Inspired by success.

Years ago, it seemed like it was only a crazy dream. Me? A published author? Sure I'd strung a play or two together and seen them performed, but aside from the very trashy novel that I wrote when I was 15, I hadn't written a complete novel. That was the first step.

And five complete first drafts of different novel-length stories, I call myself a yet-to-be-published writer. (I can't count the group anthologies). But there's a bit more involved in becoming published, and there's that big hurdle called submission. I've submitted to contests and magazines but have yet to put myself completely out there by submitting to a real live publisher. It's almost time.

For many years now, I have been hanging out in writing communities - online and in real life. And watching other people's success has inspired me and provided me with the perserverance to keep at this strange world of publishing.

First: Marley Gibson. I met Marley online in around 2000 or 2001 when we were both hanging out at Red Dress Ink and writing chick lit. Marley has since found success with Young Adult writing and her first two novels were released two weeks ago, writing as Kate Harmon. I'm looking forward to reading it, and will be putting in my order to Amazon now.

Secondly, my real life friend Roby, who will have three fantasy novels coming out in 2009 with Pan MacMillan. I was there when she got not quite 'the call' but 'the-we're-very-interested-call' and could share directly in the excitement with her. Roby has been generous enough to share her journey with me and the rest of our writers group, including anecdotes from lunches, the pitfalls of editing etc and the full manuscript. Very exciting!

This is Roby, after finding out that Pan MacMillan wanted to speak to her.

Lastly, I became friends with Rachel Charlton/Rhian Cahill when we both did Nanowrimo last year. The novel she wrote during Nano has been requested after a publisher did a surf-by of her blog and read an excerpt of a different novel. How cool is that! So Rach/Rhian has encouraged me to get my work out there:

So I'm out of the writing closet (not that I've exactly been in it). I have a new blog which will focus on writing and excerpts from my work and you can visit it here.


Eventually I will have excerpts all five novel-length stories on the site, plus the occasional collage poem, and featured products from my Cafepress store.


It has been so inspirational sharing in the success of my writing buddies. It shows me that it's not just a far-fetched fantasy that only happens to the lucky ones. It happens to real people. It happens to the people with dedication, perserverance and talent! And I plan to be one of those people.

Available in the Writers' Zone in my Cafepress store.

Back to the editing!

My Writing Journey

Rachel left a challenge on her blog to talk about our 'call to writing'. The following piece I composed a year ago as a homework exercise for my writers' group.

Once upon a time I wanted to be a writer. I dreamed about it. I envisioned it. I talked about it. And occasionally I wrote.

I was consumed by the relentless pace of the city. I was out almost every night of the week, at the theatre, the cinema or opening nights at work. I was gathering writing material, experiencing life, and dumping the events and memories into a filing cabinet into my mind, unsorted and unexamined. Rarely writing anything down.

My journal entries were sporadic and did not live up to my intentions. Looking back, I regret not keeping a log of the theatre productions I attended. The files in my filing cabinet have become damaged and incomplete and sometimes I can’t find the key to unlock the memories.
I made many excuses not to write. I was too busy. There were not enough hours in the day. My hand could not keep up with my thoughts. But they were all just excuses. I could choose to write anyway.

Ten years ago I made the decision to learn to be a writer. I moved to Adelaide and enrolled in a Professional Writing Course. I knew that I could no longer be distracted by the constant stimulation of Sydney.

It was a start. I learned about style and structure, editing, character, outlining, writing short stories and novels. But the course was the highligh of my week and my daily life was falling apart as I took on the mind-numbing ask of preparing loan documents for scanning at the Westpac Mortgage Centre. I applied for jobs in the theatre and arts industry and was constantly disheartened by the parochial and condescending attitude of the reigning arts administrators.
So it was time to sell up and move back to a friendlier town before I tied myself to the Glenelg tram line.

My father had moved to Kempsey and said we should join him. We looked at the map before bundling our possessions and drugged-out cat into the car, and decided we would end up either in Port Macquarie or Coffs Harbour.

