Some Notes on Writing & Publishing

1.

Stones Gathered Together will exist as an ebook by the end of the month. Separate pieces with different layout is more tricky to format for a ebook than the running text of a novel, but I’m onto it.

2.

A friend who has completed the Whitireia publishing course has offered to do a print layout of Where The HeArt Is, as practice of what she learnt in the course, so later this year it may appear as a paper book.

3.

I finally feel as though I am getting going with Alice Green. I bought some software called Scrivener and spent several brain-itching days getting my head around how it works. Once I felt I had a handle on the basic ideas of it and after a couple of runs through the tutorial and perusing of the first part of the 500-odd page PDF format manual (free to download) I started using it. It actually seems to work, though it’s early days yet, both in the writing and in my control of the software.

What I can do, which I couldn’t do with Word, is have quick access to lots of web pages (for information) and each of the three strands I am writing, without having to go in and out of many files, losing my way and getting frustrated. For example I can have a writing page and a web site I am referring to open in the same window and move easily between them.

The software isn’t going to sort out for me the tricky business of bringing the three parts/aspects/strands of the story into a cohesive whole—once I have written them—but I am hopeful that it will help. That’s a way ahead. In the meantime I am pleased to be actually writing.

Soon, very soon, I’ll write about what I’ve been reading. 

The Stones Are Gathering

I’ve just about got the collection of pieces I call Stones Gathered Together ready for publishing as an ebook. Look for it in January. I stopped bothering about there being sixty items, as that was an idea from way back that doesn’t seem relevant any more, so I could drop a few pieces that really weren’t good enough to include—judgment about this is totally subjective of course.

Where would I be without my early readers? They include my writing group, my partner Prue and sundry others and make my writing better. Here’s the cover. Making one’s own cover is easier for an ebook than for a print book because you need only the front.

The new novel, which so far exists only in my head and a folder of articles and stuff I call research, is truly on the agenda now. For the time being at least it’s called Alice Green, which is the name of the protagonist.

I’ve just finished reading another David Foster Wallace. This is a further posthumously published book,  called Both Flesh and Not and is a collection of essay-type pieces, most of them previously unpublished. In between each is a double page of words and meanings—DFW was a word collector, and was part of a panel working on an American dictionary. I’ll confine myself to just one quote:

What if we choose to accept the act that every few years, despite everyone’s best efforts, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sort of terrible suicidal attack that a democratic republic cannot 100 percent protect itself from without subverting the very principles that make it worth protecting?

My summer reading will include some classics from the library—W G Sebald and Kafka—the new James Meek, The Heart Broke In, and some others, yet to be chosen, from the “waiting” pile. I’ll keep you posted.

With a knee operation and subsequent bad reaction to medications behind me, I am now back to reading and at least thinking about writing and publishing.

I'm stumbling along with The Brothers Karamazov, finding it, well, overwrought. Am also noticing how contemporary some of its concerns are and actually improving my understanding of what christianity/religion can mean to people, mainly through the character of Alyosha, the youngest brother. So I’m far from giving up on it, but reading other things alongside.

Re-reading Sarah Bakewell’s How To Live: A Life of Montaigne, is a delight. Bakewell is most impressive in the way she brings together historical context, what is known of Montaingne’s life, his reading and influences, and of course the ideas in his Essays. His ideas about how to live are worth thinking about, though at times I get annoyed with them.

J.M.Coetzee’s Diary of A Bad Year runs three versions of itself across the pages. Along the bottom of each page, separated by a thin line, is the story of a (not overtly sexual) relationship between an aging author and a woman in the same apartment block who types up the manuscript of a collection of thoughts he is writing. Starting a little way into the book is another stream, from the woman’s point of view. Across the top half - and more - of each page are the ‘thoughts’ of the author. I decided to read one strand at a time, starting from the one at the bottom of the pages, and this worked for me. As did the whole book. I admired it and enjoyed reading it and found the ideas of the short essays interesting, particularly the early ones about the state and the succession of power.

I’m finding it hard to think about the publishing of the new novel. There’s still a little editing to do, but that’s no reason to not at least settle on the beginnings of a plan. (Made a phone call to a friend, got more energised, watch this space.)

It seems a long time since I wrote anything new. There are a couple of ideas in there somewhere, I need to shake them out and see if they go anywhere, which means settling down at the computer and getting some words down.

