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Anne Skyvington

The Art of Creative Writing

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Writing

mardi-gras-parade
Writing

Cultural Events in this Part of the Globe

Elizabeth Jolley

Elizabeth Jolley (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Short Story Literary Prize

“Entries are now open for the 2014 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize worth a total of $8000. This year, for the first time, we will be accepting online entries as well as hard-copies. We have also decided to open the Prize so that all writers, not just Australians, are eligible to enter. Entries must be a single-authored short story of between 2000 and 5000 words, written in English.” For details and entry form, see: https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/prizes/elizabeth-jolley-story-prize

 

Australia Council Grants

Australia Council Literature Grants are now open for Promotions, Residencies, New Work etc. Various closing dates, mostly late March and mid-May. Check their website for details: http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/artforms/literature

 

Save the Randwick Literary Institute

Sunday 9 March: Rally to defend the Randwick Literary Institute: 

I’ve been attending a Memoir Group organised by Beth Yahp that meets in this rustic old building in Randwick. Begun in 1913 and still running today, the RLI was built and owned by the community as a space for education, recreation and mutual support. It was handed over to the state government for safe keeping as a Crown Reserve in 2002. The Randwick Literary Institute hosts 74 community user groups every week and has 2000 regular users. Its much-loved manager, Marian MacIntosh recently had her job terminated and the NSW Department of Lands is not saying what the RLI’s future is. With ‘public asset sales’ the order of the day, users and friends are fighting to save the RLI’s original and continuing purpose – to serve the community at affordable prices.

 

The Sydney Mardi Gras

The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Saturday 1st March

It promises to be bigger and better than ever this year in spite of wet weather. Government ministers, police and military are joining in.

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    A reveler in Sydney on Mardi Gras. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

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Cultural Events in this Part of the Globe was last modified: August 16th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
March 2, 2014 0 comment
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MemoirWriting

New Family New Decade and a New Blog

A Watershed Year: 2014

My husband Mark Onslow and I went to bed one night with three grandchildren, and woke up the next day with seven grandkids!  That’s exaggerating; it happened over a few months, starting with two new little ones (fostered Aboriginal kids) and then increasing to two more older siblings.

Moving house and downsizing to a flat followed for us two (new grandparents of extra kids).

In the meantime, I became a member of a new (novel) writers’ feedback group, and celebrated a huge milestone: my 70th birthday!

Christmas celebrations, then New Year came upon us, and I  had to make a decision to cut back on personal blogging for a while.  I planned to focus solely on the Bondi Writers Group once-a-month blog.

However this group began to fold, and I was able to get back to personal blogging.

I find WordPress a richer platform than Blogger, and I intended to rebirth the Bondi Writers Newsletter within a WordPress blog, firstly here, and on its own site as well. The older posts would remain within Blogger.

As Bondi Writers is now defunct, I have started a new blog for the new group Waverley Writers of FOWL.

GRANDKIDS as of  2014  5 + 2 = 7

five-grandkids

Five Grandkids

 

two-grandkids

Two Grandkids

New Family New Decade and a New Blog was last modified: May 6th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
January 7, 2014 0 comment
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AustraliaWriting

Ocean Baths and Swimming Pools

I love the part in the “Life of Pi” movie where the hero explains how he came to be called ‘Pi” from the French word for swimming pool (piscine). Swimming pools have always been an obsession with me too: from the rough ones built into the Clarence River bank at South Grafton when I was a kid when immersion in water was a necessary counter to the cruel humid summers. To the sparkling unreal turquoise of the first modern pools I experienced in Sydney visits as an eight-year-old.

 

And then there are Wylies’ Baths on the Pacific Ocean at Coogee where I live as an adult. Timber ramparts reach out from the cliffs like a modern-day fortress. You pay $6 to use the facilities and lounge on the timber decks with spectacular views, or descend down a timber staircase into the waters for a swim from the cement. In summer a masseuse sets up her table on the timber floor of the upper deck. Downstairs there are shallow paddle pools for the kids, but it’s all quite natural as well. No chlorine or even sand. And you  find shade underneath the timber deck and buy food and drink and make a day of it.

