Highland Cliche`

I spent a lovely weekend in the Southern Highlands; a place where someone has dipped their hand in a pot of Britain and smeared it thickly over the landscape.

Perhaps it is the rolling green hills, ripped free of Eucalypt, dotted with black Angus cattle awaiting their journey to McDonald's. Perhaps it is the chill in the air and the winds whipping non-native Autumnal leaves into your face as you stroll along in your polo neck and jodhpurs.

In any case, I bloody loved it. Very inspiring for writing, eating cheese and drinking wine.

At a second hand bookstore I found a great read in a book entitled 'Son of-It was a Dark and Stormy Night.' Basically an American University English Dept runs an annual competition where writers come up with a very cliche`d/bad beginning to a fictitious story. What is the point? Well, they are funny, the winners get their name in a book and the reader gets reminded of the sort of things not to put in your own work. If you ever see a copy of this book or it's prequel, have a squiz for a laugh. May I share one:

Wilkins, the tall muscular fisherman, shielded himself with his pantyhose by tugging it up and over his head and holding it there while the arrows shot by the Eskimo sailors bounced mercifully off him and didn't hurt him either because apparently they could not pierce the fine knit fabric, especially the "control top".

A thing of beauty is it not?

Chocolate Holidaze

Thank goodness daylight savings is now over and I can (fairly) effortlessly rise at 5am to write. How else to continue writing in the school holidays? 5am till 10am after which my children are definitely up (the teen one just) and about and I can happily focus on them.
Not to regret the past but when I think of holidays gone, when I felt I had no time to myself- what I weak sap I was! Then again the last holidays were the summer ones and the cicada's begin to drill into your head at a much earlier hour. This cool weather helps keep the kids in bed, under their doonas so that I, puffy-eyed and clutching a cuppa, can have fun on the keyboard- everyone is happy!
Happy Easter to all by the way!
For me, Easter is a time when I try to replace Spring images with Autumn and harvest ones. We hang Easter eggs on a vase full of bare branches ( a nod at my German heritage where they hang the eggs from pussy-willow branches bursting with velvety catkins) I put out wooden eggs and chickens and we have an Easter egg hunt of course. It's done outside so we don't accidentally kill one of the dogs (would definitely put a downer on the festivities) by leaving a few accidentally for them to find. I'm sure we've left the snails a few giving them something other than my seedlings to eat for a few days.
Its a relaxing break where the house smells of toasting/burning hot-cross buns and we go see a family movie together. At night we toast marshmallows over coals in the chiminea under the stars (getting too cold for mozzies- hooray!) and all rub at our chocolate congested bellies. AND I certainly contemplate how lucky we are to enjoy all this. Here's cheers bunny ears!

A New Chapter

How long is chapter?
Most of my time of late has been spent working on a novel. I have my plot, my setting, my characters etc.
I wrote out the first drafts of Chapters 1 and 2. I patted myself tentatively on the back. Now for the rest. Suddenly I was a bit nervous. Originally iI had written out chapter summaries for the whole book. About 18 chapters. That looked pretty good! However after writing the first two chapters out things had got rather rearranged. Stuff had been plucked from farther afield and other things also added. Hence I felt less sure of where I was going: I'd packed a bag confidently for a journey only to find someone had gone through it removing things and swapping my pajamas for a rubber chicken.
It really threw me. I decided to do a more extensive summary of the rest of the book and tapped away for a few days. I finished the task. I should have been pleased but instead I was devastated. My entire story was only 6 chapters long! After the shock wore off and I ate some soul strengthening chocolate , I went back to look at my work again. I realised that I was trying to fit too much into a chapter. There was enough stuff there for at least 10 chapters and an afterward. The whole exercise got me thinking about chapter length. How long is a chapter anyway? We've all read those half page ones, right up to those ones you can only get half way through at one sitting- you know you look a few pages ahead to give yourself a target before your eyes fall out and Flick, Flick, Flick you turn 20 pages to find the eventual chapter end and promptly give up for the day stuffing the book mark in in disgust.
But was there rules? Were people just making up their own? I Googled away doing research and there was lots of good advice and no real rules. In general it is suggested that a good place to end one chapter is:
A cliffhanger
Worry- the main character is worrying about something.
A change in time or place or character
A surprise
A threat
The beginning of a major moment
An emotional moment
A major statement/powerful dialogue

That was all good food for thought. At the moment my story is Swiss cheesed with some chapters and a lot of chapter breaks. I'm getting the cheese knife out right now to do some deft chopping.
And then looking at all my food comments, I'd best have some brekky!