I have written up the China travels, with photos, and put the file up on the web. You can access it at
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/766517/ChinaTripDB.pdf
without having to sign up for anything or identify yourself.

Tian'an Men Square, Beijing.
There’s no way to comment, if you want to make a comment come back to this blog or email me.

Not a travel blog

While traveling in China I did little reading and no writing. It takes a lot of energy to travel, especially when you don't speak, read or write the language and it is very very hot

There were sights to delight and amaze, beauty to revel in , history to wonder at, and experiences to cherish, along with a few times when it was overwhelming, and that not in a good way.

And there is nothing like walking on the Great Wall with a crowd of Chinese tourists, thinking about the history and the lives lost in its building, and the invasions from the north that it was built over time to counter. It looks like the pictures, but being there is something else. Thirty-five degrees-plus temperatures put shade at a premium and I wasn't the only one using my umbrella to create some.

At the other end of our trip in more ways than one was how they hang out their washing in the lanes that run along the canals of Suzhou. Pagodas, gardens, temples, street scenes, food - there is so much more I would say if this were a travel blog.

Once the further impediment of a knee operation is behind me I have resolved to get moving on the project of publishing, one way or another, my latest novel. And new writing to do. And reading. I'm well into The Brothers Karamazov, with a pile-in-waiting, so my next post will be back on topic.

Writing Dilemmas & Reading Pleasures

At the beginning of a year I tend to go back and read the notes I made the previous year on what I had read. One of my reasons for doing this is a very bad memory for names. Another is that I like to record quotes from the book that struck me when I was reading it. These are not necessarily  what I would note if I was doing a critique of the book, more things that remind me of something, or relate to an idea I’m thinking about, or even something I am writing.

This was brought home to me as I re-read Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna, which I first read a year ago and which is our reading group choice for January. The things I noted a year ago, and the things that struck me second time round are distinctly different from each other. The Lacuna stood up well to re-reading and I recommend it.

I have completed another revision of the-novel-known-as-Ann and made a list of all the poems, writing and art works that are quoted from or referred to in it. Now I will give it to a new reader, someone who hasn’t read any of the earlier versions and who has a perspective on an aspect of the story that I am keen to get input on. And nervous about.

So, deciding how to go about getting it out there, so to speak, is looming. I’ve been published by regular publishers, and self-published, so I know my way around. I’ve also kept reasonably up-to-date with what is happening in the epublishing world. So I know about the options. All have their pluses and minuses. I don't expect to sell a lot of books/ make money; I write about the lives of people to whom big, dramatic events don’t happen, although personal trials and tragedies do, and my protagonists are lesbian.

The biggest downside of any form of self-publishing, for me, is marketing and publicising, because I hate it and so don’t do it. It’s not that I can’t do it, more that I am overcome with resistance and fatigue whenever I set out to.

Watch this space as I figure out what I will do.

I don’t have another novel idea in mind, but I do have a lot of short pieces, some short stories, others shorter than that, which I will do some work on and gather together and see if they make something. If an idea for a short story or poem or novel comes along, I’ll go with that, too.

Whatever else. I’ll keep reading. Here are some of my favourite books from last year’s reading:

Burnt Shadows  by Kamila Shamsi. (She was at Writers & Readers)

Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Re-born Early diaries of Susan Sontag, edited by her son David Rieff

The Graveyard Book & American Gods by Neil Gaiman (he came to Writers & Readers too)

A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

The Collected Short Stories of Lydia Davis

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Room by Emma Donohue

Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins

How To Live: A Life of Montaigne By Sarah Bakewell.

The Montaigne book is a real treat, and I strongly recommend it — one of those biographies that looks at the man and his work as a whole. I gather it will be out in paperback this month (I read a library copy). Two fairly random quotes from it:

“Montaigne … Saw himself as a thoroughly ordinary man in every respect, except for his habit of writing things down.”

Montaigne thought “that the solution to a world out of joint was for each person to get themselves back in joint: to learn ‘how to live,’ beginning with the art of keeping your feet on the ground.”

The book, launched; others read, friend visited

Yesterday the book launch for Out To Lunch happened, in the local Paekakariki Hall. Fifty or so friends and a few relations came, many bought books. Jobs had been shared around, so it wasn’t a big preparation-stress for anyone, I think. 

