Publishing and Donkeys

Last weekend I went to a publishing seminar run by Jill Marshall of Pear Jam Books.  The day was chocka-block full of information about mainstream publishing, eBook publishing, audio books, printing and illustration.  Jill was honest about the ups and downs of the process she'd gone through with mainstream publishers and her personal experience of eBook publishing. 

The right gang will smooth the road
 to publishing success

Publishing a book is no easy journey, no matter what method you choose.  It's a bumpy ride on a stubborn donkey, round corners and up hills and sometimes you just have to get off and throw a wobbly or two.

But if you surround yourself with other travellers, who've taken the road before, who will cheer you on and give the donkey a good whack on the backside every now and again, maybe you won't fall off.

At the end of the course someone asked Jill what she thought about writing groups.  She said, if you choose the right one, they can be a great.

Definitely!  I belong to three!  I'm not even that much of a social butterfly and relish a good six hour stretch of writing all by myself as much as the next aspiring author, but these groups offer a sanity check.  There's personal experience, expert knowledge and industry know how to be had over a cuppa and bickies.  Get amongst it!

CLL/NZSA Research grant - another great writing project

2011 CLL/NZSA Research Grants
Together with Jenny Argante from my writing group, I'm now the proud recipient of a Copyright Licensing and NZ Society of Authors research grant.  Jenny applied and won the grant and she is employing me to work with her on the project.
It's the open grant for research into the life of Dame Evelyn Stokes, who was a figure of significance in the Bay of Plenty and nationally as one of the first scholars to take seriously the connections between geography and culture. Throughout her life Stokes worked for recognition of marginalised groups including women and Mâori, and she published extensively on New Zealand historical geography and on Mâori land issues.

Jenny will be doing about two thirds of the work, with me completing the final third.  Not sure when we'll be starting all this research and writing!

Apart from that my writing work on my childrens' fantasy adventure novel with mentor Barbara Murison continues well. In the three or four drafts I've sent to her, I've made huge changes to characters and the structure but the theme and overall story arc has remained the same.  It's an interesting process and I'm learning a lot.  Barbara is a wonderful mentor. (more on that later).

My paid copy writing continues in bursts with a freelancing assignment writing content for web at ReserveGroup, for etcGlobal and now some exciting work for AFS in Wellington, the student exchange people.  All good!  Always looking for more!

Tauranga Writers Group Blog on SunLive.co.nz

Members of the Tauranga Writers Group write a fantastic lifestyle blog called Write Space on the Sunlive website. 

Read the current blog entry by Ian Clarke

Ian's latest published book is a murder mystery set in the Coromandel, New Zealand - 'A Very Fishy Business' is available from Books A Plenty in Tauranga, New Zealand.

BUY: A Very Fishy Business online at Nationwide Book Distributors.

READ: the review of A Very  Fishy Business

I'm about to edit one of the next entries for the SunLive Blog and will be contributing soon too!

Book Review: Smoking in Antartcia by Steve Braunias

Please read my review: Smoking in Antarctica by Steve Braunias

Steve Braunias' latest book is a wonderful offering of quirky, kiwianic musings mixed with intelligent political commentary and wanderings in to history. 

I love his dry sense of humour and willingness to share his own failings.  As a parent, I really enjoyed reading about precious moments with his daughter .  His descriptions of his wife and child carry a kind of emotional footnote - it's as if he can't quite believe how lucky he is.

This review is published on the Tauranga Writers website- New Zealand's oldest writing group.  I'm also hoping to get it published in the Bay of Plenty Times book review section. Fingers crossed!

This picture shows Steve Braunias taking a smoko break, accompanised by Kenton Bird, Director of the School of Journalism at the University of Idaho, earlier in 2010. The picture was copied from the blog Birds Words.  I thought it was an appropriate image given the name of Braunias' new book.

Speed Pitching - The Dragon's Den

I went to an excellent event in Tauranga the other night – Speed Pitching.  Organised by the Tauranga Writer’s Group, it was highly entertaining.

