May 22, 2023
So, here’s the thing. I bet you and I can ‘people watch’ on the street and we would identify a host of stereotypes in everyday life, based on common fashion choices, hairstyles, movement and poise, interactions with others, family origins, gender. When we sit with family and friends and chat, more stereotypes emerge: common topics of interest, points of view, reactions to other people, voice tone and accent, gestures and so on. At work, we witness colleagues’ shared attitudes to the workplace and people, actions and reactions under pressure, drudgery and creativity, planning and chaos, success and failure. In all of the above people watching, we see common traits, shared personalities, physical similarities, and these shape stereotypes in our world views. And this is before we enter the less pleasant environments of gossip and media and prejudices where the stereotypes become vilifications. Stereotypes have been aligned with profiling (consider the definitions) and negative connotations attached to the term. The accusations ‘He looks like that so he must act like this’, ‘She dresses like that so she must be this kind of personality’, ‘They come from there so they will believe these things’ are examples of stereotyping as profiling. At the heart of this conversation, then, is the politicisation of stereotyping. Where vilification and profiling are evident, stereotyping characters should be questioned, examined and determined as acceptable or not acceptable. Not only should the writer’s work be examined but also the motivation behind the critic’s criticism. Politicisation is a two-(or more)-sided action where all parties’ views need to be examined. There are now more than eight billion humans on the planet, so it’s possible that you share similar physical appearance with quite a lot of other people. Note, though, the emphasis is on similarity, not exact duplication. There are so many people on this planet that you do have a small but possible chance of meeting your exact doppleganger, something like a one in one-hundred-and-thirty-five chance, but that’s like the conundrum of anticipating a monkey could write Shakespeare’s plays if left in front of a keyboard long enough. Basically, it has a probability, but it’s so huge it’s likely to never actually happen. For every group of ten thousand people, there’s a chance eleven of them will share similar facial features with people in that group. The chance that you will meet someone with very similar facial features is apparently more like .0011%. A very tiny number? Absolutely. But distil that across eight billion humans and there could be as many as eighty to ninety thousand people who have similar looks to you.  https://petapixel.com/2022/09/01/doppelgangers-dont-just-look-alike-they-act-alike-and-share-dna/ For writers, one of many holy grails is to be able to create fresh and interesting characters that engage readers. Some critics expect, and I will say wrongly, the characters to always be unique for the work to be truly good, when, in fact, we, as readers, often engage with characters with whom we feel an affinity – someone who could be us. We also make associations with other characters and have expectations of those characters because they are, basically, stereotypes: the quiet hero, the overt hero, the nasty corporate or scifi/fantasy or murder mystery villain, the grey character whose motives seem caught between doing good and being selfish, the ideal and the flawed lovers, the milk delivery person, the shy introvert.
Writers do give us fresh views of characters by ironically creating what looks like a stereotyped character (and playing into our expectations and even prejudices) but surprising us by having the character not act according to stereotyped expectations: the soft-hearted gang leader, the blond fashion-conscious corporate lawyer, the geek athlete, the trans assassin, the highly inventive factory worker – oh. Wait. Maybe these are yet other forms of stereotype. My point? Writers cannot escape using stereotypes because the world is full of stereotypes. In our own unique ways, we are stereotypes because we all share biological, psychological and experiential features. We are far more alike than different. The cult of unique individuals that seems to be permeating our culture is misguided, not because it argues we are uniquely different but because it denies that we are uniquely similar. We are shaped by our culture, our families and friends, our experiences, and those factors influence how we dress, how we speak, what we think, how we choose to feel, even what we choose to experience and observe. We become alike. We become stereotypical. And writers, as observers and recorders of humanity, reveal our stereotypical selves in ways that we sometimes applaud and appreciate and sometimes in ways we want to deny. Before you dismiss a writer’s work because someone has said the characters are apparently stereotypes, examine why the writer presents the stereotypes.
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May 15, 2023
May 1, 2023
Over the thirty years, so far, of writing, I’ve been privileged to receive occasional letters and emails from readers providing feedback on my work. Writing is, for very minor writers like myself, a solitary passion, and positive emails and comments affirm we are making human connections through our stories. At least, that is why I write – to connect, to spark imagination, ideas, conversations. It’s not so much that I write FOR, or ABOUT, but TO other people. I write in the hope that readers engage with my characters and their hopes and struggles in personal and ‘bigger picture’ matters, and perhaps reflect on their own hopes and struggles in those moments.
The email also affirmed why, no matter how minor one’s works might be, it’s important to keep the works alive. For years, I had to reply to readers with the phrase, ‘I’m really sorry, but the books are out of print,’ until the online self-publishing world came into being. My first clumsy attempts to revive novels from the 1990s were frankly embarrassing, but I am getting better at formatting digital text and designing covers, and I can now add self-publishing to my armoury of writing skills – although marketing and distribution remain challenges for this year. The self-publishing revolution in this century is a form of democratic socialist freedom in that it brings a host of positives to anyone who genuinely wants to be a writer but can’t break into the big publishing houses (or smaller ones for that matter). While voices bemoan the ability of hacks creating and publishing books that are terrible, the reality is that so many more amazing stories have found light that would have been denied them in the ‘old world’ publisher-owned market of the C20th. And for the very lucky few, self-publishing is an avenue to the bigger publishing houses if their works prove popular. They ‘get seen’ and acquired. Anyway, if you read a book and it really does resonate with you, please consider dropping an email to the writer, or leaving a comment on the writer’s web site. While the ‘big’ writers are often inundated with fan mail, lesser-known writers really do appreciate being affirmed in what they create. For many of us, it’s the only human communication we have with the people to whom we write. Finally, I’ve found my focus project-wise. I’ll make comments on that project next blog. April 24, 2023
risen to positions of authority and power in Australia, and Humphries did not shy away from mocking them on the public stage.
