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 This is a continuation of my blogging here at WdC |
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This will be a blog for my writing, maybe with (too much) personal thrown in. I am hoping it will be a little more interactive, with me answering questions, helping out and whatnot. If it falls this year (2024), then I may stop the whole blogging thing, but that's all a "wait and see" scenario. An index of topics can be found here: "Writing Blog No.2 Index"  Feel free to comment and interact. |
| Two Songs, One Meaning Some time ago, I did a quick blog post about how different writers write about the same thing: "20250324 One Situation, Many Writers" .This got me thinking, and I decided to look at two songs. âBorn To Runâ by Bruce Springsteen (1975) âCome On Eileenâ by Dexyâs Midnight Runners (1982) You picked it, right? These songs are almost identical. Seriously. A guy is talking to a girl â Wendy & Eileen â and telling them that itâs time the two of them got away from it all before they ended up as downtrodden as those around them. Sure, Bruce is escaping working class drudgery and Rowland (the song-writer and lead singer for Dexyâs) is fleeing Catholic repression, but escape with a loved one right bloody now is the whole story of both songs. Both songs are classics â Bruce probably more so in the USA, Rowland in the UK and Australia â but the fact this theme ran through both songs 8 years, two different countries and a whole cultural shift apart says something about that desire in young people. And hereâs the thing â can you think of a recent song about taking your partner and just getting away from a life of drudgery? I mean, released recently, say, last 20 years? I canât, and I am a music nerd. Why? Maybe we realise there is no escape. Maybe the world has beaten us down too hard. Maybe these two songs were our last hurrah at trying to get away from it all, and we failed. Or maybe I overthink these things⊠Anyway, the purpose of this is that it is another example of why ideas cannot be copyrighted. This is the same idea, and yet the delivery, the words, the mood of each is different. No two writers approach the same topic the same, even when they are working in the same genre. Donât be concerned if you have an idea that someone else has used before; you are a different person with different personal experiences, different cultural baggage, and a different time frame. Just write it your way. âBorn To Runâ and âCome On Eileenâ show that both interpretations of the same idea can work incredibly well. |
| Reposting Another Old Blog So, I will continue to offer words of advice from other writers far more knowledgeable and experienced that me. This one from 2012 is about dealing with negative reviews. It basically says all writers get them, and nothing is universally loved. This was originally sent to me by a writer friend from the USA because I had recently received a death threat coming from my first book. A DEATH THREAT! Amazon banned the person who left the review (and threat) and wiped it out, but I was threatened with death by some USian who called himself a Christian (which was the basis for said threat). I was worried; he wanted to kill me! I even contacted the police here in Australia, and I believe he was sent a message, but I don't know what came of it. So, having said all that, here is a quick look at some negativity in reviews. The links donât all work (come on, itâs 13 years old!) but the message remains. http://bethrevis.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/how-to-respond-to-negative-reviews.html... So true, so true⊠However, for what itâs worth, A Wrinkle In Time was a 2-star book at most. I can understand the 1-star reviews there. |
| Reposting An Old Blog This is a blog post from 2012. So, I went online at the end of February this year (a couple of months ago) and shared it with a few people in the publishing/ reading side of the industry. One guy (a publisher who is yet to publish anything of mine) and I had a long discussion about this post on Discord, and he then posted it there. All of the people it was shared with said this is as true now as it ever was; I have copy-pasted this from the publisher (maybe editor?): âI think it is maybe more relevant today because self-publishing has no checks and balances and so people have success there and think they can go to traditionally publishing with the same things they hit the self-publishing sphere with.â (Clint OâConnor, March, 2025) (My thoughts on self-publishing: "20240821 Self-Publishing" "20240824 Self-Publishing Addenda" )Another publisher I spoke to said it was the reason he rejected over half of the novels and novellas submitted to his company. So⊠here is the link. 13 years old, but⊠some things never change, apparently⊠http://writerunboxed.com/2012/09/13/the-biggest-mistake-writers-make-and-how-to-... The blogger is Lisa Cron and her comments here are about the single most important mistake made by writers â the lack of a story. And sheâs right. I look back on some of my earlier pieces and see that they are just incidents, things that happen â there is no story. This is well written and well done, and I think it should be shared. Hope you enjoy it. |
