The AWMOnline writing races started again on Tuesday night, so that might help me to get me back into the swing of things (http://awmonline.com.au/Home.aspx). I spent the hour reading through the first three chapters of my first novel draft. The first reading of ‘Dirt’ exposed what I expected at this early stage – it’s raw. A lot of work to do in ‘Year of the Edit’ this year.

I think that about the first 80 pages is back story. It’s also all ‘tell, not show’, and the characters are flat. Need more emotional connection to the characters — to get inside their bodies. Lots of white space too; not enough anchoring and detail.

The ‘Year of the Edit’ (YOE) series of five monthly workshops starts on 21 February at the Queensland Writers Centre, and it will help me get a second draft completed by July.

My ‘Dirt’ work product (or evidence of my research, pictured here) has spanned almost a year of collecting thoughts, newspaper articles and pictures, going to seminars, taking photos, looking online and printing stuff off, reading the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum journals, and generally chatting with people online who have been on dinosaur digs.

I glued dirt under the plastic before covering my ‘Dirt’ research note book. It gives it more of a gritty feel.

I have a suspicion that my story will change dramatically from what I initially envisaged. For starters, the plot develops in an outback Queensland dinosaur dig. It doesn’t lie in the back story — much of which I thought was the major plot. Sigh. It is integral to the plot, but it works as a back drop. The back story works as an underlying mirroring/parallel sub plot. They reflect each other, though I don’t want to say more than that.

I thought that ‘Dirt’ would be told through a chronological timeline but I don’t see that happening now. I’m beginning to wonder if there could even be a third sub plot, but that might have to be worked in later – again, sort of parallel to the themes of the past, ownership, power, and reconciliation. Don’t want to get too confused at this point.

Yesterday I emailed a Facebook friend, Charlotte Nash-Stewart (also a post graduate student of the writing, editing, and publishing program at the University of Queensland). I wrote that I sometimes feel pressured to write towards ‘Dirt’, on FB, and on this blog.

She wrote back, ‘if you feel a bit exposed on blog/fb… pull back for a while. And forget about any FB faux pas, that’s why people can accept or not. I think Stephen King said it best… “if you want to write, write. If you don’t, don’t… And it doesn’t matter which, but if you know which side you’re on, it helps a whole lot with getting on with life.”‘. Good pragmatic advice. Thanks, Charlotte.

So to hell if I don’t feel like writing some weeks. I’ll stop myself from feeling that I have to be answerable to others. I guess if I don’t write (not just here, but writing in general), then I don’t write.

Another thing is that I am far too opinionated on Facebook (and here), but that is me. One thing that social networking has done is help me to develop my voice; to have confidence in my written voice. Not that I’m tactful!

Charlotte gave me some other good advice on FB. I was worried that I hadn’t found the right genre to write in. I thought also that my natural, ‘expressive’ voice (as in, on here and on FB – informal, light hearted, humorous, sometimes self deprecating, honest – too open and honest!) should be the way for me to write novels.

I like her response: ‘I don’t think you have to pick a genre. Write first. It is what it is. .’ OK. So, forget the notion of genre and write whatever I write, however I write. Guess that’s it in a nutshell.

Yay. I’ve officially got my first rejection letter. Oh no, hold on. I submitted two short stories and a poem for a small Brisbane literary magazine, ‘Pressed’ last year, but Joel McCaffery said they didn’t suit the theme for that issue. He was at UQ (also doing writing, editing, publishing) when I was there (2007-08), so it’s great that he’s got his own literary magazine up and running.

Queensland Museum, Brisbane

That was a rejection email. Should have printed it out. Joel stated that one of the stories, ‘Blue Room, Green Room’ was the strongest of the three pieces and it was on this fragment of encouragement that I developed the short story into what would later become the basis for my novel manuscript, ‘Dirt’ – the project I’ll be editing this year (and probably next year, if I think it’s up to another scrubbing and worth the effort).

I also thought that ‘Blue Room, Green Room’ was the strongest of the writing submitted to ‘Pressed’ — even though I thought my story too daring at the time. Guess you have to take risks as a writer.