When we returned to live in Coogee recently after a two year “harbour change” with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and visits to the North Sydney Olympic Pool, it was like coming home. Not only because our daughter and two grandchildren were still here. How could we ever have left such an environment? There’s the beach at our doorstep and cafes galore to choose from. And then there are the pools, four in all: one at each end of the beach, and two on the southern foreshore of the Ocean. Wylies’ is the large one further to the south.

 

But the interesting one that I have started to frequent more recently is the Women’s Baths, a little retrograde oasis in a modern more politically correct universe. The local council has allowed it to exist at least temporarily.

For just twenty cents that you throw through the iron grill door into a plastic tub, when no-one is on duty, you can swim and bathe in a deep rocky pool in the ocean, then sunbathe topless on the private grassy banks or scramble down onto the large expanse of rocks that leads to Wylies’ in the distance. Young Moslem women in scarves, heterosexual women, and gay women of all shapes ages and sizes are drawn to this pool, because of its privacy. It is monitored on a volunteer basis.

Related articles
  • Wylies, why not? (idswimthat.com)
Ocean Baths and Swimming Pools was last modified: August 16th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
October 13, 2013 0 comment
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MemoirWriting

The River Clown

I love my brother Donny to bits. He’s the funny one in our family. He sings and yodels “There’s a Track Leading Back” and plays the guitar like his heroes, Slim Dusty and Smoky Dawson.

I follow Donny, both of us barefoot, around the farm. I’ve been following him all my life. Since I was old enough to walk. Our old dog Streak runs between our legs sometimes. I’d follow Donny to the ends of the earth if I had to. To gain his love. He dishes it out to me in little bits to keep me in my place. To show he’s boss of us. Specially as I’m a girl.

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The River Clown was last modified: August 16th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
September 1, 2013 0 comment
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Writing

Crow

 He is waiting for me again this morning, out on the same post, watching me with one eye slanted as always, my jet black crow. He is out for what he can get, the crow. I give him titbits, a piece of meat or a worm or two that I dig up in the garden. He sits there and eyes it until I go away. Then when I come back the meat is gone, and he is still there eyeing me. As if to say:

“You’re a fool, you know. Why wait around in a godforsaken place like this?”

I wait for the moon to come around again, and then I am satisfied. The moon is like an old friend, full-blown, expecting, and reminds me of all the love in the world. I wait for the cooling autumn breezes to come sweeping up across the plains from Antarctica. And at last it is winter and I am back to longing for spring and summer once again.

Now I am constantly on my own, with only the crow, the dog and the loaded rifle for my companions.

I know it is Easter in the world I have come from. I think of the figure on the cross, the blood dripping from the wounds to the palms, the gash in the side, and the forehead with the crown of thorns.

Is Hell really a place of fire, a red place?

Here in this world, I have no way of celebrating or of giving thanks. I must live by my wits and, if I have to eat meat, I must learn to kill.

I know it is the time when I must choose which one of the lambs I should kill. Will it be Rosette or Anzac or Pascal? The lambs are doing marvellously well, their bodies plump and strong. The old ram that I had to get rid of after the attack has left his spirit behind in these young ones. They will provide good eating for the cold months ahead. I have at last learnt how to cut the throat of the animals, quickly and without fuss, and drain the blood onto the ground. I have learnt how to strip the carcasses and hang them in the room I call “the chapel.”

Pascal is the obvious choice this day.

〰️

I have managed to harvest all the walnuts from the trees. They say that if a man goes to sleep under one of these he will never wake up again, so treacherous is the poisonous sap that drips from them. They are the ugliest of trees; their black knotted trunks and dark foliage remind me of mean-spirited trolls who have inhabited my space. They belong to a different hemisphere, brought here by a foreigner many years ago. There is nothing redeeming about them apart from their fruit, which I am learning to pickle.