And then I was offered a job in Nambucca so I moved. The job fell through. I wondered what the hell I was doing in this town with no job and no prospects. Until I joined the Nambucca Valley Writers Group.

A few months later I started work in Coffs Harbour but by the time I moved north, I had bonded with the writers of the Nambucca Valley. By tackling new writing exercises, I learned that I didn’t need a writing course to learn how to write. I just needed to do it.

Here I am, three complete first drafts, one nearly complete first draft, and one started novel later. Since joining the group, I’ve written more than 340,000 words and created more than thirty collage poems. I’ve learned that ideas will always come if you just take the time to write. I’ve learned that writing every day keeps the muse happy and your writing world just below the surface ready to access with a stroke of a pen or the tapping of the keyboard. I’ve learned that there is no better high than a creative high – when the words are perfect and the characters are alive and you are inhabiting a world of your own creation.

Postscript: since writing this piece I have joined RWA and attended the conference in 2008. While I don't strictly write romance, all my stories have a girl and a guy and usually a happy ending. But the theme of all my novel-length pieces so far is 'finding yourself through some form of creativity'. Which is exactly how I'm living my life.

Cumulative word count is more than 400,000 words (see sidebar for breakdown) and the well of creativity is never dry.

In the last 12 months, Nambucca Valley Writers Group has expanded exponentially. Last Saturday, we added another 4 members to our group. We now have members in Coffs Harbour, Taree, South West Rocks, Melbourne and even one member who spends six months of each year in Vanuatu. Yes, we have become international. And this year, we celebrate our 20 year anniversary.

Returning to I'm with the Band

I haven't got the hang of re-drafting yet. I start panicking, ending up with too many versions of the one scene and never quite working out which one to use or which one I've been editing. I have to focus and get better at this or I will never reach my goal of being published.


So I read the hard copy of I'm with the Band, but it's very possible that there are more scenes than what is in those pages. I need to do a skim through the most recent version and write an outline of what I already have. So I started going through my writing folders and found a document titled 'I'm with the Band Story Notes.' Wow! I'm more organised than I thought. This has a line or paragraph on each of the missing scenes plus the new opening (well two paragraphs of it, but it's a start!). So I shall now skim the latest version and insert the missing scenes into the outline. Then I shall keep writing. I need to give Kat and Matt (have to change the name because they rhyme) a suitable outcome.

One thing I like about this particular work in progress is that it gives me the excuse to listen to Moving Pictures really loud. Seeing the acoustic tour and meeting Alex Smith again in 2005 gave me the inspiration for the novel as I wanted to capture the feeling of being 17 again. And that's the feeling that my heroine Kat also wants to capture.

So here again for your amusement is the photo of me and Alex when I was 17, at Birkenhead Point

and then me and Alex again in 2005 at Coffs Harbour.


Same pose. No reference to the first photo. 21 years apart.

Novelled out

There have been strange noises coming out of the study lately (or the cave as I like to refer to it.) Sirens, screeching tyres - Holy Batman - you'd think there was a whole city in there. And then the swearing! My partner has discovered computer games! At least it will keep him out of my hair while my mind is occupied with Nanowrimo.

I want my laptop back! Still no news and it's been more than two weeks. They had to send it away for repairs. I'm sick of this huge monster sitting on my desk. It does not make me inspired to write or edit. And although I've had a heap of ideas for 'writing' t-shirts to add to my Chickollage store, I need software that is not on this computer to create the designs. We're also looking at going wireless for our internet connection (not roaming wireless but within the house wireless). That way once I have my laptop back, I can make use of my 'idle' time watching TV by updating my Cafepress store.

I've been thinking about fairytales again and fracturing some more for this year's Nanowrimo. I had such fun writing Beyond Happily Ever After and discovering what happened to Cinderella and Snow White after they found their princes, I would like to explore some other modern fairy tales with a chick lit twist. Well, that's this week's idea! I've pulled out a book that my parents gave me in 1975 called World's Best Fairy Tales and will be reading that for inspiration. (This must be the only book I still have from my childhood). But it's only Oct 9. Much can change between now and the start of Nanowrimo. And if I do write 50,000 words of themed short stories, maybe I'm really doing NaShoStoWriMo.