| Quick Look At Small Press Publications [This was originally written for the SAWC magazine, was accepted, and then⊠nothing. But I think this should be out there, so here âtis for everyoneâŠ] I first joined the SA Writersâ Centre in 1988 as a teenager, not long after having my first short story âpublishedâ in a national (?) magazine. And then came a period of roughly twenty years where publications were few and far between: they happened, but at a rate so slow that glaciers were laughing at me. Come the year 2000 and I was selling less than one story every 15 months. In the early 2000s I managed to get a position writing for a United States pop culture website, submitting a weekly column on Australian sport. This led to a position writing for the professional wrestling section of the site â by far their biggest and most popular section. Then came a week in 2009 when I had nothing to write about that others hadnât already commented on ad nauseam. And so, with the permission of the siteâs editor, and after getting permission from WWE, I put out a short story. It was accepted (not all of my columns were; one I wrote about John Cena was so not accepted, I was not allowed to write for the site for a month) and it still pays me to this day. One of my fellow columnists liked it so much he put me into contact with a small press publisher. At about the same time I joined a local critique/writing group called Ad Astra, which helped me hone my craft a little more. Suddenly, with the help of small press websites, Duotrope , and the Horror Tree, I was selling stories. I have now sold almost 100 short stories â to magazines, to online publications and to anthologies: six in Australia, three in the United Kingdom, three in India, the rest in the United States. I have around a 25% success rate (23.3% if Iâm being pedantic) for short story submissions.Publication in the small press market can be as cut-throat as any of the large publishing houses, maybe more so when it comes to larger works. They may only do two or three novels a year, and so they have to make sure that what they select is not only of the highest quality but also the highest marketability. A small press cannot afford to have a publication not sell: they simply do not have enough product to support a work with flagging sales. But here is what I have learnt about the small press market. Guideline # 1: Check their websites for length of time of open submissions. It is short stories and anthologies where the small presses come into their own. Some presses receive so many submissions for their anthologies that the resulting work is of amazing quality. On more than one occasion I have wondered how on earth my story was included in an otherwise outstanding work. Then again, at the other end of the scale, some receive so few that the anthology may take a couple of years to fill, and it ends up being half âfillerâ, with stories that are unfortunately substandard. This does not mean that everyone who submits gets their story in, it just means that quality control may not be as high. Check their websites to see how long calls for submissions have been open for all their anthologies because Iâve seen some that go some considerable time â the longest being three years. The longer⊠the less likely I am to submit. Guideline # 2: Check how much they pay. If money is your guiding motive, then⊠well⊠bad luck. When it comes to payment, there are some small presses that donât. You donât even get a copy of the book. These are the âfor the loveâ or âexposureâ markets. But they are still publications and they add to your writing CV. Iâve done a good 12 of these. Most, though, pay a token amount â some money (e.g. $10), a free e-copy (or hard copy if youâre lucky) with discounts on further copies, while a few add a percentage of royalties based on word count. A few have started paying a per word amount â 1 to 3 US cents a word seems to be the norm, though up to 5 or 7 cents is becoming more common. Some online sites still pay per click; I get money continuously from some stories online. But you are not going to buy a cup of coffee for at least a year. Guideline # 3: See where the companyâs books are available. There are some other things to be wary of when dealing with small presses. The first is the availability of their books. There are a few small presses where the only place to buy the books is their own website. While this is fine and keeps all the money in the company, for an aspiring writer this is not really the way to get noticed. How do you get publicity when the book is available in one place? That said, with more and more appearing online at Amazon, Book Depository and Barnes & Noble there is a much greater chance of casual readers seeing the book and buying it, making this a better avenue for