So, back to the official rejection letter on letterhead from the Brisbane City Council. It states that ‘Chirp’, my entry in the ‘One Book Many Brisbanes 2009’ short story competition was unsuccessful. There were twenty winning applications chosen from 326 entries. Winners will be announced mid February in the media and online.

A first rejection letter. Yay! I’m going to buy a big silver (OK, silver coloured) spike to put them on, so they can pile up. The bigger the pile gets, the more I’ll feel that I’m at least writing. And next time I’ll print off rejection emails.

Apart from that, I’ve been taking my daughter on driving lessons, driving her to rehearsals, and still reading through AAOD journals and my novel manuscript. Oh, and working. Also went to an interview. Prepared for it (Communications and Research Manager) but didn’t get the job. Oh well. At least I was one of the four people shortlisted for an interview.

Doppelgänger week on Facebook this week. I chose to be Judy Davis from ‘My Brilliant Career’, a classic Australian movie (1979). Yes, I’m twenty years older, and have short hair, but this is a week for glamour and fantasy, right?!

Just over two weeks until YOE starts. Good.

Joanna )

I have been having a wonderful research week for ‘Dirt’. It started with another trip to the Queensland Museum last Saturday where a terrific dinosaur exhibition, ‘Dig Dinos’, is being held until January 24.

Dr Scott Hocknull (Curator, Palaeontology & Geology Geosciences at QM, Vertebrate Palaeontologist, and Young Australian of the Year, 2002) gave two presentations that day. I went to both. I watched Scott working in between his presentations doing preparator work. Fascinating.

Took some photos of the displays and took notes. The photo I took below is the oldest dinosaur find in Australia: Rhoetosaurus brownei. Age: Jurassic Period. 170 to 180 million years ago. It is part of one foot and was found near Roma in Queensland.

Just being around all things dinosaurian was great.

I also went to the Lifeline Bookfest (also open at the Brisbane Convention Centre until January 24), the largest annual second-hand booksale in the world. I bought two bags of books that  might be useful for writing, and not only for ‘Dirt’.

Lots of big pictorial books about the Australian landscape, trees, wildlife, historic towns, one on Aboriginal words and place names, and one called ‘Australian Dreaming: 40,000 Years of Aboriginal History’. All reference books for future novel writing. Good to have a library of visual material on hand. Scientific info, photos, all of that. Visual cues help you to describe things. Paintings, photographs, TV, videos.

I’m in fine spirits again after getting back into dinosaur mode. Not so much into ‘Dirt’ mode as into dinosaur mode. I’ve been salivating over the annual journals of the  Australian Age of Dinosaurs (http://www.australianageofdinosaurs.com/aaod-journal-hub.php).

I have almost finished reading Volume 4 (of seven volumes). My research has revealed that ‘Dirt’ is not scientifically credible, although I knew that ages ago. All the same, Steven Stielberg’s ‘Jurassic Park’ wasn’t scientifically accurate. He had a dinosaur in there from the wrong epoch. Yes, my book is fantastical, but it is fiction.

Once I get through this reading, I’ll be able to think back and reflect on where I want this novel to go. I’ve already determined that it will be a fictional place in outback Queensland, so to make it unscientific shouldn’t be a problem.

I also watched the brilliant BBC series on DVD, David Attenborough’s ‘Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives’. Wow. Amazing.

Funny that the setting for my story is a dinosaur dig and this novel feels like a dinosaur dig. Starting with traces of bones (the bare skeletal plot) and trying to jigsaw it all together this year. Redrafting, editing.

People have asked if I expect to get it out to publishers this year. I don’t know. However long it takes. I’d rather get it tight and right than send it out too early.

As I read through Volume 3 of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs (AAOD) journal, I came to a letter by Queensland author, Sheryl Gwyther, who had been on the 2002 Elliot dig near Winton to research a junior fiction novel, ‘Secrets of Eromanga’ (Lothian Books, 2006) http://www.aussiereviews.com/article2326.html.