All I know is that I'm novelled out. I can't keep writing reams of first draft, without committing to the second and third draft, and however many more it takes to polish it up for submission. Yes, I can say I've completed a novel. At least until 1st or 2nd draft stage. But not to the point where I'm ready to send my babies out on the street to find a home. And that's what I have to do. I've managed the gestation and the giving birth part. I just haven't quite brought them up right yet.

So it's a very conscious decision not to add to the work in progress pile but also not to let the opportunity of the Nano community pass me by. Bring on the short stories.

Blogoff ver 2 - post 2 - HOPE

I've never really subscribed to the concept of HOPE. When I was young, perhaps! But I think it was something I grew out of reasonably quickly. Neither do I subscribe to the concept of hopelessness. In every situation, we have a choice of how we react. We are never hopeless.

I did some personal development courses in my early twenties. Somebody in one of those courses defined hope as a 'turd with a cherry on top.' That image, funny enough, has stuck in the back of my mind ever since.

Hope is just a vague fancy if there is no action behind it.

When I was in my twenties, I wanted to be a writer. Yet I only wrote occasionally. I did not write with any discipline and I did not write with any intent. I was busy living a life and dreaming of one day being a writer.

About ten years ago, I re-visited my dreams of being a writer with serious intent. I committed to my dream. And I took concrete action to achieve those dreams. I started to write. I took writing lessons and workshops. I joined a writers' group.

I no longer thing about being a writer or even hope to be writer. I AM A WRITER BECAUSE I WRITE.

I can chant my writer's mantra: 'I will be a published author...I will be a published author.' But I'm not just sitting back and hoping for it. I am writing. I am editing. I am doing the hard yards. And at the same time, I'm remembering that it's not just about the destination...it's all about the journey

One day I will hold my published book in my hand. But it's not something I'm hoping for. I've done the creative visualisation. I've done the actualisation by having a Lulu.com copy of one of my manuscripts printed for myself. No, it's not something I'm hoping for. It's something I'm striving for.

One last thing about HOPE - we can all hope that one day they will find a cure for breast cancer. But we can also do something about it.

I am.

I'm blogging in this blogoff along with 20 other great bloggers listed in my blogroll. We're blogging to help Courtney raise money and to raise awareness. If you would like to do something to help the cause, then follow the links. This is the second post in Blogoff version 2. To support Courtney in her fundraising for the Three Day Walk for Breast Cancer, visit her website at Five Second Dance Party or click on this link:

When Inspiration wakes you....

It's 1 pm on Sunday afternoon and I'm still in my pyjamas. Pretty slack, hey?

But let me explain. I've been working hard. My creative juices were fired up, so I jumped on the laptop to seize the thought while it was still in my brain.

I've been staying up late reading my friend's soon-to-be-published fantasy novel trilogy. I'm up to chapter five of tiny tiny print, single spaced double sided but I'm involved in the story and I want to read all (gulp) 450,000 words.

Anyway, her success has got me inspired once again and although I slept late this morning (blame the couple of 12 hour days I worked this week), my subconscious was mulling over my young adult manuscript Diary of the Future and I woke up with a fully-composed query letter in my mind. It's now on the hard drive. It's a bit left of field but I think that's okay.

Now all I have to do is compress my five page double-spaced synosis into one single-spaced page and give those first three chapters another polishing. And I'm ready! Finally, eight years of constant writing, and I'm finally getting brave enough to submit....

Issues of formatting

So I finished my entry for the competition and submitted. Diary of the Future now opens with Nicky's little brother dropping fartbombs. I realised recently that I hadn't made use of Tommy's character quite enough. Knowing how annoying little brothers can be. (And yes Chris you were very annoying as a kid, a teenager! Who knew from that you'd turn out to be such a great father.) So now Tommy will make extra very annoying and smelly appearances because his weapon of choice is flatulence.