We each read from our own selection for a couple of minutes, with the partner of, our member who died last year, reading for her. People ate the food, 

prepared by the same partner — her wish — with help from one of us writers and drank the punch and wine, overseen by the partner of another writer, and milled about talking to each other and bought books and had us all sign them. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and the new side doors of the hall were open, looking out to a bank of flowers and the freshly-painted white church, and it was all lovely.

The whole group project, from critiquing each others’ work, to the publication process, to the launch itself has been great. Next year we will meet in late January and continue to critique each others’ writing. As the costs of producing the book were covered, we are banking the money from sales and in a couple of years will think about another project. If anyone is keen to buy a copy of the book (178 pages, $20.00) email me at pat dot rosier at xtra dot co dot nz.

Reading Cynthia Ozick has its challenges. 

She prefers “classic feminism” to what she calls “new feminism.” She’s writing in the 1970s when she says this. If I’m reading her correctly, she endorses feminism as women gaining “access to the great world of thinking, being and doing.” She does NOT go along with any idea of “’male’ and ‘female’ states of intellect and feeling.” She doesn’t, in what I have read so far, address the “how to” of women getting the access she refers to, or being taken seriously and judged fairly when they do. I have a 1993 collection of her essays from the library and am interested to find out what else she has to say about feminism. I’ll look out for her 2010 novel Foreign Bodies, which is a reinvention of a Henry James novel. (Oh dear, do I have to read Henry James?)

Other reading includes Marianne Wiggins’ Evidence of Things Unseen. 

As this is current reading for my book group, I won’t talk about it in detail, just say that I love the science in it and the detail of time and place. I am learning about the Tennessee Valley Authority, which is fascinating.

My friend in Auckland liked the-story-known-as-Ann and gave me some excellent feedback on it. I’m still unsatisfied with the end of this novel and her comments about it losing emotional drive in the last couple of chapters have given me an idea to strengthen it in a way I like. It will be another week before I get to actually work seriously on this.

The friend I visit who has Altzheimers has read a couple of my short stories and given me wonderful feedback on them. She has read them several times, she told me, and they get better every time. Do I have more? A collection? When am I publishing them? She had made a few notes on the printouts, perceptive and useful comments. We had a great conversation about these stories for more than ten minutes. As I was leaving an hour later, she picked up the pages and said, “Did we talk about these?” My appreciation of her appreciation of my stories was undiminished, but it was all I could do not to cry, as I said something like, “Yes, we did and I’m so pleased that you like them,” and she looked confused and put down the papers. She wanted to read more of my stories, so today I posted two to her address at the rest home where she lives and talks often of getting back to her home and garden, in the country, several kilometres from the nearest town.  What she misses most, she says, is being able to practise her "domestic arts" — her phrase — which include growing flowers and picking and arranging them in her house, cooking, entertaining, spinning and weaving. The one she can do, and does constantly in the rest home, is knitting. She says it is soothing.

She knitted me a scarf. "With love," she said.

We are having this run of sunny, calm weather which is a delight. (Last summer I remember constant wind.) So our decision to spend the summer at home — after all, we do live at the beach — feels like a good one. Any day soon I may even scrub up the barbecue that sat out on our wind-exposed deck all last summer and never got lit once. 


I notice that today is 28 November. It is my sister's birthday. She killed herself at age 56. Today she would have been 73. I am remembering you, Ngaire.

Holiday reading & ongoing writing

It was a good holiday in Queensland and Melbourne. Saw some new places - Glass House Mountains, for example - and some important people, such as my son and my friends Judi and Margot.

A Glasshouse Mountain







The kookaburra that appeared in our back yard at Dicky Beach








My holiday reading ranged widely:
Solar, Ian McEwen (for my book group). Like it a lot, laughed out loud a few times, enjoyed the “science.” Such an unattractive protagonist, yet still a great stimulating read.
The Thousand Autumns of Joseph de Zoet, David Mitchell. Love DM’s writing. Learnt a lot about 15th century Japan and Holland from this novel, set in the Dutch-run Island in Nagasaki Harbour that was the only centre for European trade with Japan at the time. Also a love story.
The Danger Game by Kalinda Ashton. Australian novel, family tragedy, interesting relationship between adult sisters.
The Periodic Table by Primo Levi What can I say about this inspiring man and his writings? In this book he uses his knowledge of chemistry to talk about some of his life experiences.
The Glass Room, Simon Mawer. Learnt about Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. A story of a family and their friends over several decades. And a spectacular house that over the years is taken over by Nazis and Soviets and the Czechoslovak State.
Isak Dinesen, Judith Thurman. I am such a fan of Judith Thurman’s writing. She has said herself if she was writing this biography now it would be shorter. There sure is a lot of detail. ID had a fascinating and troubled life.