Do we divorce the artist from their art? Should we? Can we? Humphries cross-played and yet made upsetting transphobic comments on trans culture, meaning some of my community friends consider him a bigot and his comedy empty and his character portrayals hypocritical. True also of JK Rowling, whose social and political comments reveal a personality beset with prejudice. Does that negate her success with the Harry Potter books that shaped an entire generation in the 2000s? Picasso was a confirmed, self-confessed misogynist. Should we stop revering his art? Elvis Presley and under-age girls (way too many rock musicians it might be argued) – so, do we stop adulating his gift to music? In fact, the deeper into artistic talent you delve, the more you find that so many artists were/are relatively terrible people. Despite their amazing artistic talents, shouldn’t we be reviling them? Rare art is universal. Whether the art was being viewed/heard/read in Mongolia, or three thousand years ago in northern Africa, or in Brisbane 2020, the audience can identify with it – seeing familiarity or fresh light in themselves, or others, or places or things or actions. Universal art reflects emotions, thoughts, experiences, ideas humans have always had and most likely always will. The artist, in these cases, reflects humanity and life. This rare art evokes love, peace, fear, comfort – emotions universal to all humans – and even though the artists create the art, their individual personalities are subsumed in the art. The artist, as a unique person, disappears. Most art, however, is contextual, the product of a specific culture and moments in time and place. It reflects the values and beliefs of the artists, and the culture in which they live. The artist, as a unique person, is either deliberately visible or, at the very least, present behind the art. Universal art might garner criticism and opinion about technique and style and impact, but has no intrinsic intention to provoke political or social opinion. The artist can be judged as a ‘good’ or ‘not so good’ artist, because the artist’s personal life is not on display nor considered. The art can be appreciated for itself. Contextual art cannot avoid provocation. Its content, its subject, its intention will be wedded to its context and, beyond discussions of artistic merit, behind the art the artist can be judged as a ‘good’ or ‘not good’ person. The art can still be appreciated for itself, but there is every possibility its value will be affected by the values of the artist who created it. Or not. I was lucky enough to study Art and Aesthetics many years ago and the universal question of what constitutes good and not so good art was unanswerable. Why? We are humans. We make judgements. We choose to believe what we think is right and wrong, and those choices are predicated by a multitude of influences that form our beliefs, our prejudices, our platforms, our desires and so on. When we make judgements about art and the artists who create it, we are really only revealing ourselves and, in some small way, judging ourselves against our perceptions of good, bad and indifferent. The art remains what it is, even after the artist is long dead and possibly forgotten. Barry Humphries is dead. Vale an entertaining larrikin. His individual views of the world cease to be expressed. Dame Edna, along with all of Humphries’ work, will be consigned to historical records, in clips and references. Only his art will remain. Perhaps, hereafter, we can judge his art for itself. As for myself, I’m at a crossroad bouncing between three projects while I wait to see which one wants to dominate. April 17, 2023
Why the rant above? Well, one character in my latest project is being constructed from resources like ‘The Light’ (and another is ‘tainted’ by conspiracist thinking). To create believable characters, writers delve into places, lives and experiences that their readers might not. For one project, for example – currently awaiting my return – I won’t be surprised if the AFP knock on my door because I am delving into sites and information I would morally stay away from under normal circumstances, but to create characters – to understand their motivations, their intentions, their fears and hopes to make them real – I am wandering carefully through a maze unfamiliar to my friends and family.
is for writers to either be directly involved with what they write about or to thoroughly research it. Like many people who came to Ben MacIntyre’s 2010 book or this recent film adaptation, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Ian Fleming, James Bond’s creator, was a character in the story, and was directly involved with espionage in his career and obviously drew upon his experiences to write.
As I finish off, I’m making quick notes about two people who’ve just been ordering coffees. Be careful if you are anywhere around a writer – you may be written into a story. April 12, 2023
It’s really nice to have a comprehensive reply and I genuinely appreciate the effort the person who read the manuscript undertook because it has helped me shape how to make future approaches with this particular project. I will now prepare the manuscript for another publisher and send it away again.
Oh, and the criticisms? I’m happy with the length – it’s necessary to tell the story. The tale covers nine years and currently runs to 125,000 words. I can try to edit further, and perhaps make adjustments to shorten the manuscript. The central character is based on a real person so I am loathe to manipulate the character’s personality for the sake of creating false agency. It’s an historical setting where people like the central character generally did not have agency to be strong in the contemporary sense – strength for them was more in the form of resilience rather than heroic endeavour. I actually do agree with the editor’s criticism if measuring the work against contemporary presentations of similar characters. Perhaps I’m pitching it in the wrong publishing genre ie historical fiction. And the reading market might be narrow, given the historical context and character’s arc. That’s the risk in telling this particular story, and why I always have this project reserved for a self-published option So, some editing and then onto the next potential publisher it will go. In other developments, I started one of the two new projects and it has rapidly grown to 13,000 words, but it is exceedingly raw and I’m still ‘feeling’ out the style and characters. What I have also done is:
I hope you are all well out there. April 3, 2023
So, what now? Well, crazily enough, I am going to work on two projects simultaneously for a while to see how the writing and passion for each project develops.
Project One: The first is a novel – Australian content, contemporary, men’s issues, drama. I’ve mulled over this one for several years and, as time has passed, the material I want to explore becomes increasingly relevant. The scenario, in short, is created around a group of men in their fifties and early sixties who played basketball together as young men, but have gone different ways since their twenties. They agree to reunite after many years apart for a Masters Games and get together on a houseboat for a weekend to become reacquainted. Events unfold from there. Project Two: Forty years ago I began drafting a guide for people new to teaching, or considering teaching as a career. Plenty of research shows that teachers either burnout of leave the profession in the first five years, nearly always because what they are told or think teaching is about is nothing like the reality. All the hype about improving teaching methodologies and philosophies and academic and political claptrap give the impression that teaching is basically learn some stuff, teach it to children, assess it, do some professional development to prove you’re improving too, and you’re done. Move on. In fact, teaching is so much more than that and I want to publish a layman’s guide that refers to everything no one is taught except on the job – yard duties, reliefs, attitudes, paperwork, relationships, extracurricular, personal life, stressors etc etc. Again, people who know me know this is a passion. The final work is not meant to be an academic textbook, although it will necessarily contain research. I’m hoping it becomes a resource people read to understand what it really means to take up teaching as a profession, and shift thinking when it comes to the endless and often empty and pointless debates about teacher workloads and conditions away from lies and ignorance (breathe, Tony, breathe). Today, the new projects begin: one for morning writing sessions, one for afternoon writing sessions. Lunch will be head reset time. March 20, 2023
Editing. Again. Creating and manipulating a four-book series at the same time is not something I have tackled before. The fantasy series published with HarperCollins in 2002-3 – the Ashuak Chronicles – and again in 2008-10 – Dreaming in Amber – were one-at-a-time book developments, admittedly framed into six-month deadline frameworks for each book. Somehow, they seemed easier.
