Articles

Vale: Clive James, Poet

Clive James.

Another literary legend lost.

His death last Sunday is punctuated by the volumes of words from this prodigious talent. A critic, intellectual, broadcaster, presenter and ever-improving poet James has left an indelible mark on Australia and the world.

The ‘kid from Kogarah’ who traversed those suburbs a couple of decades before I lived there, managed to propel himself from suburban life to being a player on a far larger stage.

There were elements of James’ personality and behaviour that rankled yet none can deny the way his words leapt into your soul like a burr in a shoe demanding to be noticed.

He was someone I’m happy to have admired from afar. I suspect had I been a dinner guest I would have been swallowed like a minnow by his gigantic mind and acerbic wit, being left as pulp to be rinsed off the dinner plate.

Above all else, poetry was his literary love.

Read some of Clive James.

Watch his videos.

Take on board his turn of phrase.

Study him.

See the effect his words have on your writing.

Make that your tribute to him.

Clive James on Poetry — credit: ABCmedia

Writing Advice from Anne Lamott

I love this piece by Anne Lamott. She encapsulates the simple challenge of writing and makes it sound effortless.

Of course, it’s not.

Lamott entreats us to ignore all the reasons and excuses and procrastinatory habits stepping in the way of our intention to write.

Unless you make a conscious choice to make writing part of your regular practice, you won’t get it done. Just like tomorrow never comes.

Decide and act. It’s the only way.

“… find a desk or a table where you promise yourself, as a debt of honour, to write one page or passage or for one hour a day. (Well, let’s say five days a week.) You start somewhere, anywhere. It doesn’t matter where, because it will almost certainly go badly. It is supposed to. But maybe you can describe, badly, the place where your book takes place.

Close your eyes and see if there is a movie playing on the black screens behind your eyes. Then scribble down the details of this movie, all the colours and foliage or furnishing.

Maybe you can see one of your character’s faces: how she tucks her head when she enters a room, like a shy duck; or how he takes on the persona of a bank president, arrogant and amused and yet pretending to care, even at meetings with his child’s homeroom teacher.

Maybe you can see his child’s face — the pride she takes in her father’s potency, or the shame.

So describe that to us on paper, in words and images, imperfectly.

That’s all. One small moment, face, locale, conversation at a time …”

It doesn’t have to be a coherent piece. It doesn’t have to be linear construction of a story. It doesn’t have to be your best writing. Just write. Fix it later.

Check in with yourself right now.
– do you set aside a specific time to write?
– do you decide ahead where you will write?
– do you give yourself at least a half-hour a day to write?
– do you have an idea or a prompt to kick you into writing?
– do you really want to write or just dream about it?

No-one can do your writing for you.

Sure you can get a ghostwriter, but that’s not YOU writing and taking the pride and satisfaction of having penned your story.

Read the original advice from Anne Lamott here.

Then, go write.

Struggling to write? Get hold of Anne Lamott’s famous guide for writers, Bird by Bird. The 25th anniversary edition is out and it’s just as helpful for writers as it was when it first came out. An easy read, it will take you through starting, rotten drafts, plotting and so much more. Check it out here.

[post photo credit, Jonny Goldstein, Flickr]

Anna Featherstone: Tips on Self Publishing

Self-publishing is entirely doable but it’s a hairy beast with lots of moving parts. Not everyone does it well.

When you consider the fact that Australian authors earn less than $12,000 per annum from their writing, being able to keep more of the earnings rather than sharing royalties and rights with publishing houses is appealing.

Anna Featherstone has navigated the Indie path (independent self-publishing) and gives insider information on how to self-publish.

Here are the gems of insights I gleaned from a recent presentation she gave.