I told her that I’d seen her letter in the AAOD journal and we got onto a long conversation about the dinosaur digs in Winton. So nice and helpful of Sheryl to answer a myriad of questions. She even put up a couple of photos on her Facebook Wall from her time at the Elliot dig in 2002.

Two other Brisbane authors who have written novels about dinosaurs, Ged Maybury and Michael Gerard-Bauer, were also online and joined in the FB conversation on Sherly’s Wall. One person wrote that she’d enjoyed ‘the interview’, such was the volume of my questions. Ha, ha.

Good to know that there are a few dinosaur crazies in Brisbane.

I checked out Sheryl Gwyther’s blog and found that like many writers’ blogs, it is a great source of inspiration for other writers. I was particularly inspired by this bit of advice from Sheryl in her post ‘Perseverance is the Word’ (12/1/10). She writes:

‘Writers who succeed are those who persevere through first drafts that feels like pushing jelly uphill;
refuse to take second-best for the multiple re-writes;
do the spit and polish at the end;
then cope with rejection letters,
and re-write and edit again.’ (http://sherylgwyther.wordpress.com/2010/01/)

Wonderful. So you can see that writing a novel isn’t straight forward, although some writers get lucky and manage to write a first novel within a short timespan — ie within a year. I hope my novel gets published before my parents die. They are both in their seventies now.

I know there is a good book in there somewhere; I just have to find it! I mean, I’ve got the story down (first draft at 81,118 words — I like palindromic numbers) — but I really need to do ‘Year of the Edit’ before I can go any further with it.

For one thing, I know that much of my introductory section (Kim Wilkins gave me feedback on the first ten pages) is ‘back story’, as in background information. It’s not necessary to have it up front. It can be weaved in later. I’ll have to start my novel a lot further into the story. Oh boy. I hope I can write this book.

Am I looking at motivation enough? Do I know the characters well enough? I suspect not. Do I need to change direction a bit? Places? Wow. Mind boggling the amount of work that I have to go through — not just writing and literally editing — ie redrafting — but thinking work.

Lots of things to fix up in ‘Year of the Edit’. Haven’t read over my novel draft yet because I figured that I needed to read more about dinosaurs and dinosaur digs so that I know where I’ve made obvious errors. This could take quite a few drafts!

Feeling glad that I’m back in the ‘zone’, even if this means my internal work for ‘Dirt’. I think that reflection and thinking plays a big role in being a writer; not just sitting at a desk and pumping out the words.

Most of all I’m feeling happy about feeling happy again, and getting out of what seemed like a long slump in the dumps.

Joanna )

Sick of this weekly blog posting. I’m going into hibernation until I stop feeling pissed off. I enjoy it when I feel like it, but since I’ve stopped writing regularly this site and the ‘Joanna’s Blog’ group on FB have left me feeling guilty; like I’m letting all my expectant readers down. Not that you are all having babies. But you expect me to write, right? Not that I give a shit. Sorry. No. Thank you. I appreciate your support. Really. See: ))

‘Dirt’ is on hold until February when ‘Year of the Edit’ starts. Nothing to write except that sometimes I wish I hadn’t made this blog public. More pressure.  There’s actually a condition called ‘blog depression’. Lol. Don’t have that. Funny. My MA dissertation topic was ‘expressive writing as therapy for clinical depression’. Did I ever tell you that I have bipolar disorder (used to be called manic depression)? Only a mild version, but still. Yeah, whatever. Practically the whole world has it these days.

That probably accounts for it, plus the fact that my life feels like it is on hold until I get a secure full-time job. Sick of this freelance writing and editing business — too difficult money wise and because it offers no sense of security.

Will come back here when ‘Dirt’ comes out of its induced comatose state. Anxious, depressed, aggressive, on edge. Nothing else to add. Not feeling creative. Guess I’ll blog again when I have something to write about. Until then, don’t press me. And please don’t say that I’ll feel better when I start writing again. I don’t want to hear it again.

