Last month, I shared with you that I've started applying a Book-in-a-Month process to writing every Saturday. Since that post, I've had four more Saturdays to progress, or four more "days" in the BIAM formula. The pattern is pretty simple. Each Saturday, my goal is to write 7 draft pages and to complete the BIAM daily assignment. The process is so different from my normal writing approach. Usually, I work out my plot and main characters, build the setting, then start the draft. In BIAM, the draft is happening at the same time as bits of the plot are worked out, while basic character outlines are created and as settings are roughly drawn. Back-and-forth. Do a little writing. Fill in a character form. Do a little writing. Create a turning point scene. Do a little writing. Craft a high-level plot outline. I'm finding this rhythm invigorating.
Right now I'm lingering on Day 4. The Day 4 assignment asks you to work on the main characters' sketches. I had no trouble with my heroine. Three workbook pages and I moved right on to the hero. And stopped...right...there. What a stunner! I thought I had this great guy clear in my mind, but when pressed to go deeper, I choked. The assignment showed, to my chagrin, that I don't know him very well at all, certainly not enough to make him a compelling hero. So I wrote my pages, spent the last week amidst my daily chaos brainstorming Peter Jameson, and noting my conclusions in the BIAM workbook. By Saturday, I'll be ready to move on again. What a rush!
So far, the BIAM process keeps me focused and allows me to make progress on all fronts at the same time. I'm liking this. A lot. Until next month...
Happy Writing to You!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Travel--Elisabeth Rose
Me in Western Australia at Cape Leeuwin on the bottom corner where the Indian and Southern Oceans meet.For some reason Australians love to travel. Maybe it’s because we’re so isolated or so many of us come from other places we still have relatives overseas. Or just that we’re curious.
I love travelling. When I was nine my family spent nine months in Europe. Back in 1961 there wasn’t much point going for a short trip because the sea voyage was 5-6 weeks. We went on a cargo chip called the Clan MacInnes which meandered its way to Manchester from Sydney via Colombo, Aden, the Suez Canal, Port Said, past Gibraltar and into the Channel.
Dad hired a car and we drove all over Europe stopping for a few weeks here and there wherever took our fancy. We stayed for a month in a guest house in Buckinghamshire, England where the grandparents also joined us, visiting from Australia. To travel back home we boarded the Oranje, a Dutch passenger ship which went the other way round the world, through the Panama Canal. I remember my brother and I loved the children’s activities onboard. We must have been starved for the company of kids after so much travel with just our parents
A few years later we went on another month long sea cruise to Papua New Guinea stopping at various ports such as Port Moresby, Lae and Rabaul which has a smoking volcano I was convinced would explode any moment.
My mother has never forgotten how on that cruise she and the other women would go in for afternoon tea at four o’clock. Children were not allowed in to the dining room to join in but the mothers would take a slice of cake or biscuit for them. Someone once asked for more cakes and the steward eyed them sternly and said, ‘There were exactly enough. One each. Someone has eaten two!’ They all hoped there’d be no search of pockets and handbags on the way out.
My next overseas foray came in February 1975 as a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra. We did a 19 concerts in 22 days tour of the Philippines, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. The most memorable thing about that trip was vast temperature changes. High summer in Australia, clammy humidity in Manilla and a cyclone in Cebu City, freezing below zero in Pusan and Seoul, marginally warmer in wintery Tokyo and moderately warm in Hong Kong.
In October that same year my now husband and I set off, again by ship, the Galileo Galilei, for Europe. This was the third last run by the Italian liner. Sea travel by this stage was fast being over taken by air travel—quicker but still not necessarily cheaper. That was a wonderful experience. Five weeks on our big white Mama ship. Sydney, Auckland, Fiji, Tahiti, five days without land to Acapulco, San Cristobal, through the Panama Canal, Curacao, more days without land and the weather getting colder, Malaga, Malta, Naples and finally Genoa. From there we caught the train to stay with a friend in Switzerland and then on to Leeds in England to spend Christmas with my brother-in-law.
As many Aussie intrepid young travellers did in the seventies we bought a VW van outside Australia House in the Strand in London and then drove it all over Europe. Eric the van took us from London to Greece via then Yugoslavia, back north via the south of France, Switzerland where my husband worked in a band playing club gigs for 3 months, and then finally to The Hague where we lived for a year.