Last time I entered this particular competition, I received some very odd remarks from one judge who could not cope with the fact that I'd used single quotation marks instead of double quotation marks. Single quotation marks are the standard submission requirement in Australia (and I think the UK) but obviously not the standard in the US. This time, I didn't want a judge to trip over the formatting and be blinded to the story, so I formatted it US style. I changed realise to realize. I changed mobile phone to cell phone (actually did that in the synopsis but didn't do it in the sample chapters.) And I changed the quotation marks. Don't you love find and replace? It's a marvellous thing. Until you realise that all your apostrophes are now double quotation marks. And there as a lot of them! You see, I'm quite fond of contractions. Especially in dialogue. It took quite a while to go through all those pages and change those apostrophes back. Too long!

So I guess the best thing I can do is retrain my typing to use double quotation marks for dialogue. Then when I want to submit to an Aussie publisher I can do a simple 'find and replace' which won't interfere with my apostrophes. But that could be easier said than done. I still haven't retrained myself to type one space after a full-stop instead of two. So the dilemma still stands....

Writing Goals and Chocolate

March is going to be a big writing/editing month.

First of all, I've signed up for Nanoedmo to fully edit Diary of the Future. Sure it looks good in the picture above, but I want it to be a great read as well! And it still needs quite a bit of layering, fleshing out the characters and the scenes. The Nanoedmo committment is 50 hours in the month. I can do it, I just need to be disciplined. And I will refer back to One Pass Revision Method, although I'm pretty sure it will need more than one pass.

Next weekend is a Monologue day where our group will meet and discuss the Monologue project, so I need to write a draft of my contribution for next Sunday.



Then we have our annual weekend Writing Retreat to the lighthouse and I'm giving a workshop on using astrology to develop fictional characters. I will have to do an overview of my natal chart, so I've just dug deep into my astrology folders, located my chart and will photocopy it at work tomorrow and make it pretty!


And then the following weekend, I have an AGM to attend, followed by our monthly writers meeting, which clashes with the State Election, so we need to find another venue to meet.


So far this year, I have met most of my writing goals. Short story completed and submitted, essay for groups writing competition completed and submitted (strangely enough about the Blogosphere), initial edit of Diary of the Future completed, formatted and uploaded to lulu.com to receive free copy. I've fallen behind with the next revision of Diary of the Future, but now that I've committed myself to Nanoedmo, I have a goal and a deadline. Besides I have to allow myself some breathing time to read, watch shows, and feed my creativity in other ways.


Now, a question for you....


How do you like your chocolate?


Refrigerated or room temperature?


I like mine at room temperature, especially Caramello. Caramel filling is meant to be gooey not chooey. Trouble is, my chocolate always manages to find its way back into the fridge. Now, I know it doesn't open the door and put itself there. It's my well-meaning partner, freaking out because it might melt, thinking he's doing me a favour. No matter how many times I've told him, that's the way I like my chocolate! Wonder if this little issue has ever led to a divorce?

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So, refrigerated or room temperature? And are you and your partner in conflict over chocolate? Please comment.

Diary of the Future - the novel

Finally, Saturday comes around at the end of a very busy week. But I did achieve a lot this week.

I added another 1200 words to the Cinderella story and sent it off to the short story competition. I'm very happy with the way it turned out. Perhaps I may fracture some more fairy tales in the future.

I received my free lulu.com copy of Diary of the Future, and it looks great. I did have a few uploading issues and formatting issues as I mentioned in my previous post, but all this has resulted in is an extra blank page between some of the chapters. As this is my motivational copy and editorial copy, it really doesn't matter. So it's on to reading the novel with fresh eyes - hopefully, as a critical and discerning reader. Sorry, I can't post a pic of the actual book at this stage because my partner has borrowed my digital camera for the week and he is many miles away.