The ebbs and flows of life include creative ebbs and flows. Guess I’m not a disciplinarian. Not all of us can train ourselves to be self whip cracked into daily writing. Anyway, another depressing blog post for you all to read. Lol. Enjoy!

I need a good laugh. Ha, ha, ha, ha, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA, HA ……. no, that is just an angry attempt at laughing. Think I’ll see a f***ing funny movie on the weekend. Who cares about my stupid writing anyway? I obviously don’t or I’d be doing more about it — as in reviving ‘Dirt’ before February.

Joanna | …. I’ll be back.

Hi. Wrote a couple of stories for the ‘One Book Many Brisbane’ competition this week, and then had to choose one. It would be nice if I could enter both. Can’t give away any details on my entry. The judging panel are kept in the dark as to who has written what. I’m sure great writing will stand out. Good fun. I have quite a collection of short stories that I’ve written for the hell of it.

Have finished reading ‘Handling Edna’ by Barry Humphries. Very funny book. I’m  glad that I enjoy reading fiction and non fiction books again. I pretty well gave up reading for pleasure from my late teens.  Academic reading was done of course, but not simply reading for relaxation. So, instead of writing, watching TV, and spending way too much time on FB, I’ve been reading more lately and listening to ‘chill out’ music while meditating. Will now concentrate on reading ‘The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World’ by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler (2009).

I know I’ve been slack with this blog and writing of late. Will read over ‘Dirt’ next week, in between work and looking for more work. My job as a social media writer finishes up late January to mid February. I’ll probably have some extra work to do to the end of January too, so I could be busy in the next few weeks.

That’s all for now.

Joanna )

I’ve finished draft one of ‘Parallel Rainbow’. It’s half as long as it should be, but at least it’s finished. 38,027 words. Ultra short, but it’s done.

Will leave this one on the shelf during 2010 and come back to it in 2011 if I still want to.

If I do, I’ll redraft it and expand it to around 75,000 words.

Frankly, I’m glad I’ve finished it. A first draft is better than no draft.

Joanna )

Silly Season. Christmas and all that. Hope that you all had a lovely, merry Christmas. The usual excess feasting, drinking, relaxing, reflecting.

Haven’t written since my last post. Been ’slack as’ which is why I haven’t posted. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice, but seeing as two people asked me how my writing is going today and one suggested I keep my blog writing up, I’m starting to feel a bit guilty. :}} [lip tremor]

Believe it or not, some of my ‘writing’ has been internal work. Thinking is part of the writing process. I’m trying to get into the ‘vibe’ of ‘Parallel Rainbow’. I still don’t feel any emotional attachment to it, despite almost reaching the end of the first draft of this short manuscript.

Tina (now 16 and taking driving lessons!) got me a meditation CD for Christmas that covers the colours of the rainbow within chakras. That’s part research. Yes, I tell myself. It is. ‘Chakra Meditation for Women’ by Oasis of Inner Light. This 20 minute guided meditation was one that I picked out and my daughter then bought it for me. I’m playing it morning and night in the hope that I’ll feel more centred and relaxed.

I’ve always loved colours and visualisation comes naturally. Being a high school art teacher was another matter though. Did the Dip.Ed, a bit of casual art teaching, and left it at that. Classroom management is the hard part. Got sick of boys being noisy in the classroom, making clay penises, and missiling them at the ceiling. Not to mention climbing on desks.

No, some people are born teachers and have the right personalities for it, and others like me, aren’t. Besides, I was ‘arted’ out back then (a long time ago). Another story. Still haven’t been drawn back to drawing or being arty/crafty.

Tina also insisted on buying me a DVD of one of my favourite childhood movies, ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’. I don’t usually pick out my own presents, but that’s how it turned out this year.

I bought Tina a vegetable and fruit juicer, a milkshake maker, and a voucher for four singing lessons with a teacher she wanted lessons with. She’d given a singing voucher to one of her friends for his birthday from the same singing teacher a while back. This lady has a great reputation  along with a Bachelor of Music from the University of Sydney.