Basket of Goodies

For me , going for a walk is as good as going shopping with a basket on my arm, to the story tidbit shop.
This morning by the end of my walk I had these in my mental bag: Looking up at the sky I saw a moth fly over my head, a bird higher up fly over it and above them all a plane. They all crisscrossed on different levels in that second I looked up- an amazing treat!
Walking past houses I smell lovely shampoos, deodorants (male and female), coffee. I smell cigarettes and car exhaust. I stop and talk to a neighbour for a moment, trying to discreetly hold a bag of warm squashy dog-poo (yes, gross!) by my side. A toddler in pajamas greets me from his front lawn( "He-woh.") Dogs call from behind gates and fences- " Good morning!" " Go away, you're trespassing!" "Can I come for a walk too?!" The golden autumn sunlight gives even the shabbiest tree a glowing aura. I notice an abundance of purple and blue flowers in bloom. March = Purple? I see students swarming from every street to catch the bus and catch up on gossip.
I get home after only 15 or 20 minutes, my legs are stretched, my mind is stretched and it's all systems ready to be planted in a seat and set about some writing.

Nuts and Snorkels

Every time it starts to rain or simply drops ten degrees and get cloudy, a wave of excitement puts cosmic sand in my cossie bottoms and I have to sit down and write. I just lurve Autumn. It's my favourite season- no surprise there as most nut's ripen in Autumn! But it's just so good for bum-glue to seat value. That and I'm just loving writing anyway. Love the world I'm writing about, my characters etc to bits. It's a pleasure spending time with them, uncovering them.
The only bad bit is, it's rather antisocial. This has some odd effects on me. For instance I find myself getting dressed up to pick up the kids from school. Hey that is my social life! Also, if I do actually meet up with a real walking breathing human, I practically gobble them up with excitement. Very scary for alarmed individual. One person I saw recently who is normally very funny, was a bit tired on the time I saw them. And frighteningly I remember thinking 'Oh for goodness sake, wake up a bit, this is my human contact time here and your putting on a poor show.' I know. Very rude. But my subconscious hasn't the nicest manners at times.
It's a pleasure to spend so long in a great fantasy world, but I like to keep at least a snorkel in reality. I'll try and work on a less manic snorkel.

Wobbly Writing

It's writing, it's pouring, the old girls no longer snoring!
Yep, meet writer girl- the writer who is actually writing. That's me!
It all began with an enormous wobbly thrown by moi about a week ago. I'm not going to brag about that bit. It was loud and nasty and my kids mouths were in the shape of the letter O. This is not necessarily the recommended method of getting out of a rut but that's just the way it happened. Those ornaments weren't valuable any way.
So why the tantie? Well, I have been trying to get my house in some order for yonks. This seemed to be like trying to create pottery from slime - a messy and un-fun way of doing things that once finished simply returned to it's original gross shape. My kids were also not pulling their finger out and it just seemed the whole world was out to stop me from writing. So, I reacted in a mature sophisticated manner- I spat my dummy- about a kilometre.
Anyway the bottom line is I am writing. I am back in my story land uncovering the story bit by bit. It is very much like being a scribe to an already existing story. I just want to do a good job telling it.
And out of left field I got to do a little illustration for a colouring in page which was fun too.

So this coming week I am trying an odd method of going away to write for a week- I am camping in my studio. Why? Well, I would have loved to go away for a week but we didn't have any way of looking after the children in the afternoons till my husband got home so this was a compromise. I can just see someone asking my children where there mother is and them telling them I am living under the house. Well, I have been a troll I guess of late!

Workshop Fun

Imagine in one room a guy creating hilarious cartoons at a rate of knots (with sound effects!) captivating the attention and humour of a bunch of kids, whilst in the other room a lady tells an edge of your seat tale to a spellbound audience.
Last Sunday I was lucky enough to be part of a fantastic workshop run by my local branch of the CBCA( www.cbcasutherland.org.au ) called Children's Story Blast Workshop. We had the lovely Sue Whiting and the very fun Dave Hackett ( Cartoon Dave ) to entertain and teach the children plus the talents of our own Chris Frogatt doing his debut workshop. I got to sit in on each class and I loved seeing all those imaginations spilling out onto a page with great enthusiasm. I thought-" I want to do this one day!"
Dave had every child drawing simple and fun cartoon illustrations. Later on he had them writing zany, hysterical descriptive narrative. Sue handed the kids all character pics and had them coming up with great character idea's and showing how to get to know your character. The kids lapped it up. She had a great system of audience participation that ended with a draw for a book at the end. As an extra bonus, she very kindly gave each child a free book. Chris did a more detailed illustrating session that had the kids all creating their own world and their own character inhabiting it which they were all enthused about.
A bit of work for our group to put the workshop together but seeing all those young imaginations alight was Oh so worth it!