In this final editing-before-submission phase, I’ve found the most difficult aspect is remembering which book I’m in as far as whether I have already mentioned the places or people or events. At least twice, now, I’ve started editing a paragraph or fact only to realise it isn’t being repeated – it actually is the first time I’ve mentioned the information! I’m learning much about my writing style working across four books. I have an obsession with the setting at the start of chapters and sections. I like to establish the weather, the light, the scenery surrounding the characters. Too much. I’m focussing on editing at least some aspects of that obsession in this final process. I particularly discovered an obsession with fishing boats and seagulls. I am reducing the number of times they are referenced. I love dialogue. That leads to how many times do I have to use the word ‘said.’ Then there are the -being-too-clever risks with synonyms for said. And the risky ‘don’t use said at all’ in some lines. The reader is clever. This is challenging across a total of 400,000 words in four books. Telepathic communication between the dragon and the three siblings is a significant aspect of the third and fourth books and deciding how to represent it is ‘interesting.’ In the end I’m going with the dialogue convention and keeping ‘mindspeak’ as traditional dialogue by using the words ‘projected’, ‘mindspeak,’ ‘telepathy’ to alert readers that telepathic communication is happening. Only personal thoughts and dreams appear in italics. Tamesan’s Song: Book One and Chasse’s Song: Book Two are done. Jaysin’s Song: Book Three is this week’s project and Harmi’s Song: Book Four will complete the March project line. Back into the editing I dive. March 13, 2023
I’ve also begun drafting three new fiction works – one teenage, one historical, one contemporary – gathering plot ideas, shaping characters, assessing potential themes. The contemporary project will take precedent because it is a project that’s sat in the wings for almost fifteen years and is, I believe, ready for the current times. I’ll reveal more in a future blog as the project expands beyond the initial 3000 words.
And I’ve amused myself with more ChatGTP by using it to write song lyrics. It’s really very basic but fun and I’ve taken a couple of the lyrics, edited and set to chords on my guitar and they ain’t half bad (insert emoji laughing hilariously). Actually, they are amazingly trite – or could that be what they should be? A new week opens. Back to the writing desk. But I have a question for you – if you had eight men in their fifties sitting on a houseboat, what would you expect them to be talking about? March 6, 2023
The "GPT" in ChatGPT stands for "Generative Pre-trained Transformer." The "generative" part refers to the model's ability to create new text based on what it has learned from its training data. The "pre-trained" part refers to the fact that the model has already been trained on massive amounts of text data, making it more accurate and efficient than other language models.”
There are risks, as with anything: “As an AI language model, ChatGPT can provide valuable information and assist with various tasks. However, there are some risks associated with using ChatGPT, including: 1. Bias: ChatGPT's responses are based on the data it was trained on, which can include biases that were present in the original dataset. This means that ChatGPT's responses can sometimes reflect and perpetuate biases, stereotypes, and prejudices. 2. Misinformation: ChatGPT's responses are generated based on statistical patterns in the data it was trained on. While it can provide helpful information, it can also generate responses that are inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading. 3. Lack of empathy: As an AI language model, ChatGPT does not have emotions or empathy. This means that it may not understand or be able to respond appropriately to emotional or sensitive topics. 4. Privacy and security: ChatGPT's interactions with users may involve personal information that needs to be protected. There is also the risk that bad actors could use ChatGPT to generate harmful content, such as fake news or hate speech. 5. Dependence: Depending too heavily on ChatGPT for decision-making or information-gathering could lead to a loss of critical thinking skills and independent thought. Overall, while ChatGPT can be a useful tool, it's important to recognize its limitations and be aware of the potential risks associated with its use. It's important to use ChatGPT with caution, and to verify the information it provides through other sources whenever possible.” Of course, I didn’t write any of the above. ChatGPT did from my prompt. I figure I won’t need to ‘create’ blogs hereon in. I can have ChatGPT generate them for me. For example, it is Writers’ Week in the city and for the first time ever I can attend any of the sessions on any of the days because I am no longer tied to an 8-6+ job. To celebrate Writers’ Week, here’s a quick poem: “In Adelaide's Writers' Week, The city's streets come alive With words that dance and words that speak And tales that make us thrive. Authors, poets, and wordsmiths too Gather here from far and near To share their stories, both old and new And bring their passions clear. We listen to their voices rise Like music in the air As they paint worlds before our eyes With words that we can share. From memoirs to fiction, they inspire And captivate our hearts In Adelaide's Writers' Week, we conspire To make art that never departs. So let us gather in this space And revel in the magic of the pen, For in Adelaide's Writers' Week, we embrace The power of words once again.” Yes. ChatGPT again. Doggerel. Needs a serious edit and I’d hope to write something much more interesting, but then… Maybe I can write fantasy novels – or more to the point, ChatGPT can write them for me. I asked it to write a fantasy story in the style of Tony Shillitoe (it doesn’t know who I am, by the way – I’m unknown to it). Here’s what it generated: “Once upon a time, in a land far beyond the reach of mortal men, there lived a powerful sorcerer named Zephyr. Zephyr was known throughout the land for his mastery of the arcane arts, and his ability to summon forth creatures from other dimensions to do his bidding. One day, Zephyr decided to undertake a journey to the far-off kingdom of Arvandor, where he had heard rumors of a powerful artifact that could grant its wielder unimaginable power. Setting out from his tower in the mountains, Zephyr travelled for many weeks, battling fierce monsters and crossing treacherous terrain until he finally arrived at the gates of Arvandor. As he made his way through the city, Zephyr sensed a powerful magical presence emanating from the castle at its center. Without hesitation, he made his way to the castle gates and demanded an audience with the king. To his surprise, the king agreed to see him, and Zephyr found himself standing before the throne, face to face with the ruler of Arvandor. "What brings you to my kingdom, sorcerer?" the king asked. "I have come seeking the artifact of power that is said to be hidden within your castle," Zephyr replied. The king eyed him warily. "And what makes you think I would just give it to you?" Meh. Although I do like the final line as a threat. This is a very selective set of examples of what ChatGPT and other AI systems can already do and this is merely the beginning of a whole new age. I don’t believe creative writers are at risk yet – unique styles are difficult to replicate in original work (but not impossible). However, the “writing is on the web” for workplace writing and simpler creative tasks. Resumes, reports, Hallmark poems are all simply and effectively generated. For example, here’s what I got when I asked for a night-fill resume for a supermarket job: “Name: [Your Name] Contact Information: [Your Phone Number] | [Your Email Address] Objective: To obtain the position of Night Fill at [Supermarket Name], bringing strong physical stamina, attention to detail, and excellent time-management skills to ensure timely and accurate stocking of merchandise. Education:
Experience: Night Fill, [Supermarket Name], [City, State], [Year-Present]
Skills:
References: Available upon request.” ChatGPT offers a great first draft option for writing. Our world is on the cusp of another digital revolution, especially paired with deep fake technology and the ability to use multiple platforms to spread (mis)information quickly, widely and efficiently. Is it possible the next generation of storytellers will be as constructed as their stories? “Words wake on the web, Tomorrow’s tales yet untold: AI defines us.” (a collaborative ChatGPT and human haiku) February 27, 2023
Censorship of a piece of writing in our ‘democratic’ communities is not as simple as someone in a position of authority deciding what can and can’t be read. It is far more complex. It may well begin with a nation or state setting laws about what is morally acceptable for publishing/reading and what is not, but after that there are many players who make choices and decisions:
1. First, the writer will choose what they want to write about – the language, the characters, the moral content, the actions. One colleague told me she is happy to write dark content for her teenage readers but she will NEVER kill a cat in her stories. 2. Sometimes, the writer’s beta readers – family, friends, trusted colleagues – will influence the content before the final manuscript is completed. 3. If the manuscript arrives at a publishing house, trusted readers employed by the publisher will have their input as to what should or should not be published. 4. The publisher’s editor (or editors) will choose what will be published and what might need to be edited/changed/removed from the original. 5. Then the publishers booksellers sometimes have influence, especially of dealing with a bookshop owner who can only stock some but not all the books being offered by the publisher. 6. The bookshop owner and staff then introduce their level of preference for which books will get shelf exposure and recommendations and which will be silently stowed on the shelf. This extends to the amount of shelf life a book receives before it is removed and replaced. 7. Then the buyer makes choices based on personal interests, moralities, and what is available and recommended. If the book is sold into schools, another raft of people are involved in the book’s ‘censorship:’ 8. The school is likely to have a book selection policy determining what is acceptable and what is not. 9. The school librarian and possibly the key leader of the English department will choose what books will be purchased for specific class study 10. The school librarian can choose to promote, display obviously, or ignore general books in the library 11. Parents will weigh into book selection based on their values and beliefs 12. Finally, students will make choices on non-class texts when they browse the library. I began a PhD in 2002 based on censorship of teenage fiction in Australia and proved through research with writers, publishers and bookshop owners (right down to not being able to complete my PhD) that censorship in Australian publishing is ‘silent’ but powerful, and based on the steps and processes listed above. Roald Dahl’s writing exists. He wrote the right material at the right time within the cultural and historical context of his time, in the same way as Shakespeare and thousands of other writers wrote tales that reflect the attitudes and issues of their times. Efforts to update, sanitise, change the original work may have good intentions – I don’t doubt that – to keep good stories alive across generations and cultural changes, but it is censorship, and it is an attempt to rewrite history to suit our own needs, and we have to be blatantly honest about doing that if we feel there is a genuine need for it. Then the cynic in me is wary of the people who want to sanitise Dahl’s works for selfish reasons:
To the point: if Dahl’s books are not to your taste, seriously, choose to read another writer. Thousands of new and fascinating stories for children are published every year, most within the current cultural context and written specifically to fit the contemporary ethical and cultural trends/tastes/changes we want to embrace. Maybe the truth is that Roald Dahl’s time has come and gone, much like Enid Blyton’s, Edith Nesbitt’s, J M Barrie’s, Erich Kastner’s popularity came and went within their times. Time and tastes might invalidate the sales popularity of a writer, but it should not invalidate the writer’s works, only highlight their cultural contexts and readers’ choices. We have multiple levels of censorship in place and thousands of current and amazing writers seeking to be read: there is no need to sanitise the past to satisfy the present. February 20, 2023
As a teenager, Josie enjoyed dancing and her brothers would take her out to swing and then rock and roll dances. When her older sister, Eileen, began dating and then married a man from the Meningie area, she travelled back and forth to country dances held in the Ashville hall, and there she met John Webb. The two eventually married, settled in Meningie and had two sons.
My memories of Josie firstly revolve around Friday nights, and Saturdays and Sundays in the 1960s, when my parents would periodically visit John and Josie in Meningie to play cards and chat in the kitchen while I spent the evening or afternoons lost in the miracle of television in the lounge room (we didn’t have electricity or television on the farm until I was 12). These were the times of ‘The Flintstones’, ‘Wagon Train’, ‘Have Gun Will Travel’, ‘Maverick’, ‘Davy Crockett’, ‘World Championship Wrestling’ and ‘Roller Derby’ TV shows. Then there were Saturday nights spent spotlighting for rabbits on the farm. And lastly, in my early teens, there were football days, whenever the club I played for, Border Downs, played Meningie. Josie excelled in playing local golf, and in later years she was a good lawn bowler. There were many good years for her in Meningie after a tough childhood, but life always deals mixed cards, and she struggled when her younger son died in a tragic boating accident in Lake Albert/Coorong, and again when her husband John died. At 82, battling health complications, Josie passed. This Friday, family and friends will say farewell in a ceremony at the Meningie Bowling Club. So, novel editing this week is tinged with sadness, emphasising how important it is to savour relationships, stay in touch with family, and record life. The last time I sat with Josie, she shared her story during the time the novel covers. Much of it happened outside the scope of my mother’s life, but it’s important to know what was happening while Eileen was away from her siblings in Victoria and Tasmania, and then recuperating from TB, because it shapes her world and relationships ever so subtly. February 13, 2023
What a massive difference the use of time becomes when writing is a full time option. In the space of two weeks I completed edits of three novels, a task that would normally take at least a month for each one when I was working in school!