Back in Canberra we still ventured forth. The South Island of New Zealand came next with our 18 month old daughter then Japan in 1987 with our two children. We’ve seen a fair bit of Australia over the intervening years but haven’t made it to the Top End yet. That’s on the list along with Egypt and South America.
I love travelling. When I was nine my family spent nine months in Europe. Back in 1961 there wasn’t much point going for a short trip because the sea voyage was 5-6 weeks. We went on a cargo chip called the Clan MacInnes which meandered its way to Manchester from Sydney via Colombo, Aden, the Suez Canal, Port Said, past Gibraltar and into the Channel.
Dad hired a car and we drove all over Europe stopping for a few weeks here and there wherever took our fancy. We stayed for a month in a guest house in Buckinghamshire, England where the grandparents also joined us, visiting from Australia. To travel back home we boarded the Oranje, a Dutch passenger ship which went the other way round the world, through the Panama Canal. I remember my brother and I loved the children’s activities onboard. We must have been starved for the company of kids after so much travel with just our parents
A few years later we went on another month long sea cruise to Papua New Guinea stopping at various ports such as Port Moresby, Lae and Rabaul which has a smoking volcano I was convinced would explode any moment.
My mother has never forgotten how on that cruise she and the other women would go in for afternoon tea at four o’clock. Children were not allowed in to the dining room to join in but the mothers would take a slice of cake or biscuit for them. Someone once asked for more cakes and the steward eyed them sternly and said, ‘There were exactly enough. One each. Someone has eaten two!’ They all hoped there’d be no search of pockets and handbags on the way out.
My next overseas foray came in February 1975 as a member of the Australian Youth Orchestra. We did a 19 concerts in 22 days tour of the Philippines, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. The most memorable thing about that trip was vast temperature changes. High summer in Australia, clammy humidity in Manilla and a cyclone in Cebu City, freezing below zero in Pusan and Seoul, marginally warmer in wintery Tokyo and moderately warm in Hong Kong.
In October that same year my now husband and I set off, again by ship, the Galileo Galilei, for Europe. This was the third last run by the Italian liner. Sea travel by this stage was fast being over taken by air travel—quicker but still not necessarily cheaper. That was a wonderful experience. Five weeks on our big white Mama ship. Sydney, Auckland, Fiji, Tahiti, five days without land to Acapulco, San Cristobal, through the Panama Canal, Curacao, more days without land and the weather getting colder, Malaga, Malta, Naples and finally Genoa. From there we caught the train to stay with a friend in Switzerland and then on to Leeds in England to spend Christmas with my brother-in-law.
As many Aussie intrepid young travellers did in the seventies we bought a VW van outside Australia House in the Strand in London and then drove it all over Europe. Eric the van took us from London to Greece via then Yugoslavia, back north via the south of France, Switzerland where my husband worked in a band playing club gigs for 3 months, and then finally to The Hague where we lived for a year.
Back in Canberra we still ventured forth. The South Island of New Zealand came next with our 18 month old daughter then Japan in 1987 with our two children. We’ve seen a fair bit of Australia over the intervening years but haven’t made it to the Top End yet. That’s on the list along with Egypt and South America.
We’ve been to the USA twice and I’ve been to China twice with my Tai Chi Academy.
The Nan Yan Palace in Wudang.
In January we’re doing an upgraded version of ‘Eric the van camping’ in the North Island of New Zealand. According to the brochure this van has a toilet and shower. No running in to the shower block first thing and checking for hot water! The Grand Canyon
Now that we’re getting closer to retirement we’ve decided to get out there and see those places we’ve wanted to but haven’t yet, while we’re still fit and able. A return trip to Europe is a must because we missed so many places last time—Prague, Vienna, Scandinavia, the Greek Islands, the Italian Lakes. Then there’s the friend we met in Holland who now has a peach and grape farm in Argentina . . . and my husband’s long time dream of doing a Nile cruise.
The world is a wonderful place!
Now that we’re getting closer to retirement we’ve decided to get out there and see those places we’ve wanted to but haven’t yet, while we’re still fit and able. A return trip to Europe is a must because we missed so many places last time—Prague, Vienna, Scandinavia, the Greek Islands, the Italian Lakes. Then there’s the friend we met in Holland who now has a peach and grape farm in Argentina . . . and my husband’s long time dream of doing a Nile cruise.