the writer. This is especially applicable to Amazon, where it is possible to set up a personal writerâs page that can then be used to link all your works together on the one page. Guideline # 4: Read the small print and understand what it all means. The next serious consideration is the small print in any contract you may enter into. Asking the hard questions is a good idea at this point. How long do they have the rights for? What rights are they asking for? Most small presses are quite good and have a standard 12 months exclusive print and electronic rights, after which you get the rights back, even if the original book is still in print. However, a few have 12 months or until the book is taken out of print, whichever is the longer period. This can prove to be an issue because e-books are, notionally, never out of print. A fellow writer, with whom I have become online âfriendsâ, is having an issue at the moment with this very topic. He has been asked to put his previously published short stories together in a single anthology. But there is a problem: four of the stories he has no access to because, according to the small press involved, they are still âin printâ as e-books. If in doubt, I would say seek professional advice here. Guideline # 5: Understand the policy of editing and editors. Another small print issue is one that has received a little bit of online comment of late â the concept of âeditingâ. While some editors do marvellous work (Gerald Costlow of Pill Hill Press edited one of my stories in small, subtle ways that improved it exponentially), there are a few horror tales out there. There is one doing the rounds (this is depressing, and careful: strong language warning ) where the story was changed, had scenes added and the tone changed. The editor is claiming he did just that â editing. But the author is understandably not happy. ( And here is another tale about the same small press. ) You have to read the contracts carefully (here is a nice blog post about just that ).Guideline # 6: Research the press and donât be afraid to ask the opinions of others. Finally, be prepared for some disappointments. A friend of mine had a novel published by a small press. Despite going over the galley proofs beforehand, when the novel was finally printed, a large number of typos were found. And the thing is none of those typos were in the galley proof. So, yes, she has that first novel but it may not look as professional as it could. This is something to be aware of; there is nothing that can be done about it, but some small presses have this reputation. Ask questions, find out what the reputations of the presses in question are. And sometimes you may end up being the source for some negative comments regarding a small press based on your own experiences. Please note, this is some small presses, not all. If in doubt, do an online search. Preditors and Editors (now only on FaceBook) and Writer Beware (right here ) are excellent resources, plus I recommend reading the many writing forums. Nothing like listening to the people involved at the ground level â the authors with previous experience.Having said all of that, one huge positive is that after a while, and after a few publication credits, you may get yourself known in the world of small presses. I have been published by quite a few different small presses, many more than once, and around five have asked me to contribute to specific anthologies. While that is not a guarantee that the submission will be accepted, it does mean you are considered worthy to be considered for inclusion (for what itâs worth, all five of mine were accepted). It is a nice ego-trip, and is a way of telling yourself that your writing is on the right track. Another positive is you get used to external editing. Editors differ from place to place, but you will soon get to see just what the majority look to change in your writing, and you can make changes before submitting, or even while writing. You will always be edited; this teaches you acceptance and modes. I say always be edited; I have had a few stories lately where the editors have said my work needs no changes. Why? Because I have learnt after almost 100 short stories accepted what I needed to change. So, all in all, what it comes down to is this: small presses can lead to legitimate publication credits. But you have to be aware that the pay is less than the established publishing houses or magazines and that âexposureâ or âfor the loveâ may be all that is on offer. Small presses are not for everyone, but they are out there and give a nice entry into the world of being a published author. There is a little bit of money out there, there are opportunities to hone your craft while getting published and thereâs always the chance to make a small name for yourself. And we are, after all, in the business of writing, so why not make the most of the available opportunities? Read the contracts carefully ⊠and make sure you have a thick skin. I think nearly all (nearly⊠not all⊠Little Demon still owes me money!) of my own small press experiences have been positive. I will recommend them to anyone who asks. |