I think I’ve made progress with the ending of the novel still known as “Ann.” I just might be on the final draft. File name: Ann 15. Here’s my list of abandoned titles:
Ann
Ann Goes Into Art
The (he)Art of the Matter
Present Tense
Present Perfect
Perfect Present.
I find titles hard. My favourite title of any of the books I have been associated with is the title for the writing group book, and I didn’t think of that. (Yay, Annabel!) I have to come up with a title for “Ann” myself, but so far it eludes me.

"Ann" has a lot of quotes from a lot of different writers in it and the whole business of permissions to quote will have to be faced up to at the point when I am making decisions about publishing it. As I found with wanting to use a line from Emily Dickinson in Take It Easy, long-dead authors can be tricky. A university holds the copyright on ED and wanted me to pay fifty USD to use that line. I used something else, something I didn’t like as much. All the living authors I contacted were fine for me to quote them at no cost, just with the usual acknowledgment. However, I suspect it will be an even bigger issue with the Ann story, because I have included many more quotes and they are essential to the story. Watch this space.

Out To Lunch is well on the way into production. We are reading final proofs, the fabulous cover is nearing its final version, we have an ISBN number. (There’s nothing like an ISBN number to make a book seem real). A launch is planned for 4pm Saturday 27 November, St Peter’s Hall, Paekakariki, New Zealand.

When I think I have a final version of the Ann story, I’ll go back and look at some of the many short pieces I have. Maybe some of them would fit with the Ann story to make a book. Or not, still thinking about that.

This month has a number of friends’ birthdays in it, so my calligraphy efforts are directed at making individual birthday cards, which is a lot of fun. Thinking about them is a big part of the fun. And talking with my partner, Prue, about possibilities - she had a great idea the other day.

Publishing Merry-go-round

Prior to heading off on a three-week holiday in Queensland and Melbourne I have competed yet another rewrite/ edit of my fourth novel and printed it out to take with me and have my partner read. Previously I have shown only the first five chapters to anyone.

This is the novel that began its life as a short story and I morphed into a novel during Write A Novel in a Month last November, and wrote about in earlier blogs. I’ve been experimenting with writing in the present tense, and with other aspects of my writing. I’m still not satisfied with the ending to this novel, but the rest of the story is probably done — which doesn’t exclude more rewriting, just means that I think the story elements are there. There is a lot more plot than in the short story, but the key idea of the short story is central to the novel.

It’s around fifty thousand words, which is short for a novel, long for a novella, but that seems to be the size it is. There could be one more chapter, but I’m not convinced about that. The novel doesn’t have a title yet. I call the files of various drafts ‘Ann’ because that’s the name of the protagonist, but I don’t think that will be the title of the book. The current file is Ann15.

I don’t know yet what I’ll do about publishing it. The whole publishing business is in a state of flux. Fewer and fewer big publishing houses control more and more of what one might call ‘mainstream’ publishing, the smaller presses can afford less editing/ marketing support, and so on and on. Self-publishing is less denigrated than it was, ebooks are a potential; options, maybe, certainly a tangled web for writers.

The writing group I am part of is in the process of self-publishing a book of our writings, to be called Out To Lunch. The title relates to group members being lesbians, the fact that we meet on Sundays with a shared lunch, and us all liking the idea of being a bit crazy. We have some funding from a local trust and from one of our members who sadly died last year and help from friends and relations with cover design and typesetting. It will be published at the end of November.

I’m enjoying working with a group on this project. And, I suspect — hope —that when we have Out To Lunch out there I will have decided what to do with my novel.

In my last post I quoted a couple of lines of my poetry in the short story I added. Just for fun, here is a version of the same quote using my slowly-developing calligraphy skills.