The world is a wonderful place!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
The Joy of Writing..
The dynamics of being a writer have changed for me over the years.
When I first began many years ago, my first three Avalon books were written on a little blue portable typewriter. Carbon paper was messily plopped between two pieces of paper like bologna between slices of bread. The smell of white out was in the air. It took forever to pound out those pages. And even longer to do it again for the final, perfect draft. It was a thrill to hold those books in my hand. My heroines were nurses or governesses, as practically all romance heroines were in the day.
I didn’t personally know one single person who was a writer. This was the purest form of “writing in a bubble” for me. It was “me, myself and I”, and my story.
But times change. After reading a magazine for writers, I saw an ad for a writing conference. I went. There I met about 400 writers in all genres. I thought my head was going to explode with excitement. I learned about many ongoing writing groups, and made some deep friendships that I still have today. I still wrote “in the bubble”, but would emerge every few weeks to attend a writer’s group, or go to a conference, to reconnect, learn, and get inspired.
The computer, and word processing, was the next step. The act of writing, of putting words to page, became amazingly easier. I could delete, insert, copy and paste. And get rid of the carbon paper. Seeing those first white pages hum out of the printer was like magic.
This was followed by the word “email.” Right behind that came the word “loop”. Next has come Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging. Communication is global. This is the good news and the bad news.
The good news is that I could keep in contact with my writing community daily (Hourly? Momentarily?). I can keep up with market news, research, critiquing, and the latest recipe for pumpkin soup.
The bad news is that I can keep in contact with my writing community daily (Hourly? Momentarily?). You get the idea. Technology has changed a lot of things, but not the number of hours in the day. My writing bubble has gotten a bit smaller. Keeping those pages mounting takes a lot more discipline.
Many of my books have been published in beautiful hardcover. Another will come out soon in paperback, several digital formats, and possibly audio. It’s an amazing, growing and changing industry. There is so much to learn, and to implement. Personally, though there are some moments when all the changes are scary, I think that this is an exciting time to be a writer.
The challenge for me is to embrace the changes, widen my horizons, and STILL find the time and inspiration to be “in the bubble”, writing the best story I can. How about you? How do you do this?
When I first began many years ago, my first three Avalon books were written on a little blue portable typewriter. Carbon paper was messily plopped between two pieces of paper like bologna between slices of bread. The smell of white out was in the air. It took forever to pound out those pages. And even longer to do it again for the final, perfect draft. It was a thrill to hold those books in my hand. My heroines were nurses or governesses, as practically all romance heroines were in the day.
I didn’t personally know one single person who was a writer. This was the purest form of “writing in a bubble” for me. It was “me, myself and I”, and my story.
But times change. After reading a magazine for writers, I saw an ad for a writing conference. I went. There I met about 400 writers in all genres. I thought my head was going to explode with excitement. I learned about many ongoing writing groups, and made some deep friendships that I still have today. I still wrote “in the bubble”, but would emerge every few weeks to attend a writer’s group, or go to a conference, to reconnect, learn, and get inspired.
The computer, and word processing, was the next step. The act of writing, of putting words to page, became amazingly easier. I could delete, insert, copy and paste. And get rid of the carbon paper. Seeing those first white pages hum out of the printer was like magic.
This was followed by the word “email.” Right behind that came the word “loop”. Next has come Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogging. Communication is global. This is the good news and the bad news.
The good news is that I could keep in contact with my writing community daily (Hourly? Momentarily?). I can keep up with market news, research, critiquing, and the latest recipe for pumpkin soup.
The bad news is that I can keep in contact with my writing community daily (Hourly? Momentarily?). You get the idea. Technology has changed a lot of things, but not the number of hours in the day. My writing bubble has gotten a bit smaller. Keeping those pages mounting takes a lot more discipline.
Many of my books have been published in beautiful hardcover. Another will come out soon in paperback, several digital formats, and possibly audio. It’s an amazing, growing and changing industry. There is so much to learn, and to implement. Personally, though there are some moments when all the changes are scary, I think that this is an exciting time to be a writer.
The challenge for me is to embrace the changes, widen my horizons, and STILL find the time and inspiration to be “in the bubble”, writing the best story I can. How about you? How do you do this?
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