Spent a lovely Christmas Day at one of my sister’s houses where we ate, drank, swapped stories, ate and drank some more, and laughed and laughed and chatted some more. A fun day and stayed overnight. Planned, of course. No drink driving here.

My sister gave me ‘The Slap’ by Christos Tsiolkas. Should be a great read. It’s won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Overall Best Book, the 2009 Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award.

OK. I’ll get back to writing the end of ‘Parallel Rainbow’ tomorrow. Just don’t expect me to write on New Year’s Eve! ’Parallel Rainbow’ will be a short first draft. Only 40,000 words maybe when I reach the end. Novella length. In the redrafting and editing stage (2011), I’ll amp it up to a more suitable 70,000 words, if I pursue this project.

I think I was feeling exhausted after completing the first draft of ‘Dirt’ although I didn’t realise that at the time when I wrote ‘Parallel Rainbow’. I wanted to rush through it and get it over and done with.

So with this second excuse of a novel I’ve been simply ‘getting the story out’, as Michael Gerard Bauer might have put it. Only he, of course, is an excellent writer, published, and I am not! You don’t know what needs editing and fixing until the story has been penned down, however rough the first sketch or draft of a book.

The change in weather this week has been a welcome change. A beautiful week of rain. Hot, humid weather really takes it out of you.

OK. That’s it for now. Back to work and a normal week from tomorrow (ie in 30 minutes’ time, except that I’m going to bed. It’s 11.30pm). My writing contract work finishes at the end of January, so I’ll have to be job hunting in between everything else between now and then.

I want to come up for an idea for the  ’One Book, Many Brisbanes’ short story competition. Entries close on 8 January 2010. Wasn’t going to bother as it’s super competitive but may as well give it a go. Could be a fun distraction before ‘Year of the Edit’ starts in February.

That reminds me. Maybe I should read over ‘Dirt’ before then. Later.

See you next decade.

Joanna )

36,343 words into ‘Parallel Rainbow’. I thought I would have cracked the 40,000 word mark by now but I’ve hardly written this week. I’ve only written about 5,000 words since I last posted here. It’s been a difficult week because I found out on Tuesday afternoon (December 15, 2009) that I wasn’t offered a PhD place next year.

The competition was too strong. I put all I could into the application, and, after trying to get supervisors and entry into both UQ and QUT, it is time to put this aside.

It would have made a good topic. My working title in my application was ‘A survey of the support ecology for emerging creative writers in South East Queensland’. I was cut out in the final ranking.

My first reaction to the news was shock. I thought I’d be offered a place, even if I didn’t get an APA scholarship. I’d rung up the Student Research Centre, because I hadn’t heard anything by mail or email and the result was two days overdue. I was on tenterhooks.

I found it difficult to speak, stammering, and finding it hard to put my thoughts and words together when I was told that my application was ‘ultimately unsuccessful because the faculty couldn’t provide supervision’. This is also the reason stated in the rejection email and letter I subsequently received.

Naturally, I followed that explanation up with an email to Dr Axel Bruns, my intended principal supervisor. He emailed back the same day:

‘We’ve had a very strong field of candidates across the university this time around, and as I understand it I’m afraid you lost out in the final ranking; this is based on a combination of the merit of the project itself, your qualifications and prior track record, and your referees’ statements. The proposed supervisory team has almost nothing to do with it’. (DrAxel Bruns, ARC Centre for Creative Industries & Innovation; Associate Professor, Media & Communication. Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, December 15, 2009.)

Not content with that, I told him about the wording of the rejection letter promptly sent to me by email after my initial phone call to the Student Research Centre. Axel emailed back that ‘…. the overall field of candidates was simply too strong for your application to have been competitive’.