I till the soil in little patches, then plant seeds in one part and seedlings in the other. I’ve fenced off my garden from the animals and Salome is not allowed to dig there. The breezes have come and gone and deposited the dead leaves on the ground. These have been crunched into the soil by boots and hooves. I rake them up and deposit them on the garden as mulch. The soil is rich and black here.

The crow eyes me now and hops one step closer, as I turn and ignore him. I can see his shadow out of the corner of my eye as I go about my gardening. He follows, at a safe distance, watching me.

Always watching and waiting.

〰️

I look out on a world transformed. All is white about me. Salome is white against white outside in the cold. Whining and pawing to get in, and the sheep are holed up in the sheds. The branches of the eucalyptus trees are holding onto the snow like sacrificial giants in penance. I will put on my rubber boots, coat and hat and go out into the lightly falling snow to check the animals and feed them. Salome will dance about me in the snow.

It is hard to imagine where all the little throbbing hearts of birds have gone. Where all the stalks of grass are hiding.  I often think of the people that once trod these paths, their black bodies gleaming in the sun as they hunted fish, spears poised against the backdrop of the white sands. There are none of them left now. I wonder if the ghosts of these people still haunt this land.

How strange to have watched from the shadows of gum trees, as pale-faced spirits spilled forth from white-winged craft onto the sacred shore

Further up in the wilds I know where there are caves. At the base of a giant gum tree that has been uprooted by natural causes, I once found tool-like instruments—knives and scrapers in quartz and stone—remnants of a past culture. I left them there.

Unwise to disturb the spirits of the land.

〰️

The moon is out. It is a silvery moon. I sit at the window and stare at the wise full face of it. How can such a pure visage stare down, without flinching, on the evidence of such sorrow and grief as this poor world contains? I can see the shape of a deer at the edge of the bush and I am afraid for her. The hunters will surely find her and kill her. I finger the box and take the handgun out of its holder. It contains blanks, but they will at least serve to frighten away whoever is lurking out there.

I talk to Salome and feed her, the blood-dripping meat that she so loves, in the bowl that I place next to her kennel, or the leftovers from my meal in the evening, vegetables included.

Tonight I will bake a leg of lamb, one that I have kept frozen for two months. The names of the lambs are marked on each bag in the freezer. Which one will it be tonight? I think it will be Calamity, which makes me feel better, knowing that she might have got herself killed soon anyway, considering the scrapes she managed to get herself into. And I will eat her flesh and give thanks to God and to her and to her brothers and sisters, for providing for me and for my dog. I throw the dry logs onto the fire and set it roaring. I play a record on the ancient gramophone player and set to work baking bread, knitting and cleaning.

raven-mystical

There are noises outside from the wind. I go outside and look around. Nothing. Trees like skeletons, arms outstretched. Swaying. Shadows from the moon.

I am suddenly aware that I am a woman alone. Out here in the mulga.

I feel a splinter of fear shoot up my spine.

I go inside.

I wonder what colour fear is? Is it grey like the colour of my old woman’s cheeks at this moment, when the courage is drained from them? A trapped colour—like that of purgatory, a no-man’s land caught in between two extremes.

Life and death: Black and white.

If he comes, what shall I do? Shall I resist and put up a fight? Or succumb and die alone here in the bush? I can feel, already, his hands—a butcher’s hands. They are covered in thick black hairs like the fur on the animals that he shoots. His hands are clenched tightly around my throat and I can utter no sound. A shiver of fear runs through my body from top to toe and I stiffen and hold my breath. I know this is wrong, holding onto the fear. I think of the way a rabbit first stiffens when faced with danger, as if smelling it, then shakes its body to release the fear, once the danger has passed. I try to shake the fear from my body, but it is firmly lodged between my breast and my rib plates. My heart is banging like a door in the wind. I imagine him lurking around the house ready to spring on me.  I seem to hear heavy footsteps on the pebbles surrounding the house.

The dog barks.