| Novel #4 All right, now we are at the end of the crap of initial works. And a few ground rules will apply from here on in. As I said, from now on novels are works of more than 40,000 words. While this is a little low in the general scheme of things, it is what I was told back in the late 1980s was novel-length, and duotrope (the writerâs best friend!) seems to think thatâs about right as well. Also, with the advent of e-publishing, this seems to be a common demarcation point. There are many novellas I have written that fill in the gaps here, and if any bear mentioning, I will do so, but otherwise, they will be safely ignored as being in that untidy etherworld of too long for a short story and too short for a novel. In general, the novella form is from 15,000-40,000 word. Novels are single stories, not books or collections of essays or things like âchoose-your-own-adventureâ style stories that I have also tried my hand at. And, finally, no matter how bad they are, I have vowed to myself that I will expose all my novels here. Apologies for this one in advance. So, onto the fourth novel. Music Man was written at the end of 1988, though the idea and story were both started in 1987, but they took a back seat when Into The Crystal really took off in my mind and was needed for high school English. And at 44,400 words, it was, to me, a huge achievement, because it was the longest thing Iâd ever written to that point. However, I did revert to using a friend in a role â the singer Eric was so obviously based on someone I knew that he was a little offended by it. None of the other characters were based on real people, though â it was just when I started to write the story, âEricâ was pretty prominent in my life. So first, some back story. In the middle of 1987 I was infatuated with a girl. One night at a party I was talking to her and things were getting rather heavy when the radio started playing a song that felt like it was exactly what I was thinking. And later on that night it happened again, and then again the next day when we were saying our goodbyes. Sure, it was just coincidence, but it got me thinking â what if there was someone for whom the radio was their innermost thoughts? So we come to Music Man. Keith is a guitarist in a mildly successful band, who gets a job at a radio station. That is when things start to get weird as he finds the radio playing songs that mirror his thoughts. And then the station starts to take over his life and Keith starts to do things to people that are not good, and starts to act out of character, until, finally, he rebels⊠Lots of death and killings written in a fantastic, clichĂ©d style. It is a story based on song lyrics, and as such, it will never be published. I would hate to be the legal guy set the task of getting permission for the 50-odd songs used in this piece! Some can be easily replaced, some not so much. And the radio is so old-fashioned this story feels like a relic. Now, the story itself: what can I say? It is clearly a step down from Into The Crystal, it has no chapters, and it meanders badly in the middle third. None of the characters are particularly likeable. Not my finest hour, that is for sure. But it was an interesting piece to write at the time. Excerpt: Almost eleven oâclock. Five hours in that hole had been way too many. He was sure the drinks, expensive as they were, had been watered down and that band was rubbish. The crowd virtually ignored them and their wall-paper music. Then again, the stuff they had played wasnât what Brett referred to as âreal musicâ; two synthesisers, a guy scratching records and spouting beat poetry every so often, a drum machine and a singer who (very badly) played the guitar were all the band comprised of. He needed some real music and 5BW supplied that tonight; he switched on in time to catch the opening words to The Beach Boysâ âRock And Roll To The Rescueâ. Yep, thatâs what this was. A great rescue (he hoped) from the clutches of that rubbishy synthesised crap. Bob Seger followed this with âOld Time Rock And Rollâ. Exactly what he needed right now to soothe him, especially with Belinda away. What he felt for that girl! âWhen A Man loves a Womanâ from Percy Sledge was next on the play-list. Tired and almost asleep behind the wheel, he turned down his street. âBetter be home soon,â were the last words, as sung by Neil Finn, the radio played. He parked next to his fatherâs BMW and climbed awkwardly out. Boy, how many coincidental songs had he heard on the way home tonight? He didnât know, and at the moment, he didnât really care either. Within minutes, he was upstairs asleep in his bed, dreaming erotic dreams of Belinda. Sorry about that. Itâs bad, but finding a âgoodâ excerpt was almost impossible. This is one story I canât even read with detachment. Itâs that bad. But it is a part of my literary journey, so here it is. |