OK. Call me a tenacious, but first understand that I have been trying to get entry into a PhD in Queensland for over a year. I emailed Dr Start Glover at The University of Queensland with my QUT admission, to see if he thought somebody from UQ might now be interested. He emailed back:

‘I am afraid there was no immediate interest in this topic. I am afraid there is not really anyone in the creative writing area to supervise anything like this study’. (Dr Stuart Glover, Senior Lecturer, School of English, Media Studies and Art History, University of Queensland, December 17, 2009)

That night I got drunk and ranted on Facebook about some jerk being interviewed on ‘Lateline’ on ABC1 TV. I’v since removed my very sweary post which accrued about 30 comments, all agreeing with my views.  The dude (a professor, actually) is a climate change sceptic. I’ve since posted a moderate post on FB re my reaction to the program.

I also emailed several people telling them the news, including (via Facebook mail) FB friends, Karen Tyrrell and Nicole Cody. Oh, and FB friend Dr Mark Bahnisch (haven’t met him) who, ironically, had had his PhD Graduation the same day that I found out my PhD application was rejected.

Nicole Cody said she still sees the PhD being store for me, but later. Nicole is an intuitive psychic, channel, and metaphysical teacher. Her website is http://www.nicolecody.com.

This is the thread of that Facebook post. I was up most of that night, and didn’t sleep at all the following night. Must have been the Diet Coke or Pepsi — can’t remember which one. Not a wink.

Joanna Gaudry December 15 at 10:01pm

‘Hi, Nicole. I didn’t get into the PhD. Crying. Please send me recovery power. Thanks. I don’t know why, but God or “The Universe” (however you think of the Divineness) has me in mind for other things.
Joanna ) (but not feeling that way — tears).
Thanks XX
P.S. Been drinking, so sorry about the silliiness of this post.’

Nicole Cody December 16 at 2:48am

‘Hi Joanna,
Don’t ever apologise for being true to your feelings!
So, no PhD. Yet. It will come.
Instead the Universe has granted you time. Time to write. Time to connect. Time to explore other possibilities.
I have great faith in you.
Trust in a bigger plan!
Sending lots of recovery vibes your way!
Love and Light,
And really big hugs,
Nicole
xx’

December 16 at 5:20am

You’re welcome.
Take care of yourself and go gently today.
Yes, feel like I know you too!
N
xx

[End of Facebook posts]

Isn’t she lovely? Since then, I’ve felt better. It’s meant to be.

This is a time for new beginnings. Of course Christmas and the New Year have to come and go — a time of distractions — but since my initial rage, I’ve accepted that my life had changed direction in a way I hadn’t anticipated for 2010 and beyond.

So, that’s my news for this week. Into an unknown future.

A long post, but I wanted to get it all down here.

I doubt that I’ll be posting on Christmas Day, so have a wonderful festive season all. I”ll ’see you’ in the New Year. Best wishes and blessings to you all, and thanks for following my group, ‘Joanna’s Blog’ on Facebook. Merry Christmas!

Joanna ))

Still sweating. Almost 9.30pm. This is going to be one of the worst summers on record (if not the worst) in Brisbane.  At least the breeze is coming through now. My writing enthusiasm has evaporated with the humidity — at least for ‘Parallel Rainbow’.

Wrote for an hour just then. I hate this new novel. A shitty first draft. My second. Number two. Can’t wait to finish this second shitty first draft, but I will, even if it’s 20K short of what it should be as a first draft. Starting to think that I’m not cut out for writing fantasy.

So I’ll get through this little monster and will then put it aside and get onto something else. Maybe have a break. Too far into it to leave it now (32K). Another 18K, max.

Looking forward to redrafting and editing ‘Dirt’ next year.

OK, lighten up.

Always handing out advice, Writing Cat? Go pull a whisker.

Joanna )

I am going to my sister’s wedding now in February. Rachel and Brad’s wedding is on Saturday, 20 February in Sydney.

I’ll just have to catch a taxi to the airport to get an early flight from Sydney to Brisbane the following morning and go straight from the airport to the first ‘Year of the Edit’ session on Sunday, 21 February. No probs.

I can arrive at the Queensland Writers Centre by 10.00am complete with my overnight bag, computer, and alarm clock radio.

Our family (all eleven of us) don’t see each other much now, being spread across New Zealand, Sydney, Canberra, and Brisbane.