〰️

 

There is a pounding outside, a banging like a thunderstorm trying to gain entry. The dog has become a barking tornado, trying to protect me from what it sees as mortal danger.

“Who is there?” I shout in the deepest voice I can muster. There is no reply. I look over the front steps from the window upstairs. I see a dark form slumped against the side of the house. I run downstairs, gun in hand. But when I go outside, there is no one there

I return to my bedroom at the top of the stairs. I know I should go to bed, and sleep and dream, and forget about my fear. But I sit upright on the bed, my back against the wall, wide-eyed, staring at the moon out through the window.

It has become a haunted moon. Lost its sheen—slid into dark.

I sit there for a long time with my shotgun nearby. Outside the moon illuminates the night. I go outside again and walk around the side of the house and see footprints in the snow—huge footprints made by a hunter’s boots. I am following the giant footprints in the snow. They become intermingled with spots of blood. He is carrying the deer he shot. I turn the corner of the house and walk towards the back door. And there it is: a dark furred shape lying in the snow near the wall. A young deer. The one that I saw at the edge of the forest. A pool of crimson circling out from underneath the throat, tongue hanging out. And further on another shape, a crumpled human form, fallen beside the back steps. A man’s black-bearded face, cheek down against the ice, pale and drained of colour. The hunter is injured. Blood pours from his wound, changing the pure white of the snow where he lies into a red red pool.

Like a splotch of colour on a painter’s palette.

I drag the heavy body of the hunter away from the house. Many times I think I will not manage to reach the corner of the paddock. I will leave his body there. While I light the fire. His body will become part of the landscape, of the universe. He will become one with nature, just as I am. His remains will supply the fodder and mulch to make the earth, to feed the worms and slugs that the crow will feed on.

The fire is already licking at his chest, his gently curbing chest with the black hairs, beneath his shirt.

It is too cold and sad for me outside now, watching the orange tongues of flames licking at the air and swallowing him up.

The exertion has exhausted me. The moon has shrunk into a blanched almond crescent. I must rest. I will go inside, wash my hands and face in soapy water in the ceramic basin, and sleep next to my dog on the sofa a while.

I see the hunter’s face flickering in amidst the flames. Not complaining. Accepting his lot in life. Letting go. Surrendering. To the flames. Submitting. What must be must be. His features are disintegrating bit by bit. All aglow now.

Now I must sleep.

Tomorrow I will look for my crow. I will tell him about my find. He will surely know that what I have done is right.  I look forward to seeing my crow once more. He will understand.

My black black crow waiting for me on the post.

Crow was last modified: December 9th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
September 1, 2013 0 comment
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Book ReviewsLife StoriesWriting

Brave Novels and Memoirs

I’ve just finished reading a memoir by a writer, Alan Close: Until You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love about his lifetime struggle to have a committed relationship with a woman. It is a redemption story that relates his hard-won victory over his emotional problems linked to this situation.  He happens to be my sister’s neighbour in the delightful subtropical town of Mullumbimby in Northern New South Wales. Susan is a counsellor at Byron Bay High School, and we were talking about the Writers’ Festival held there recently.

Alan is very truthful and open about his past affairs with women, and about his often troubled relationship with his mother. He also relates the therapeutic relationship he entered into with a female therapist that was the catalyst to his finding a mate and committing to her. He talked about his book at the Byron Bay Writers Festival, which my sister attended. Also attending was his partner, Sarah Armstrong, who lives with him and their tiny daughter in Mullum. Alan has also edited a book: Men Love Sex and has written articles for major newspapers and magazines.

Also at the festival were Robyn de Crespigny, who wrote The People Smuggler, Andrea Goldsmith: The Memory Trap (4th Estate 2013),  Mandy Nolan: What I Would Do If I Were You: Dispatches from the frontlines of family life, Sarah Turnbull: All Good Things, and Belinda Hawkins‘ Every Parent’s Nightmare. Other books I’m looking forward to reading are Anna Funders’ All That I Am and Gillian Mears’ The Foal’s Bread.