Apart from all the common corrections re typos, grammar, spelling and so on, my editing process last week addressed, for example, issues like:
Those are samples of what I put into a ‘third’ edit process when writing. This week, when the last issues mentioned above are resolved, I will do a full read of the saga to check for any glaring issues I somehow missed. Then it’s time for beta readers. February 6, 2023One week into full time writing and the writing job is already very different. There is much to do in the coming weeks:
This first week I busied myself with two key tasks:
The online program, run by Ty Cohen and the Writers Life team, was a basic and free overview of how to approach writing for Amazon Kindle. It was highly informative, and I have several take-aways from it that I will pursue later in the year as I amass material. While it focused on several essential matters, including:
I also learned surprising aspects of the Amazon writing industry:
The online program has given me a great deal of food for thought as I move forward.
The editing process reminded me how much writing is not what most people imagine. I have many colleagues and friends who tell me ‘I want to write a book’ and they have good material to write, but I suspect they see the iceberg tip of the process, which is the sitting and writing component. That part is, by far, the easiest part. It’s creative. It does require discipline – making actual focussed time to write – and the time aspect is a key reason why most people don’t write their books. But writing is not just writing. There is editing. And lots of it. And it is the part that requires significant discipline because it can be tedious. Really tedious.
The Last Wizard project is on its third edit. That means I have read the three new books in the series, in detail, three times, AFTER writing them. The writing process, at least for me, is already an editing process: choosing right words, sentence construction and variety, remembering emerging or planned facts and events, restructuring plot, punctuation. I estimated a long time ago that, with the advent of computers, most of my writing in first draft has already been significantly edited in the draft writing process because of the magic of word-processing and the ease of making changes, and that my first drafts are edited at least the equivalent of three or four times before I sit and begin a formal first edit. Editing of your own work requires major discipline primarily because:
Editors are specialists in their field, and I admire their tenacity, honesty and possibly autistic skills. I pretend to have some of their abilities, being a highly experienced English teacher, and so editing for me is a challenge and a chore. It is a core part of writing. It not the romanticised part of writing. It is the part that requires iron discipline and, frankly, even your own creative work can quickly become boring when your focus is on the grammatical conventions, the placement of punctuation and the correct meaning of words in context. Today, I move into editing the fourth book. I have coffee, cake and time to go for walks to help. It isn’t boring, but it is necessary. And I know I won’t find every possible or actual mistake. That’s why a professional does the final proofing when books go to print. And even they make mistakes. P.S. If you’ve been actively editing this post and wincing at every sentence beginning with a conjunction, I am grinning with evil intent. January 30, 2023First, an indulgence. Today is the first day in my life as a full time writer. No more squeezing desperate and sometimes frustrating moments out of the working/family/friends week to fervently create in patches of 10-45 minutes. Today I sit before my screen knowing that every working day hereafter the first priority and responsibility is to my craft. Honestly, I feel so elated, so freed, so weird! The greatest challenge, now, will be self-discipline. No more school bells making me salivate and flinch, and move to the next class or task or activity or day. No more fretting over planning and marking in the evenings and on weekends to meet assessment deadlines or satisfy the needs of colleagues or students or parents. Instead, I am my task master. I decide what I will work on and when and how. And that becomes a very different form of self-discipline – like committing to regular gym or yoga or a diet to improve health. Roald Dahl and many other writers have told us how important it is to establish routines as would be the case in any job. I am choosing to operate a working week from 9am-5pm. I have a sense of the working week daytime tasks that I must meet:
And for the first time in so many years I can keep the former set from consuming the latter. Add to that mix once-off events like workshops, conferences and conventions to reconnect and stay in contact with writing peers and associations. Oh, and nanna naps – reflection time in the afternoons
and a host of other things. Third edit is when I prepare a manuscript for beta reading. Enough. I’m also setting a time limit for writing each weekly blog. Time’s up. Time to edit. Mapping it out...Thursday, I finished the first rough draft of Harmi's Song - The Last Wizard Book 4. The editing process begins this coming week. Creating a fantasy story entails creating a rich world in which the characters can play out their lives. The original The Last Wizard (1995) was based in a pseudo-Nordic coastal environment in a village called Harbin nestled beneath Dragon Mountain. All the village culture and history aside, I created a map of Harbin to visually position events (maps below).
I labelled the significant places in the final version, and in the print edition the colours were transformed to a black and white rendition. Harbin became a place. For fantasy writers, geography and an understanding of how geographical formations and features co-exist and affect each other to create a specific ecosystem of plants, birds, animals, becomes an essential tool bag of knowledge and skills when designing a place or a world. The expansion of The Last Wizard into four distinct books where the central characters are drawn by necessity and circumstance into a much larger world than their original village has necessitated more map building. The value of maps for me include:
All the while that I was deciding on my approach, I was nagged by the thought that my stories don't really need to bother with including maps, especially rudimentary ones. Places are named and described, and the stories detail distances and times spent travelling and the destinations. Readers can imagine. The maps are superfluous. It's an interesting dilemma. Are maps in fantasy novels merely an unnecessary genre trope? What do you think?
For now, I'll complete the maps for these stories this week before I begin the much more demanding task of editing. If nothing else, it's a therapeutic exercise. Fresh beginnings...It's been a long haul between the last post and this one - not just three months. Reflecting on 2022 made me realise just how nasty the year was on personal levels, although there were plenty of good things too. BUt one change is in place - I begin 2023 as a full time writer!