I was speaking to a brother and a sister on the phone this afternoon and realised that the family would miss me if I wasn’t there, and that I would later regret missing the occasion. Rachel is the youngest sibling in the family. She turns 37 on Christmas Day.

It’s times like this that we should treasure. Her wedding will probably be the last one for our immediate family. I don’t think I’ll ever get married. I’ve never found the right man and the right man has never found me.

Sometimes we take those we love for granted. Family is important. I am fortunate to come from a beautiful, large, loving family with fantastic, saint-like parents and eight wonderful brothers and sisters.

Joanna )

It’s snowing on WordPress. My eyes aren’t playing tricks but I’m a day late for my regular blog post (Fridays). It’s late on a Saturday night now, December 5, 2009. I guess this might happen now and then. Get used to it.

The good news is that I’ve managed another 10,000 words this week towards my second novel (first draft), ‘Parallel Rainbow’. I now have a total of 30,357 words. Cool. Sometimes I hate this new novel of mine. I know it’s going to be the same with every first draft. Just get to the end.

‘The solution to every writing problem is to write, write, write.’ Dr Kim Wilkins.

It was good meeting up with Queensland writer, Michael Gerard Bauer, at the Queensland Writers Centre ‘Writing on the Walls’ cross-platform writing race event last Sunday, November 29, 2009 (2.00pm to 4.00pm).

Michael is a lovely man and he made a great writing captain. He was given a captain’s cap as a gesture of thanks by the QWC. The other writers were writing online at the AWMonline forum. I got a certificate for being the third fastest at the QWC — about 3,500 words over the two hours. That’s iincluding afternoon tea and a chat.

This was the last writing event at the QWC before it moves to the State Library of Queensland early next year.

Michael  gave me some good writing advice. He said that writers get to the end of their novels in whatever way works best for them. Some plan carefully while others rush through to get the words down.

I think a first draft is like vomiting; it comes out in all its gory and bits and pieces — peas, carrots, and all. You don’t want to know what’s there, but at least it’s out, and you feel better for it.

Or, if you want to hear a more eloquent analogy, a first draft is ‘like compost from which something beautiful may grow’ in the words of Peter Bishop, Creative Director of Varuna Writers House, during the Byron Bay Writers Festival, 2009. Yes, that’s more appropriate.

Michael said that you have to have all the words of a novel down and ‘get the story out’ before you can see what needs fixing up, which makes sense. ‘You have to tell the story first,’ he said.

You can’t edit a story that doesn’t exist. And also, sometimes you end up with a different story than you anticipated. It  might have changed shape or direction once you reach the end of a first draft.

Michael also said that the number of drafts vary according to different writers’ writing styles and habits. He might do two or three drafts whereas others could do fifteen! Gee. I hope mine are OK by the fifth draft. OK, maybe six or seven, but fifteen!

I’m hoping that ‘Parallel Rainbow’ will improve in the redrafting stages. I know this first draft is shite. Tina said of the name I had for a place, ‘Is that all you could come up with?!’ Yeah, I know. Lame.

I  wanted to keep the writing momentum going. I hated the name too. Didn’t want to stop and ponder about it. I changed it, but she didn’t like that either. Not that I showed her anything. She’d picked up my chapter by chapter outline from my desk.

Tina has said in the past couple of months though that she thinks my novel writing has improved since last year. I think so too. She like the outline ideas for both ‘Dirt’ and ‘Parallel Rainbow’.

My creative writing is flowing more, even though it needs development. I’m still a baby writer. Just a matter of practise and making the time to make it a daily habit, or at least trying not to go two days without writing anything creative.

I’m not showing my first drafts to anybody. Thank goodness that ‘Year of the Edit’ (YOE) starts in February, although I’ll be going back to my first novel (first draft again) for that, ‘Dirt’.

I have decided to miss my sister’s wedding in Sydney to make the first session. A shame, but I can’t be in Sydney and Brisbane at the same time. The ‘Year of the Edit’ is that important to me. There are only five sessions between February and July — masterclass all day workshops, one a month. And it cost $595. A tough call, but that’s how it goes. I want to be the best writer I can be.