I passed the book around at work, and at drinks after work yesterday. A physical book makes more sense to many of my co-workers than 200 A4 pages. A book looks like a finished product (believe me it's not) - 200 pages looks like it will never end. So now it's on to revising, summarising, querying and submitting. A whole new adventure.

Oh, and I also got new tyres on my car this morning. What a difference brand new tyres make!

Diary of the Future cover

The editing is happening, although not as fast as I would like. By 3pm yesterday afternoon, I was exhausted (post Nano, post holiday exhaustion perhaps), I laid down and woke up three hours later. Then this morning I slept in again. Guess I needed the extra sleep.

I have designed the cover for the lulu copy. I'm not going to be releasing the book for sale. At this point, the lulu copy is just for my bookshelf to inspire me. A real novel with my name on it. Goal: a real novel with my name on it and a major publisher's insignia on the spine.

I had been looking at diaries on ebay, but a lot of the more unusual diaries looked a bit on the evil side and I didn't want Nicky's diary to be that obvious. So I ditched the sculpted diaries with monsters, dragons and pentagrams and pulled out a trusted journal from my collection, added the 'bag of words' that Nicky refers to in the story, scissors, pen and a glue stick, and matched the title font to the gold on the 'diary'. I love digital cameras, and photoshop - so cool.

I added a back cover blurb and there you have it: a cover for my 'novel'.

Now to finish editing the stuff that will go in between the covers.

Focusing on the future

Yesterday it was my birthday. Despite this, I did not take the day off from the Nano challenge, and I wrote another 2600 words.

As of last night, I had cruised past the 35,000 word target -- well on my way to achieving the Nanowrimog goal, and even better, FINISHING THE STORY within the time frame.

I feel truly alive when I'm writing, when the characters are speaking to me and acting of their own accord, events happen that I did not imagine, and my subconscious works overtime. This is the part that I love. I have deliberately tackled Nano very fast this year. No dithering in front of the computer, wondering what I'm going to write.

I set the Wizard for thirty minutes and write as fast as I can. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. But my personal best for thirty minutes is over 1200 words.

This love of creativity has become a common theme in each of my stories.

In Kissing Toads, Jessica is a photographer but in many ways, it has become just a job. She documents her search for Mr Right with her camera, and holds an exhibition of the subsequent photos. The journey and her creativity become more important than finding a man.

In Making the Cut, Chloe realises that Luke is the love of her life just as rumours start circulating that he is leaving the country town. She makes a documentary featuring the students and parents of Bilby Creek to convince him to stay.

In I'm with the Band, Kat is on a personal journey of self-discovery which includes singing on stage with her rock idols, writing a song and recording it.

And in my lastest Nanowrimo outpouring of creativity, Diary of the Future, Nickie not only exercises her creative talents by writing diary entries in advance and watching the events unfold, she also discovers a talent for painting. And she and her boyfriend Craig (another art student) have nicknamed each other Salvadore (as in Dali) and Frida (as in Kahlo)

So, I'm an advocate of creativity in whatever form turns on the muse and brings her out to play. I encourage everyone to discover their creative talent. Write, draw, knit, scrapbook, cook -- experiment and discover your muse.

After passing yesterday's milestone, I have upped the ante on my Things to Do Before I Die list. My goal is to have a publishing contract in my hand by the time I'm 40. 364 days to achieve this goal.

So with a goal comes a plan:
NOVEMBER: Finish first draft of Diary of the Future. Win Nano!!
DEC/JAN: Edit Making the Cut
FEB: Submit Making the Cut, Finish I'm with the Band
MAR/APR: Edit I'm with the Band
MAY/JUNE: Edit Diary of the Future
AUG: Chill out and find more writing mojo at Byron Bay Writers Festival

There's no 'new' writing in the plan. (although I'm sure it will happen in the rewrites). It's time to focus on the editing and rewriting and knocking the manuscripts into shape, because there has been one element missing in the process in the past. SUBMIT. And that, will be the keyword to propel me towards the goal.

Besides, there is always the momentum of Nanowrimo next November to spin out another first draft.