| Australian Publishers⊠sigh! Pt.2 Following on from the last post about the 20 Australian books of boredom, this is another post from an old blog⊠and one that still stands today. My ex-wife and I are both avid readers. We are also proud Australians. We try to read books by Australian authors. And there have been some fine books published. Anthologies by new authors, self-published books (yes, really), POD books, classic Australian books â there are some truly strong Australian books. However, the main publishing houses in this country seem to be stuck in the class divide of a hundred years ago. They obviously feel that amongst adults only the cultural elite bother to read anything that is not a magazine or newspaper, especially if the author is Australian. And so that is what is published â stories that seemed designed to appeal to the artistic elite, books to look good in a bookcase, books to brag about reading, not books to be enjoyed. One of the biggest issues is that the works that are published by the major houses for adults seem to be based on theme before story. The themes are more important than anything else. The story needs to have a deep, underlying (or overlying) social message. It seems the stories have to be about hardship and pain and often involve depressing tales with endings that may not be considered happy or even satisfying. And they have to be capital L Literature, written in a prose style that casual readers often find very difficult to get into, ignoring the genre fiction that surrounds us all. This translates often also into writing competitions, where who you are and what youâve experienced and how that informs your writing is more important than the story you tell. The âwho you areâ issue then raises its head when the only new authors who seem to be able to get a book published are those who have achieved a degree of fame in some other field â normally by embarrassing themselves on the national stage, be it in sport or on television â or who have led lives of great hardship and overcome them, often at great personal loss. Writing is an art. And, yes, some art is there to confront. But what art sells the most? That which is popular. Now, I am the first to agree popular does not always mean good (*cough*ELJames*cough*). I consider the Twilight books poorly written, yet they are immensely popular. Many people cannot stand Dan Brownâs works, but they are immensely popular. JK Rowling, Stephen King, Jackie Collins â no one is going to claim these authors are Nobel Laureates in waiting, but there is also no denying that they are read and these books sell. A lot. I feel that in Australia many involved in publishing, and associated fields (book-selling, agents, reviewers, etc) are more interested in making a statement through the Australian content they choose, in making an âimpactâ of sorts, than in actually giving the public things that people will want to read. But books and stories are written for people to read. And the majority of people do not want to be preached to â they want to read for entertainment. Example: What are the top ten English language fiction books of all time by sales (as of March 1, 2025)? A Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis She: A History Of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets by J. K. Rowling The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger (source: Wikipedia, sorry). They all were written to entertain. Any preaching or teaching is incidental to the main aim â entertainment. (Even in Lewis' book; he said in letters he wanted children to be entertained by his work before anything else.) I have a feeling very few of these would have been looked at by a mainstream Australian publisher if they had been offered to them first. The same can be said for Australian films and plays. Only in television production is the entertainment first mantra adhered to. Australian television programmes do well in Australia and even make an impact overseas in their own way. How many Australian books have made best seller lists in non-Australasian markets? The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough⊠and that would be it. And that was an epic romance, a piece of genre fiction which entertained readers. Not Literary fiction that sits in book shelves so people can say they own it to look more impressive to their friends at the Club. Even our poetry! Bush poetry and bush ballads can still be enjoyed more than 100 years after they were written. What is published today? Depressing poetry that most people on the street donât even recognise as poetry. That elitism yet again. Maybe Australian books and Australian authors would sell more and be more widely read if the publishers took a risk on more populist genres, styles and authors. The authors of these stories may not be the greatest writers technically, but if they connect with a reader and people actually read something, isnât that a good thing? Or is reading an Australian author only to be encouraged as an elite past time, and so will the majority of Australians continue to get their reading entertainment from overseas authors? Do Australians have that much of a cultural cringe that the merest idea that one of our own could write genre fiction well (see Sean Williams, Garth Nix, et al, whose books do well in the USA but are ignored here) means they should go elsewhere to get published? And who knows? Somewhere out there just might be an Australian Stephen King, Dan Brown, JK Rowling or Clive Cussler, all ready to take the world by storm. But at the moment, weâll just never know. Addendum: Matthew Reilly sells well everywhere⊠but he made his first big sales and his initial impact in the USA. Australian publishers did not want to know him. That is not the story told nowadays, of course, but I was around at the time⊠|