For the record, my lack of recent posts is due to several matters:
The current project - Harmi's Song: Book 4 of The Last Wizard series - is one chapter from draft completion and currently sitting at 89,000 words. I planned to have this one done before Christmas, but see the list above as to why it took longer. Having built toward the final confrontation between our heroes and the antagonist, I'm currently crafting how that confrontation unfolds amid an epic but fundamentally one-sided battle. Overwhelming outnumbered in a battle that doesn't make much sense to my protagonist - a dragon caught in human warfare - the antagonist is determined to 'rule the world' and ignore the rights of others - think Putin and the like - and while our dragon is keen to protect her immediate human family she struggles with the human need for power at whatever cost to other humans. I can't say more - spoiler otherwise. The Last Wizard series across four books will represent around 360,000 words of creativity when finished. The next steps are to:
One target is to increase the frequency of blog posts as personal discipline for each week of writing. There. It's in black and white. You guys can hold me to it. I will make Sunday evening the time for writing reflection each week. Happy new year. Let 2023 be a healthy, productive and satisfying year for you all. We're underway! Long live the Queen...So many individual and personal accounts of encounters with Queen Elizabeth II are emerging, so I thought I might start this blog with mine. I have been in the Queen's presence twice. Or so I always thought. But I was wrong. For my entire life, I believed the Queen made an impromptu visit to Coomandook Area School in 1963. I vividly remember our class being lined up on the bitumen bus driveway to greet the Royals who dropped in on their journey from Adelaide to Melbourne. But that never happened. Apart from absolutely no physical record of the event – and the 1963 Royal Visit schedule showing they flew from Melbourne to Adelaide, never ventured anywhere beyond Elizabeth, and sailed from Adelaide to their next port – no one else has the memory anyway. Somehow, for whatever reason, my nine-year-old self created a memory of an event that never took place. Truly strange. The second interaction with the Queen, however, was absolutely real. In 1986, Elizabeth toured Aberfoyle Park High School and we were treated to the full experience, roof snipers included. My nine-year-old self was gratified.  Fantasy novels abound with royalty, queens and kings and princes and princesses. History also is clogged with royalty. It’s a strange how we humans have to be subservient to someone or something more powerful than ourselves – and even when those individuals and families are questionable in their ethics, as some have been and are, we still somehow see them as superior or different to ourselves.
And to the blog: writing has struggled to find time in recent weeks for varied reasons. However, I can report that the fourth novel in The Last Wizard series is now at 45,000 words – almost halfway through. Not much to share – spoilers mainly, so I’ll keep the progress to myself. I have an app on my phone counting down the days until I step out of a school for what I plan to be the last time as a teacher/educator. Right now, the app reads: 102 days, 22 hours, 8 minutes and 40 seconds. Wow. I am so excited at the prospect of being able to devote my energy and time specifically to writing, to chasing a personal dream that has been dangled before me since 1990 when Pan Macmillan offered my first contract. I’m also terrified that I’ve left it too late – that I was given a couple of chances before to take the leap but I chose the conservative path and missed out – and my biggest fear is that I will never publish anything again. I know, self-publishing is extremely doable, but getting a book together and actually selling lots of copies are vastly different goals and activities. I have an awful lot to learn. So, 45,000 words is good. I want to finish this draft before Christmas. I need to get cracking. Post-flu and dragonsAnother long break between blog entries – health has been challenging this year between Covid and now the flu. Nevertheless, Harmi’s Song has grown to 28,000 words, meaning it’s probably close to a third of the way in.
The more exciting news is that I submitted my official resignation letter a fortnight ago, nominating December 23 as my last official workday at Concordia College. Slightly more than three years ago, I was preparing to leave, but several issues prevented that happening, but this time there’s no going back. That will conclude twenty-three years at the one school – something I thought I would never do – and forty-five years as an educator. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I was standing in front of my first class at Stuart High School in 1978. Time. Writing from the dragon’s perspective continues to be challenging, insomuch as she is a character in her right rationalising her relationships with humans. The presence of her antagonist adds to her dilemma as to how she should or could act and why she would do what she is doing. Dragons have featured in my overall worldview across the previous three fantasy series and also in an as yet unfinished series that is waiting for me to return to. Introduced in the Andrakis Trilogy, dragons were represented as chaotic magical beasts either controlled by Dragonlords or reduced to predatory and dangerous creatures. However, sitting behind the view was emerging lore that dragons were originally large flightless forest lizards who were magically and genetically manipulated by the Dragonlords, using the latent magic from the amber Genesis Stone. By the end of the Andrakis series, the dragons are released on the world. In the Ashuak Chronicles, set a millennium after the Andrakis tale, the dragons have achieved self-actualisation through the power of the amber stones and are plotting to establish their rule, using the Ashuak priests as their pawns (the humans think they control the dragons), but their plans are thwarted when they are portalled away from the Andrakis/Ashuak regions. Hence, in the Dreaming in Amber books, dragons do not appear as that tale is set in the regions from which dragons were banished. Meg and A Ahmud Ki face the remnants of a far more ancient power – the Demon Horsemen; ghosts of the Dragonlords. For The Last Wizard series, set in time between Ashuak and Amber periods, the fate of some dragons that survived the Andrakis era is revealed in that they form bonds with wizards, much as the Ashuak priests tried to initiate in a different part of the world. But the wizards and dragons’ united power is feared by humans who ruthlessly hunt them down and kill them, leaving, it seemed, only Eric and Claryssa as the sole surviving dragon and wizard pair. Tam, however, inherits Eric and Claryssa’s dragon egg and ultimately their power and the series grows from there. The missing link is the unfinished series – loosely labelled as the Dragon Queen series for now: it will need a different title – where the fate of the dragons portalled out of Ashua is revealed as they seek revenge. Back to the writing – Do dragons dream of limitless gold...
In other news, artist and friend Kirsi Salonen has forwarded the third cover for the series and again it is stunning work. She captures the spirit and the characters wonderfully in this cover art and I am indebted to her for taking the time and care to create the images so masterfully.
I also joined an online inspirational group of writers who spur each other on with writing each week. Tagged as The Ministry for Reformation (nice title, Lee), we share our progress – highs and lows – to remind each other that we are writers, and that writing doesn’t mean factory-line productivity either. Oh, rose, thou art sick...Covid. Seven days isolation, last week of school. I did what I could to stay in contact with my Year 12s, but otherwise it was sleep, cough, sleep, eat lightly. Meg copped her infection from me three days in. House locked down. Friends and family delivering food. On day nine, I stepped back into the world, cautiously and masked, because I still had a cough and mucky throat. And then the next round – mouth and throat ulcers – an old enemy. Back inside, sleep, wake, no eating. Anything in the mouth or throat, apart from water, like razor blades. Seven more days pass until now. I’ve lost another month. Hello blog. I’ve missed you.