Most books sell less than 1,000 copies. Earning a rate of $1 per book in royalties from traditional publishers doesn’t compare to earning $10-20 per book after costs when you self-publish. A compelling argument financially though you do need to work to generate sales.
As an Indie, you retain the rights to your work which gives you flexibility in how you present that work – you can repackage it eg as an audiobook to give more earning options.
Ingram Spark is a good option to have your book printed and they have a printing facility in Melbourne making print-on-demand (POD) viable for Australian authors.
Libraries are an important marketing arm for writers. Go direct with your book or use a library supplier like James Bennett or Australian Library Services.
Having your books in libraries also gives you access to Education Lending Rights and Public Lending Rights – a government program to compensate authors for multiple use of their books.
Trove lets you know which library stocks your books and how many are there.
Approach bookstore distributors and bookstores directly to stock your book. If you have a professionally-designed, appealing cover, it will be easier to get picked up.
Market your book through KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing), Kindle, your website. Watch the conditions of each.
Consider producing an audiobook version of your book. You will need a professional voice-over artist to read the book and a noise-free environment with decent recording equipment if you DIY.
Distribution of audiobooks from Australia is a challenge so consider somewhere like Authors Republic.
Write your own media release and send it as a ready-to-print article for the media to publish – this method may increase your chance of getting into print.
The ASA (Australian Society of Authors) hold a Virtual Literary Speed Dating event where you can pitch to publishers.
Learn to write for magazines. Being able to get articles published can add to your credibility. Target magazines aligned with your writing genre. Try places like Rachel’s List, Freelance Jungle and Telum Media Alerts to find opportunities.

The key thing to remember about being an independent publisher is: you are responsible for everything. There is a learning curve and the space is constantly changing so you need to keep up.

For those who don’t want to worry about all this and prefer to just write, beware of a burgeoning industry of people and ‘businesses’ ready to help you. Some are genuine but many are just seeing you as a business opportunity to earn money.

Traditional publishers do not charge you anything. They are hard to get into and they expect you to have a marketing platform but they pay for editing, covers, marketing. Vanity publishers will charge you for everything and there’s no guarantee of their distribution reach outside of Kindle or POD etc – which you can do yourself.

Indie publishing is a rewarding process. Financial success relies on your marketing, distributing and selling your books well. You’ll need to invest in a decent book cover, professional editing and formatting and you will need to keep an eye on all facets of the publishing process.

The actual steps to publishing will be our next post.

Anna Featherstone and Her Writing Journey

Raised in a family of 5 children, money was in short supply. To entertain the children, Anna’s father created a make-believe world and made up stories. He invited the kids to name an object or element and he would weave a story to include that element.

Combine that imagination with the discipline and skill involved in having a long-term penpal, and you have a ripe start for a budding writer.

Anna went on to manage hotels and resorts. To overcome the boredom of quiet evenings she signed up for a correspondence course to learn writing. The final assignment required students to submit a book proposal to a publisher. It was an experience that led to a contract and Anna’s (and her husband’s) first published book.

Following on from her initial success, Anna gained mentorship from ScreenNSW to work on a documentary.

Then came a decision to own a farm. In that journey, Anna realised there were no books around on how to prepare children for the future world they would inhabit and so Honeycomb Kids was born. Sadly, it didn’t get selected by publishers so Anna decided to self-publish. It was later picked up by a U.S. distributor and also published in Turkey and Korea.

Running a successful, sustainable farm growing edible trees and plants along with a focus on bees saw 12,000 visitors a year and hundreds of wwoofers. Anna spotted another book opportunity. Small Farm Success was designed to share how other small farmers could build a profitable business. (It has now been selected by TAFE as a required text). The book was structured through interviewing farmers around Australia – a conscious decision to help sales distribution.

Anna self-published Small Farm Success and knew as a niche topic it would sell and be easily marketed. She had also written a memoir, Honey Farm Dreaming, and realised it would be a harder book to market. What to do? Release them both at the same time and let the farming book pull the dreaming book along with it. That was a successful approach and often the two books sold together.