| Australian Publishers⊠sigh! Pt.1 This is a cut and paste from an old blog of mine with some updates. A similar list was collated by an online magazine in 2020, with similar results. But it is still relevant today⊠Australian publishing sucks! â10 Aussie Books To Read Before You Dieâ Recently ABC-TV here in Australia had the 2012 finale of First Tuesday Book Club â a monthly look at books and writing hosted by Jennifer Byrne â doing their year-end special. This year it was â10 Aussie Books To Read Before You Dieâ. The way it worked was that the producers of the show put up a list of 50 books (maybe more) on their website and viewers of the show had a few months to go in and vote for their favourites. If, like me, none of your favourites were on the list, you had the option of adding them at the end. Fair call. Now, we all knew this was not going to be a wide cross-section of the Australian population. It was made up of, not surprisingly, viewers of the ABC and those who listen to ABC radio stations. To say that these people have their finger on the pulse of Australia is like saying politicians never tell lies. These people tend to be members of older demographics, or those of a higher academic pretence than most. (Of course, not all â I watch the ABC â but in general.) However, I think that people voted for books that they thought should have been the best Australian books, and not necessarily ones they actually enjoyed reading. They felt important or had something to say or were capital-L Literature. People didnât want to put down books they actually read for fear of appearing not pretentious enough. At least, thatâs how it appears to me reading the list. Because surely there are not that many people out there who think some of these are books every Australian should read⊠unless they hate Australians. Hereâs the top 20 (updates included): 20. The Tree Of Man â Patrick White (read it subsequently⊠boring! All message, not enough story, trying to give Australia a modern mythology.) 19. The Riders â Tim Winton (couldnât get into it, gave up after 50 pages or so. Itâs Tim Winton and itâs dull. In 100 years, the term âTim Wintonâ will come to mean âdull and overratedâ.) 18. Monkey Grip â Helen Garner (yeah, not a bad book, all told, if not a touch depressing.) 17. The Broken Shore â Peter Temple (havenât read it.) 16. Power Without Glory â Frank Hardy (I liked this one, a well-written book with characters that were interesting and involved the reader. Should have featured much, much higher.) 15. Eucalyptus â Murray Bail (subsequently read it⊠it was a Greek myth retold and it was so boring! My God! Aid to insomnia!) 14. True History Of The Kelly Gang â Peter Carey (not a bad book, but it felt overdone, and yet it had the opportunity to be so much more than it was.) 13. My Brilliant Career â Miles Franklin (dull, but I read it all the way through, and again with the depressing ending.) 12. My Brother Jack â George Johnston (I read this for high school, and hated it, but went back to it a few years after and found I enjoyed it. This should also have been much higher.) 11. Seven Little Australians â Ethel Turner (of its time, but not a bad book, truth be told.) 10. Picnic At Hanging Rock â Joan Lindsay (very Gothic, but not as good as most other Gothic novels. Just too many tedious sections of constant description. Still, certainly not a bad novel. However, let us not talk of the found âlast chapterââŠ) 09. The Secret River â Kate Grenville (tried to read it, couldnât get into it; another example of a book where the message overwhelms the writing and the story, to the detriment of all of it.) 08. The Slap â Christos Tsiolkas (took me three goes and I only finished it for a book club in 2021. This is a bad book and so depressing, where every single character had no redeeming features or personality. I wouldâve slapped the kid as well, FWIWâŠ) 07. The Magic Pudding â Norman Lindsay (yes, a hundred times yes â definitely one of the best Australian childrenâs books ever written; my children even enjoyed it, a hundred-plus years after it was written.) 06. Jasper Jones â Craig Silvey (I only read this because one of my kids was forced to read it at school and they wanted my opinion; they hated it â Iâm with them. Everyoneâs a bad guy, it is depressing and the ending is such a downer. It won awards. It is pretentious beyond measure.) 