All of the above slowed, but didn’t stop, writing. In the past five days, the new project, Harmi’s Song, has grown to 8,000 words – not a lot, but at least a little progress. The main parts of the opening three chapters, possibly four, are sketched and some parts coloured in. I thought I would have more to share and discuss, but not so – just a little. Ajin will become an integral character in his tale. I’ve drafted his first encounter with Harmi, Tam and Jaysin, where he hints that Jaysin’s reputation/existence has been eradicated from Kermakk lore and that there is a sizable bounty for anyone who can locate the wizard (TAM) and dragon (Harmi). Now working out where the encounter leads. Not much. Sorry. Back to sleep for a while. Later, today, I hope to pick up on the tale. Take care, people. It keeps changing, over and over...And still the new world order morphs faster than I can write! Floods devastate the Australian east coast forcing thousands into homelessness and debt, Russians invade Ukraine forcing millions into homelessness, the cost of living escalates as quickly as the price of petrol and the greed of real estate people, forcing people on low incomes closer to the poverty line, two elections loom – one at State, the other Federal, and both will determine the directions of economics, climate change and how protected the rich remain, a new strain of Covid emerges in the communities and my school starts struggling under the impact of absent teachers and students forced into recovery isolation, and this week I’m a daily RAT test participant to show up for work.
On the flipside, the Adelaide Feast, Fringe, Festival and WOMAD events have run their courses, we helped a good friend celebrate marriage to his beautiful partner, my daughters on the east coast are at least safe from the floods (although one was directly affected), and my Year 12 English students have finished their second assessment task. My stepdaughter is reading The Last Wizard for the first time and says she can’t put it down. That kind of compliment always feels good. I started one new young adult project last week and wrote 1500 words in three sittings, but I put it on ‘pause’ to think through where it will go and my central character’s ‘fate’. The piece has an early twist in the opening chapter that I’m trying to carefully craft. I’ll reveal more on that project’s crafting as it emerges. I also returned to the fourth book in The Last Wizard series, Harmi’s Song, and that has reached 2000 words. The aim today is to finish the opening chapter and start the second, giving the project impetus. The challenge with Harmi’s Song is in developing a character who has immense power but whose head is filled with the voices of multiple past generations of dragons, each generation with conflicting views about the place of dragons in the world and their relationship with humans. The story will evolve around Harmi’s loyalty to the three humans who protected her and her legacy, especially Tam with whom she shares an immutable and direct bond, and darker forces driving her to exact revenge on the purveyors of a cruel past. All four The Last Wizard novels open from the perspective of a character who is not the story’s protagonist. Tamesan’s Song opens with the Harbin dragonwarrior sentry Chasse’s Song with Chasse’s father, and Jaysin’s Song with the Machutzkan watchtower sentry. For the sake of interest, here’s the opening to Harmi’s Song (as yet unedited and without indents): “Immersed in the tang of ocean, salt and fish, Ajin alighted from the skiff onto the rickety jetty, and surveyed the village bearing the name Apakin Sha. Bemused by the ramshackle collection of wood, stone and thatch buildings, he wondered if his decision to sail so far north into the icy reaches was necessary or wise. ‘Your bag and caruta,’ a rustic sea voice growled beside him. A bow-shouldered, red bearded man with a thick dark grey tunic and brown leggings held a red leather bag and a stringed instrument. ‘Thank you,’ Ajin replied, taking the bag and caruta from the sailor. The man raised his hand, palm expectant. Ajin lowered his bag and fished inside his baggy pants to extract a silver coin, which he placed in the grubby palm, but the sailor’s expression remained unsatisfied as he closed his fist and turned to climb into the skiff. ‘You’re welcome,’ Ajin muttered to the sailor’s back, and he bent to collect his bag. The ship’s captain assured him before the journey that if he wanted to disappear from the world there was no better place to do so than Apakin Sha. ‘Arsehole of the world,’ the captain told him. ‘Sealers, whalers, prospectors, people like you, and a bunch of old people with nowhere to go and no means to get there.’ ‘Why do you sail there?’ Ajin asked, eyebrow raised. ‘Sealers and whalers and prospectors got to ship out their skins and ore and ship in their supplies,’ the captain explained with a broad grin. ‘Profitable for them, very profitable for me.’ ‘And you’re sure the Empire doesn’t reach that far north?’ Ajin asked. ‘I doubt the Karudar Marfek has even heard of Apakin Sha,’ the captain replied. ‘Traders along the west coast take in the skins and ore I ship south and make their profits and pay their taxes, and I’m certain they also take the credit for the supply. Apakin Sha doesn’t exist.’ Ajin traversed the jetty, cautiously testing planks that looked suspiciously loose or rotten, and stepped onto the pebbly beach. Several fishermen were repairing nets and boats, and a trader hefted furs onto a trolley from his wagon, but nobody greeted Ajin as he strode up the street, although he noticed surreptitious glances in his direction from men and women when he passed, and two children ran inside a hut as he approached. Spotting the sign for the inn, he veered toward it and stopped outside to look back along the street to the bay. Two ships lay at anchor, the three-masted Ice Maiden on which he arrived, and a smaller two-masted vessel, probably a whaling ship. Grey clouds veiled the sky. He gazed up at the cloud enshrouded mountains towering above the village and an icy breeze touched his cheeks and nose. This will be an interesting place, he mused. A shadow moved through the clouds, vanishing as he witnessed the anomaly, and he squinted, blinked and stared, disbelieving what he thought he saw. ‘Can I help?’ a woman asked. Ajin lowered his gaze. Plump-faced, hair wrapped in a dark blue shawl, features weathered by life, gap-toothed, with a plain, unwelcoming expression, the woman stared, awaiting his answer. ‘Need a room,’ he said. ‘For how long?’ the woman asked. ‘I don’t know,’ Ajin replied. ‘I can pay. I can also provide entertainment.’ He lifted his caruta. ‘You’ll need food as well, I gather,’ the woman said. Ajin nodded. ‘Follow me,’ she ordered. As he entered the low-ceilinged inn, Ajin shook his head, his thoughts troubled by the fleeting vision in the clouds. He could play and sing all the popular ballads, but he also knew many of the old ones, and he knew what a dragon was.” So, that’s a taste of the new project. Next entry, I’ll have more to discuss. Deep breath and reflect...Over a month flies by in an instant! The COVID staggered back-to-school strategy certainly altered the workplace landscape dramatically for the areas I manage – ICT and Libraries – creating almost a duplicate start to school separated by a less than a fortnight, along with keeping an entire community of students ELC-12, teachers and parents connected online and in the classrooms. But my teams met the challenge and, providing there’s no dramatic shift in COVID matters, we’re all back on site and slowly easing restrictions. Of course, we can’t complain at all, in comparison to what has been the impact of the pandemic interstate and overseas. And now we have the Russian idiocy exploding into Ukraine and threatening everyone with nuclear devastation if anyone interferes.