Lessons learned?

do writing courses and purpose-driven groups – two of Anna’s books came about as a consequence of being engaged with writing classes and groups. They make demands of you which you may not ask of yourself and they hold you accountable for your actions and results
self-publishing is hard because you are totally responsible for marketing and distribution of your book but you also retain the rights and can repackage that book any way you like’
think about your book structure and whether you can include content eg interviews that has a wider reach than your own area to help book sales
ideas are all around you. Anna’s books have come from her experiences and she has written and published books directly sourced from her life and knowledge. You just have to put it down on paper.
tip – note the categories Honey Farm Dreaming is listed under on Amazon. Hint: it’s not memoir.

If you want to learn how to write non-fiction in an engaging way, read Anna’s works. She is an excellent writer as well as marketer.

Here’s a sample from her farming book:

Check out Anna’s books here …

Note: Anna has also written under Anna M. Campbell

Mind Mapping Your Story

Mind mapping and creative writing go hand in hand. Each uses the same side of the brain to flesh out ideas into a fully-fledged product. I used mind-mapping extensively, even taught it, but confess to letting the practice slide as my linear mode took over.

I was reminded of it while reading a brief article by Diane Harding, a Sydney based author of adult and children’s books, on the SSOA website. It was difficult to access the article so I reproduce it here for you.

How I write

By Diane Harding, SSOA author

Are you interested in how I write a novel or short story of fiction?

I always start writing with a mind map.

Of course I have an idea initially that I ponder on for a while.

Then I try to write a mind map of the story line. At first it only has the idea which is often one or two sentences that will be added to as time goes by.

Character mapping

Then I write a map of the characters. Usually, this is only the main character and perhaps one or two others.

Now I can start to write.

Little by little the story unfolds and characters become real. As I progress I add personalities to my characters and add other characters and peripheral people. I always write their full names and ages as I have been caught out not remembering their family name from chapter 3 when I am up to chapter 40 and have to go back to find out.

Bringing characters to life

I discovered how important it was to flesh out my character’s personalities especially when one is thinking they might be the killer and then discovering their personality wouldn’t fit this action well.

Suddenly the story begins to be written by the characters themselves. They move and speak in a way that is consistent with what is happening and I get quite excited about it. How will the story go?

An unknown journey

Of course my original idea had an ending so I know where to go, but I don’t know how it will get there.

There may be twists and turns, extra characters and sudden shocks, but all the time I am going towards the end.

Of course this doesn’t mean I’m stuck in a rut. I have the writer’s prerogative to change the story, throw out a character, start all over again or even abandon it.

You can google mind maps and find one that suits you. They aren’t always used by writers. I have used some in the past for business letters to set up a strategy. It is very satisfying and helps organise your thoughts.

So why don’t you give it a go? “

Mind mapping a novel or non-fiction work is ideal. It gives a visual representation that you can follow and allows you to ‘dump’ thoughts as they come to you.

Mind map a novel example — Example of a mind map for a novel by Joanna Penn

You can use mind maps to extend out an idea.

Use the title of your work in the centre circle on the page then add branches as ideas come to you about what to include. You can then organise those thoughts and use the mind map as an outlining tool.

Need to keep track of your characters? Create a character mind map. Include what detail and relationships you like. Here’s a simple one I created now using the free mindmup.com tool.

If you don’t have a mindmap tool, there are plenty around since Tony Buzan came up with the concept. Freemind is a long-term player in the field and one I’ve used for years. It’s small, simple, free and very functional. There are a few free online ones too including http://mindmapfree.com. Search around for the tool that serves you best. For me, I use a tool when I need to present a map but there’s nothing like the flexibility of a pen and paper version.

Learn the basics from this video.

Review these and other books on how to mind map.

Try out mind mapping for your next project. See how it works for you.

I promise, once you get the hang of it you’ll want to keep using it. It’s so intuitive and easy and comprehensive.

Glad I found Diane’s article: I’m off to mindmap my next book!