Brave Novels and Memoirs was last modified: July 4th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 22, 2013 0 comment
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Book ReviewsBooksLife StoriesWriting

Memoirs I Read 2013

Cover of "Salvation Creek : An Unexpected...

Cover of Salvation Creek : An Unexpected Life

Lately I’ve been reading reading reading … especially memoirs, as I come closer to sending one of mine off to a competition at Finch Publishing. I’ve also been attending Beth Yahp’s Memoir Evenings at the Randwick Literary Institute on the last Tuesday of the month.

One of the books I’ve enjoyed recently is Marzipan and Magnolias by Elizabeth Lancaster (Finch Publishing, 2010). It has one of the best ‘hooks’ for a first chapter (Venus Sydney 1981) I’ve read and starts with : “Sometimes I wonder what happened to my first patient in the neurology unit of the inner city Sydney hospital where I worked as a new graduate. She was about twenty-two and called herself Venus. Dyed black hair framed her ultra-white face, and safety pins dangled from one ear. Venus was of ‘no fixed address’; she was tough and cool and she had multiple sclerosis.”  This memoir is motivated by the author’s eventual contraction–is that the right word to use?–of multiple sclerosis. However it’s about much more: her childhood, her passionate affairs with boyfriends and cultures, and ultimate marriage to a German. It’s funny in many parts, especially about her fatal attraction to the (‘loser’?) Seamus and all things Irish, that is until she falls for Martin. It’s about the toughness of the human spirit in the face of physical and emotional challenges in which the role of humour is an important aspect in this story.

Green Vanilla Tea by Marie Williams won the Finch Memoir Prize in 2013. It’s also about challenges in the face of illness, but in this case the sufferer is the author’s husband.  He changes from a loving partner and engaged father, into a stranger who must walk the streets as if in search of himself. Eventually he is diagnosed with early onset dementia and motor neurone disease. at 44 years of age. The most lasting impression after reading this book is the author’s (and their sons’) enduring love for the husband/father which transcends through courage and endurance the devastating effects of his illness. She puts off until the last moments placing him in a nursing home for dementia patients, and manages the terrible symptoms of his disintegration with the help of friends and loved ones who rally around her. In spite of the negative aspects of  the husband’s  slide towards death, it’s the  transcendental aspects of this story that reign supreme. His a paragraph fr m the middle of the book encapsulating the author’s strength and purpose in protecting her husband: “Somehow, even as we ‘lose’ more of Dom every day, he offers us a new way to look at things. To be stripped of your past and to have no sense of your future leaves you firmly in the now. There is no room here for attachments to the things we assume make us happy. From my new world of shredded irrelevancies, there is no mistaking what is important. Through Dominic’s journey of dying I am so much clearer about what bring”s life.”

Another book, Salvation Creek by Susan Duncan was also a memoir I couldn’t put down. It’s a redemption story, told by a middle-aged woman who has lost the two important men in her life to cancer–her husband and her brother–within the same week. then later on, she also  develops breast cancer. From her position as a high-flying editor of an Australian women’s magazine, she makes a brave choice to throw in her career and her past life for a radical ‘harbourside change’. The total love affair does not happen overnight, but she is eventually seduced by the beauty and peace of nature, and builds a life on the foreshores of a Pittwater bay, far removed from the Sydney city centre. It’s a story told with passion by a woman who loves people, dogs, food and nature. Her writing is often over-laden with too many adjectives, images and mixed metaphors, but this is her character–she always cooks too much food for parties too–and she carries the reader along with the sheer weight of her personality. I loved it!