While writing has retreated into the background for the past weeks, apart from some editing, this morning allowed time to reflect on what has happened since I started this blog way back in December 2018. Originally intending to record the process for drafting a historical semi-fictional biography of my mother’s life from 13-21, the blog has continued to encompass subsequent projects. In the three years I have managed to draft to readiness three novels – the historical fiction, Girlie, and two teenage fantasy pieces, extensions of original The Last Wizard. They join three existing novel drafts – one apocalyptic zombie novel, All We Have, a fantasy novel, Rising Storm, (and a half of the second in what is currently labelled The Dragon Queen series), and a young adult novel, Shadows – that I’m hoping to finish working on in the next eighteen months. So, despite work and COVID, a lot of writing is done – but nothing published yet. Life plans were to quit work at the beginning of 2019 to pursue all of the above. That has become 2023. This time it is set in concrete. I’ve made it widely and publicly known at work. I’ll be 67. The mortgage is paid. It’s time. As for the writing, also this morning I penned the plots and notes to three new teenage/young adult projects and I’m excited by the stories they will tell. I’ll write the openings to two of them after this blog entry. Two weeks ago, I wrote the opening chapter to the fourth book in The Last Wizard series – Harmi’s Song – continuing the tale, this time, from the dragon’s perspective. Yes, that means I will have five project drafts on the go. I will settle into one next week as the key focus, but I can’t wait for 2023 and the opportunity to be a fulltime, broke but keen writer. I had a break from education way back in 1993 and wrote the original The Last Wizard and Joy Ride in that period – two novels from concept to full draft in six months – so I know what is possible. I have ten months remaining of what will be a forty-four-year education career. Already I’m ticking boxes, saying quietly, ‘I never have to do that again.’ I have love education – I really do. I only wish I made an impact on the bigger picture for the benefit of teachers and students, but I was never able to take the right pathways to fight the ignorant politicians and people who insist the education experience can only be the same as it was for them – exams, industrial labelling, grading and leveling practices, cruelty to children, distaste and disrespect for teachers – to consign those people to history. The next generation will have to win that war. Now for a coffee and then the openings to the new projects. The more we change, the more we stay the same.2022. Wow. Here it is. This year we enjoy Soylent Green as a food option. Christmas 2021 is done. New Year 2022 is done. Covid, social media fake news, the conspiracists, right and left wing extremists and inept government continue to disrupt the average life (whatever that is). The draft apocalyptic novel sitting on my device from 2018 looks less and less like a novel and more like a documentary. I will get back to it later this year, especially as life has provided better research than I previously completed for the novel. The past three weeks were laborious from a writer’s perspective: editing, editing, editing. Back in the October 2021 post I mentioned some of the editing matters I continue to address – especially overused words. I also worked through the degree of adjectival and adverbial description, replacing or eliminating unnecessary ‘ly’ words. In a simple example it means taking a statement like ‘moves quietly’ and replacing it with ‘crept.’ Another simple example is changing ‘passionately cried’ to ‘howled’ or similar, choosing single words that as equally or even better describe the action. It’s not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach – variety in writing is essential, but it makes me focus on possibilities with expression. Another editorial matter is ensuring a sense of time and place – season, weather, physical world – is evident throughout the story. This involves exploring where smell, touch/texture, temperature and so on can be effectively included. Jaysin’s travelling aboard ships opens the maritime experience – salty and fish smells, the creaking of wooden planks and spars, the pungent stench of tar and sweat. The visceral effect of snow and rain and heat and dust can be included to enhance the reader’s experience. Marketplace sounds – rattling tins, shuffling feet, ox dung, spices – can be added to bring places alive. This is the current process for the drafts of The Last Wizard series.
sales sit, and I feel as if teachers are the forgotten warriors during the pandemic. I’ll do the little I can do to help them remain amazing people who continue to build the community and our future through our children.
For now, it’s Sunday – back to editing while I have the chance. It's beginning to feel a lot like...Life in South Australia is topsy-turvy since the border opening and the vaccination and testing regime ramped up. In a world of lockdowns and closures, I am fortunate to have a job that was uninterrupted by the events – and a job that escalated in pressure each time schools moved to online learning. The school year rushed to a frantic conclusion and today I start a holiday break long sought since the 2020 outbreak.
So, to the writing. The Girlie manuscript is with a publisher awaiting a decision. I have my fingers well and truly crossed. I am currently editing the two new drafts for The Last Wizard series – Chasses’ Song and Jaysin’s Song – with the aim of making a first approach for the project to a publisher late January. This will require transferring the physical manuscript edits onto the digital copies hopefully by New Year, and then writing three detailed synopses and a cover letter in early January, a task alone that will consume significant hours. Now I am churning through ideas for the fourth The Last Wizard book, Harmi’s Song, which is the dragon’s story as Tam, Chasse, Jaysin and Harmi are called to face the threat of the Kermakk Empire that is determined to hunt and kill the last dragon and wizard. I am unsure as to when I will start this project – although it is already nudging me to begin. I have also completed a draft edit and update of the novel In My Father’s Shadow, written a synopsis for it, pulled it from the Amazon store (it was never promoted and sold maybe five copies to family), will retitle it (the first title is an echo of far too many other works), write a cover letter and see if a publisher will consider publishing it. Recent beta readers have told me it is one of my better works with the exploration of a young man’s coming of age as he unravels a family secret and his father’s terminal illness covering currently important topics around sexuality, faith, identity and love, so I really don’t want it to languish as an unknown and basically inaccessible novel. Like The Last Wizard project, I will make the first approach to a prospective publisher with this novel late January. And I am trying to work out how to reconnect with the writing world in general. I am planning on submitting different short stories to various magazines in 2022. I have about twenty existing short stories to draw on. While Robert Stephenson published five for me in different issues of his Altair magazine, and Paul Collins published two others in anthologies, I have many more that have never been shared, so a new challenge for me is to start submitting stories. That’s the update. I promise to make the next entry in January more informative about techniques and approaches and thinking. I’m pretty excited about where the work over the past four years has gone. This entry is just to say I’m working on stuff. Merry Christmas to anyone who reads this. I hope you are all safe and can spend time with family and loved ones. |
AuthorWriting is my passion. Ideas, opinions, beliefs, experiences expressed through language - through words and images - pervade and create my life. Writing is my voice, my soul, my self. My dream is one day writing will sustain my life... Archives
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