether it be fiction, non fiction, writing for adults and/or youngsters. Though many may seem obvious, considering them could be useful.
Setting Yourself Up.
• Ask yourself: why am I writing this? Give yourself a good reason and then stick to it.
• Who are you writing it for? Yourself? Your children? The general public?
• If you still feel the urge to write, ignore those friends and family who will actively discourage you because they are worried you might fictionalise them.
• Establish a time for writing and stick to it in spite of other commitments.
• Establish a comfortable place to write and keep to it.
• Will you handwrite your story or type into a computer? If you plan to publish this it will have to end up on a computer file.
• Join a library and look up other work in the same genre
• Haunt bookshops for the above.
• Decide on some limit for your book. For example, when I wrote ‘The Youngest Cameleer’ I decided to stop at the discovery of Uluru because this is what William Gosse’s expedition is most noted for.
Above all talk less and write more. Too many would be writers spend too much time discussing their work and too little time actually doing it. Too many say ‘I’ve got a book in me,’ and that’s as far as they go. Are you one of them?
Just a few more comments about “Space Footy and Other Stories” for anyone interested in creating their own collection. ‘Space Footy’ is the ‘brother’ to ‘My Horrible Cousins and other Stories’ which is all about girls. Both are ‘metaphorically’ related to my collection for adolescent readers published under the title of ‘Killer Virus and Other Stories.
All in all that makes 30 stories including several novellas. It amounts to lots of hard work. Though there is a tendency for ever longer novels, in my opinion a good short story makes a satisfying read… a tasty mouthful, rather than a huge meal. The short story is as difficult to write as any novel because of the limited number of words that have to hint and suggest rather than spell things out.
Also, if any beginners are thinking of sending their ms to a publisher, here are some hints they might consider. These hints are a compilation of my own experiences and other published authors and I use them in my Writing for Children workshops.
1 Research the publisher/ agents name and address, and their preferences.
2 Make sure the letter is less than one page.
3 Start with … “Dear Ms or Mr”, and introduce yourself and a hook. Include a pitch. eg 1873, Cameleers, discovering Uluru.
4 In the same paragraph, deliver genre, word count and your target audience.
5 Follow with a mini-synopsis.
6 Explain your writing credits and why you wrote the book in one or two sentences.
7. List similar books represented by them. Do some research.
8 Conclude with …”I look forward to hearing from you soon.”
9 This is important! Add ALL your contact details including address, phone, email and website. If this is a snailmail submission include a SSAE. If an email submission, make sure you add a reply acceptance from your Outlook or Outlook express
10 Double-check you’ve followed the manuscript submission guide lines exactly. Remember how many submissions they get and don’t hold your breath. Penguin receives over 2000 unsolicited submissions. From these they may choose 2.