Related articles
  • Histories, Biographies, Memoirs – Roundup #5 2013 (australianwomenwriters.com)
Memoirs I Read 2013 was last modified: February 23rd, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
August 6, 2013 0 comment
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TravelWriting

In Dublin’s Fair City

We caught a plane to Dublin from London. Here we had our toughest passage through Customs yet. Admittedly Heathrow is difficult; it’s being renovated and we had to catch several buses to reach our terminal. Also, the Customs woman seemed to think I was on a false passport and fired questions at me: “Do you know anyone in Dublin?” “Yes, my girlfriend is studying writing there at the moment.” “Are you staying with her?” “No, at the Fleet Street Hotel.” “When’s your birthday?” “19th November.”  “How old are you?” “69” (Looking at my terrible passport photo) “You don’t look that old”. I felt like being rude, but  I’ve made it a rule never to argue with a Customs officer. And I was too tired by this stage: really feeling my age after the long queues and exhaustive bag searches.

statue-oscar-wilde

To make things worse, an American woman with her hen-pecked husband was saying in a loud voice; “It’s all the Muzzlems’ fault, you know!” Once allowed to pass through, we muttered something quickly and hurried in order to put distance between us and the Americans. Luckily, the plane trip was not very long, highlighting the closeness between this tiny country and its one-time nemesis, Great Britain. It’s even smaller than Tasmania.

Kay, my friend from Australia, was there waiting for us. We three hugged and kissed, then caught a taxi to our hotel. Fleet Street Hotel is very central, a block away from the Liffey River and surrounded by pubs with patrons flowing out onto the city streets. Our hotel room was small and plain, with a view onto  an eighteen century looking roof area that looked like works had been called off due to lack of funds. We found a pub restaurant with expensive food that was not very good: bacon is on all the menus, but it’s more like bully beef or boiled meat.

Kay invited us for dinner the next evening at her spacious apartment in a Georgian building near St Stephens’ Green area. This is the most attractive area of Dublin with vines spreading out over the facades of the buildings and beautiful gardens and open spaces. Many of the other Anglo type buildings were torn down after the republic was born.

trinity-dublin

Trinity College

One of the highlights of our visit was being able to see the Book of Kells, which was on show at Trinity College,  opposite our Hotel. We were very lucky not to have to line up, since one of Mark’s colleague acquaintances works at the university there. We felt priviliged to be able to see these amazing ancient texts. Also, we were able to visit the medieval library with its fascinating articles hearking back to classical times and before. Mark’s friend told him that all public servants, lecturers and teachers included, have to take a thirty percent pay cut because of the bail-out by Germany. I also noticed more beggars in Ireland than in any other European country we visited. The anti-abortion laws are medieval, and women often have large families. And yet, the country is open to gay marriage, according to my friend: just one of the many contradictions in Ireland.

kilmainham-gaol-tour

The Gaol Tour

A must when you’re in Dublin is visit Kilmainham Gaol. It’s where the Easter Rising rebels were executed in 1916, which led to Ireland becoming a republic. I felt terribly depressed afterwards. Like all gaols, even though it’s a museum, it’s depressing, but this one more so because of the executions that took place here. The pretty blond guide dramatised the events,and brought home to us the magnitude of what happened here, but it’s the only way to really understand the “Irishness” of the country’s people. The British leaders at the time, stupidly started to execute the leaders of the Rising. By the time they’d got to twenty, the dye was cast, and the people rose up: the Republic of Ireland was born.

A real pleasure was walking around the city looking at the gardens and streets, often coming across statues and plaques devoted to famous writers and icons. Writers are revered in Dublin. Another must is to hop on a green bus and do the tour of the city, which includes a visit to the huge Guinness factory and various museums, including the Writers Centre.

Dublin Castle was the fortified seat of Britis...

Dublin Castle was the fortified seat of British rule in Ireland until 1922. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Dublin’s Fair City was last modified: August 16th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
July 3, 2013 0 comment
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TravelWriting

Favourite Places in Brisbane

I’d stayed in the Brisbane CBD previously, also in the south-eastern suburb of Morningside, when I used to visit my late brother in Georgina Hostel there. And I’d stayed in the southern suburb of St Lucia at the University of Queensland once. Never before in Toowong.