05. The Power Of One â Bryce Courtenay (not too bad, but it felt overdone in some of the descriptions of place and culture; Courtenay was a masterful story-teller, however, and this is a fine example of his work.) 04. The Harp In The South â Ruth Park (depressing and I didnât get into it, maybe because I couldnât relate to any part of it. I mean, at all. Noy an Australia relevant to me or my family.) 03. A Fortunate Life â A.B. Facey (read this at school, over-analysed it [as schools are wont to do] and found it a good story, but it was a tedious read.) 02. The Book Thief â Markus Zusak (havenât read it, but it seems yet another Australian book based on depression and a part of history that overwhelms everything about the story.) 01. Cloudstreet â Tim Winton (dull. Nothing happened! I think it was like 700 pages long and not a goddammed thing happened! Should not have been number 1, should not have been top 20, should not have been put forward. But I find Tim Winton dull in general.) So what did I vote for? The three books I put forward were: Pig by Kenneth Cook (my favourite Australian book and one of the best horror books Iâve read, up there in my top 10 easily.) Half Days And Patched Pants by Max Colwell (a story of Australia in the past that is funny while it tells its tale, made all the more poignant for me by being set where my fatherâs family grew up; one of the characters is based on my grandpa. I met Colwell â he is such a nice man.) The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco by John Birmingham (sequel to He Died With A Felafel In His Hand is funnier and more bizarre; itâs autobiographical, but itâs a superb story.) Okay, so what it means is that people have an inflated sense of the sorts of books people want to read, or they feel people need to read things because itâs somehow âgood for them.â What about reading books that are popular, that people enjoy for themselves, not reading out of a sense of obligation, to be hit over the head with a message or âcultural significanceâ (whatever that means)? Just adding to what I thinkâs wrong in Australian publishing, literature and books. |
| Book Review â How Not To Write A Novel Regular readers will know my favourite writing book is On Writing by Stephen King. But there are others⊠and some are excellent. How Not To Write A Novel by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark (2008) is that rarity among writing books â a âhow toâ ( or in this case, how not to) that is genuinely entertaining, genuinely informative, and just plain genuine. I found the book in one of those odd ways that seems to only happen in bad fiction. I found a couple of quotes from the book (my favourite is ââŠdeus ex machina which is French for, âAre you f***ing kidding me?ââ), and they intrigued me enough to buy the book. The basis of the book is that they are helping people who write long works of fiction to never get published, by helpfully pointing out a variety of things to do to turn off readers, editors, publishers and everyone else in the known universe. By doing it in this way, it makes the points they are trying to make that much clearer. And it is funny. The excerpts from the âbooksâ they have sprinkled throughout are amusing, but there were too many I found that were like books Iâd read. And too many that hit uncomfortably close to home. They start with the plot, then hit character, basic writing styles, more complex styles, world-building, and special bits and pieces. There are too many things in this book which ring all too true. And yet, what astounds me is that there are more and more books being published where these rules on writing bad novels have resulted in publication deals. What happened â did a bunch of editors and publishers read this book, take it as an exact guide to what readers want, and made sure all the rules of bad writing were present in what they published? (Not mentioning any names *cough*ELJames*cough*) Some of the rules I found here that applied to my writing when I first read the book in 2010 or so include: âThe Waiting Roomâ (taking too long to start a story), âThe Gum On The Mantlepieceâ (something trivial that remains trivial), âZenoâs Manuscriptâ (unnecessary details), âThe Second Argument In The Laundromatâ (scenes repeating)⊠and thatâs just from the section on plot. But the book arrived at an opportune time. I had just started editing a manuscript for a potential publisher, and was doing so as I read this book. I made so many changes it was incredible. And now I have all of this in mind, I like to think I avoid as many of these errors I remember, and when I re-read the book (only done so twice), I hopefully avoid a few of the pitfalls that it seems my writing falls into. So, for any aspiring writer â buy this book! Read it! Take note of it! Along with Stephen Kingâs On Writing, this is now one of the very few âhow toâ books that actually lets the reader know "how to."