Twelve anxious contestants took the stage to pitch their various fiction and non-fiction writing projects and were then queried by the judges.  There was none of the sarcasm, superiority or cruel questions of the televised Dragon’s Den and all the pitches were presented with enthusiasm.

The judges/dragons were a polite panel of learned New Zealanders: 

Joanne Rye McGregor, a local film director who also organised the local film collective to film the event.   

Sue Emms, author and creative writing tutor at Waiariki Institute of Technology.  Read about their excellent online writing courses  at www.waiariki.ac.nz  - I took the Focus on Fiction course there last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 

The last judge was Mark Houlahan, described as an academic, literary expert and reviewer.  He also happens to be a senior lecturer at Waikato university.

Chairing the night and cheering the nervous contestants was the charming Tommy ‘Kapai’ Wilson – writer and columnist - who not only introduced us to each person pitching, told us hilarious anecdotes and teased the dragons, but threw in a Te Reo Maori lesson in the process. I loved the way he kept encouraging us, the reserved kiwi audience, to pakipaki (clap).

The audience of sixty or so people voted, the scores were tallied and a people’s choice award was given to Tauranga Writer’s group member Lee Murray for her sassy presentation which included a happy mix of running, pigtails and chick lit.

The overall winner, awarded guaranteed reading by a publisher and a year’s free mentoring to finish the project, was Suzanne Hansen.  Her non-fiction project is a book based on her involvement and sightings of UFO’s in New Zealand.  She appeared on 60 minutes and has been lobbying the Defence Minister to release NZ's classified UFO files. After more than a year these files have been declassified and sent to archives. 

Although the public will not have access, there is the possibility that she may be allowed to view them at some stage under certain conditions. Check out her website: www.ufocusnz.org.nz

She has an excellent platform for a non-fiction book and the judges made a fair decision. 

We're hoping speed pitching will become an annual event and who knows, I might even give it a go next year!

Characters Are Onions

I've recently re-joined my local writer's group and have been inspired by how motivated and encouraging the members are. Some write the most amazing poetry, others are attempting novels and many contribute to magazines.  See www.taurangawriters.org.nz

The meeting has motivated me in many ways, not least of which in my attempt to write fiction every day.  However this week I've been sick with an icky bug and in an attempt to at least appear busy, I've been reading instead.

Not being in the mood for anything too heavy, I started off with the latest Marian Keyes novel, The Brightest Star in the Sky. 

Using a somewhat mystic narrator, the plot takes us deep undercover in to the interwoven lives of the inhabitants of a Dublin apartment building.   

The variety of characters keeps the reader’s constant interest; a PR music industry executive who meets a cut throat financial whizz, a spiky, desperate taxi driver flying by the seat of her pants.  Then there’s the comical Polish duo, the up and coming television garden show star, and the pair at the centre of all these antics, an ordinary married couple struggling to make sense of life.

What impressed me most about this work is the efficient and manipulative way Keyes drip feeds information to the reader.  She is so skilful at developing characters that even when you are aware of her talent and looking for clues, she still manages to surprise you.  Layer upon layer, the characters develop, grow and connect in the haphazard manner of all big city neighbours who know each other – but don’t really know each other.

Bringing all these lives together in a non-cliché and credible way, Keyes somehow manages to sum it all up without a cringe factor, while still imparting some fairly important information about the nature of depression and human relationships.

What has this book taught me about my own writing? 

To invest in the back stories of my characters.

Know what happened to your character before they enter the world you've created.  Way before.  

Know how their present state of mind has come to be.  What sort of people have they met and trusted or distrusted?  What experiences, good or bad, have brought them to view the world the way they do? How has their family influenced them?  Has a traumatic event changed their outlook on life?  Or have their attitudes been formed over time, layer upon layer.

We may not use every little detail we create with this process, but knowing the back story adds a depth and insight which enriches the reading experience.

For more information about Marian Keyes visit www.mariankeyes.com