I’m looking forward to going back to ‘Dirt’ during YOE. I was thinking this morning that I could change my protagonist so that she is younger. Hmm. Won’t do anything yet. Won’t even read back on my first draft yet. If anything, I think my original 81,118 words in the first draft might be cut by say 30,000, but then another 40,000 different words written. I think it will end up being slightly longer — maybe 10,000 to 20,000 words longer. Guess I’ll know after the final redraft. Too far ahead.

The other writer’s event I went to in the past week was the QWC Christmas Party. That was fun, although the glass of champagne went to my head and prompted me to add an extra ‘:))’ to my comment from the ‘Writing on the Walls’ event. That’s a double-barrelled smiley. Karen Tyrrell uses it as well now.

I had written at the event, ‘Everyone had gone. Joanna Gaudry. Joanna )’. And now with an even bigger ‘:))’ underneath. I must be a secret ego maniac. I do silly things like that with a drop of alcohol in my system. One glass. That’s all I had.

Creative types usually are unpredictable types, not to mention egotistical. I could be more humble and gracious. I’m rather over the top,  gauky (or is that gaudy, being a Gaudry?), and carry a nervous energy that can exhaust people in a matter of minutes, unlike some writers who are very cool, calm, sedate and elegant. I’m thinking Charlotte and Kim. I mean my ‘natural’ style can be charming, but it can also be naive and grate on people. Oh, whatever. I am who I am.

Karen Tyrrell kindly introduced me to a few other Brisbane writers at the QWC Christmas Party who are also my FB friends — Robin Adolphs, David Kay, and Kelly Hart.

[As you can see, I've gone back to using the Oxford comma. Sigh. Ros has a stronghold on my mind from the writing, editing, and publishing program at UQ. She also insists that you write 'Hi, Jim .....' [eg in emails]. That’s by the by. Fair enough, I agree, but others don’t. Also, many publishing houses don’t use the Oxford comma. I’ve gone over this territory before. Just popped this bit in randomly. Like it or not, I have the Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) permanently imprinted in my mind. God bless Ros. She’s a marvel.]

I’m very lucky to live in Brisbane. It has a great writing community from whatever arena writers come from — academic, writing groups, QWC, online communities, etc. Queensland writers are  friendly.

It’s terrific to live here if you love the arts. I would say that South East Queensland has the strongest writing community in Australia at the moment. I’m biaised, but there are so many great emerging novelists coming through in Brissie, with plenty more to come.

I’ll know (I hope!) by this time next week if I’ve been accepted into a PhD and whether I’ll be granted an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) scholarship. If accepted I will research …. drum roll please …. the support ecology for emerging creative writers in South East Queensland.

Working title: ‘A survey of the support ecology for emerging creative writers in South East Queensland’. I would be a participant as observer. Fieldwork based. Glad I did anthropology at the ANU as an undergraduate. The only drawback could be the lack of a steady income. As it is, my current freelance writing contract work will finish up by late January.

So long as I can get by. Three years; four, max if I’m a full-time PhD candidate.  Just breathe. I’ll know soon enough. Pray I get a scholarship, kind people. )

Tina turned 16 yesterday. A milestone. She wasted no time in getting her ‘L’ (learner driver) plates. She’s off seeing ‘Zombie Land’ now with her friends. I want to see ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. I loved Maurice Sendak’s illustrations as a child.

I have a feeling that ‘Parallel Rainbow’ will come in way too short from what I intended originally as a first draft (I was aiming for 70,000 words, minimum), even though I have a plan. Never mind. If I make it to 50,000 words, I can fill it out later. It’s just a sketch at the moment — ‘getting the story down’ as Michael Gerard Bauer would put it.

Later. Tina’s back.

Have a good week.

Joanna )

P.S. Shivers. I just did a word count on this post. It’s 1,507 words — that’s more than what I wrote towards my novel today. Lol. [I'm getting sick of 'lol'. Overused. I wonder when emoticons will die out.] Joanna )