https://www.amazon.com/Write-Novel-Them-Misstep-Misstep-ebook/dp/B00166YCBU/ |
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| The Music Of Writing Back in the heady days of 2013 I was accepted into an anthology called Song Stories Vol 1, a collection of stories based loosely on songs. I have since had 4 more published, with another accepted for an anthology due for release soon. Anyway, as part of the publicity for that book twelve years ago, the editor organised a music-based blog hop. What they wanted is a discussion or something about how music has influenced an authorâs writing. I looked at it, went, âYeah,â and thought little more of it. But it would not leave me and, really, the more I thought about it, the more I realised music is especially important when I write. While that blog post is lost to the mists of time, here is a new version based on the notes: Apart from my series of stories called âEvery Song Tells A Storyâ (as of 2025 more than 60 done, of which about 20 are any good and with quite a few published), music has been a subtle, background influence in my writing life. Side note â I used this when I was a teacher: the students had to find a song they liked, get its lyrics, and then use those lyrics as the basis of a story. Nice way to get the creative juices flowing. Anyway, I found that when I was in high school and started this thing we shall laughingly call my âwriting careerâ that certain types of music influenced certain styles of writing and their overall feel. Poetry was best written to classical music, particularly pieces without lyrics. It can even be seen by reading some of the poems I wrote back when I was a teenager and in my twenties that some could guess what music was playing at the time. (Bach was obviously high on my playlist back then, for example.) Fantasy was influenced by heavy metal and hard rock, and even classic rock. My first decent completed novel ("20250331 Novel #3" ) was written under the influence of Led Zeppelin IV, AC/DCâs Back In Black and some Jimi Hendrix⊠at least musically. Even my fantasy short stories tend to have similar soundtracks. For example, in the 1990s The Who featured prominently with my so-called Secludos ethos stories.Science fiction was written with 1980s pop (especially New Romantics and their ilk) and/or David Bowie blasting through the headphones. I think it was the synthesised sound that did it for me, getting me into the mode/mood. Horror, though â by far the genre most of my stories have adopted â is generally supported by 1960s and 1950s music. The longest novel I have ever written, Year Of Change, for example, was written almost completely with the strains of Del Shannon pounding me relentlessly. Having said that, my horror stories written in the mid-2010s had a lot of Mike Oldfield in the background, which is pretty far removed from that normally associated with horror in my mind. And my humour does not have a musical backing. It has a visual one â classic black and white horror movies. Go figure. (Side note: When studying for high school exams, different music helped with different subjects â opera for English, 1950s & 1960s for Latin, classic rock & hard rock for maths 1 & 2, pop music for chemistry, and late 1960s music for physics. It helped⊠eventually.) Anyway, I thought this wasnât the case anymore, but have found that as I completed my novel s for last yearâs NaNoWriMo, I was listening to a lot of The Beatles, the re-released Red and Blue sets. So music and my writing are pretty entwined. Itâs nice to think about it like that. |
| Clearing The Mind To Write Brief one today! I received an email about writing that wasnât (a) abusive or (b) trying to sell me something. In part: ââŠquick question which Iâd like to ask. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your head prior to writing. Iâve had trouble clearing my mind in getting my thoughts out. I do take pleasure in writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are lost simply just trying to figure out how to begin. Any recommendations or tips?â Well, first, I thought, at least this personâs writing eventually. Whatâs 10 or 15 minutes? So, I thought to myself, thatâs an easy one. And I sat down to write a response. After 10 to 15 minutes of my own I realised it wasnât as easy as it sounds. So, what do I do to clear my head when the words donât come out? Weâre not talking about writerâs block here, just about when you have trouble getting started for the day. Writerâs malaise, shall we say ("20240517 Combatting Writer's Malaise" ), only on a smaller scale.When I was younger Iâd go for a run or a quick bit of parkour (though we didnât call it that back then â we just did gymnastics wherever we could). As I got older this was replaced by a walk. Outside, away from any distractions. Sometimes I find a quick cat-nap (or nanna-nap) helps. I read a book on a totally different topic or in a totally different genre to anything I have been writing as of late. I watch bad television (soap operas I find work really well, because even if it is over-exaggerated, what you see are emotions and situations that could break you out of your writing malaise). Or I watch old black and white and movies; the lack of colour just allows the mind to wander a little easier. Or, finally, I will draw a picture instead. Just doodle, scratch around on a piece of paper, and let the ideas come out in a different format. Or play guitar. Basically, a different art form. However, maybe your mind just needs that time to meditate before it can get around to writing. Why force it? Itâs not like youâre not writing at all! So, something I hope helps. All of those things at one time or another have helped me break through for that first spurt of creativity when Iâve needed the prod. There is one other thing to do which is have a day off, but I am a firm believer in writing something every day, so I donât feel that is an option for me. But for others, that is yet another alternative. |
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