But my favourite place in Brisbane is South Bank Parklands, just across the river from the Central Business District. I love the fact that you can find a large beach for open air swimming just across the river in a city of more than 2 million people. The weather wasn’t good, but there were still people swimming in the pools there that range in depth from one metre in the children’s paddle areas, to more than two metres in sections watched over by a lifeguard. The Parklands also boast rainforest gardens, grassed areas, plazas, riverfront promenades, a Nepalese pagoda, restaurants, shops, fountains, and busy markets held on weekends. South Bank was opened to the public in 1992 on the site of the former World Expo 88 site.

While my partner was attending a conference south of Toowong, I caught a rivercat northwards along the Brisbane River, which turns like a snake north, south, north, south and north again until it reaches the ocean. I got out at New Farm and caught the next ferry–they come every fifteen minutes in either direction–back as far as South Bank.

After exploring South Bank, I took the rivercat back to the Regatta Ferry stop and had lunch at the grand-looking Regatta Hotel across the road. I’d made the mistake of thinking the weather would be warmer than in Sydney; after all, I’m originally from the New South Wales town of Grafton, 600 km north of Sydney and only 300 km south of Brisbane. It’d always been subtropically warm when I was a kid. So I’d underdressed for this trip.

It was cold out on the River; I was now hungry and thirsty; I ordered a XXXX beer on tap and a garlic pizza. It was amazingly good, although I could only eat half the pizza, and it was too smelly to cart back in my handbag to the less grand hotel. We were staying in the centre of the commercial precinct of Toowong.

When I got back, I read up on Toowong to discover that in 1965 two women, including a certain Merle Thornton, had chained themselves to the bar of the Regatta Hotel in protest at public bars in Queensland being restricted to men only. Merle is the mother of Australian actress, Sigrid Thornton. It threw me back into memories of Dad handing a drink to Mum through the window of the car, while he went back into the bar to drink with his mates.

Another interesting find in Toowong, was coming across a huge tropical fish tank in the Shopping Plaza that looked, apart from this, like any other Westfield shopping centre in Sydney.

I’d been reading about Baz Luhrmann in the newspaper, and the upcoming premiere of his movie ‘The Great Gatsby’. Looking at the fish in the tank reminded me of the scene in his ‘Romeo and Juliet‘ movie of the young lovers first catching sight of one another through the glass and water of a large fish tank with its creatures swimming past their faces seen through the water in the tank.

It seemed weird that I was the only person in the centre staring into the tank at the beautiful creatures and taking photographs of them.

Favourite Places in Brisbane was last modified: August 16th, 2017 by Anne Skyvington
May 12, 2013 2 comments
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CraftWriting

Alternative Narrative Approaches

Are you  a planner or a laisser faire type when it comes to narrative structure?  Do you put plot, character or language first?

Aristotle, in Poetics, claimed plot as the main and most important function in creating aesthetic structure. Not much has changed today, although many writers prefer to start off writing without a strict plan in mind.

One successful Australian novelist has a vague idea of what she wants to write about, for example country life in a small village. But rather than planning the structure, she writes in segments and puts them together at a later date; this latter step involves  ‘finding’ the storyline, as opposed to having it at the beginning.

One advantage of this approach is that the writer can concentrate on ‘good writing’ as distinct from obsessing about the plot. She can create lively characters and vibrant language before having to worry about the story, which may eventually find itself or sort itself out.

On the other hand, I suppose the advantage of planning beforehand means that you, as the writer, will  feel more in control, as you know where you are heading. The narrative might be more coherent and believable for the reader as a result.

Ideally, of course, you’d try to integrate the two approaches. But it seems that writers tend to fall into one or other of the two categories.

Some writers like to experiment with different approaches, especially when writing short stories. For example, you can have an ending in mind and work towards that. Or you can have the beginning and nothing else and start from there. In one group I attended, a classmate tried writing without punctuation, or with minimal punctuation, and managed to create a brilliant story.

One of my best short stories evolved from writing about three colours, as a  constraint, which served to take the pressure off the need to tell a good story.

I have discovered that people who like control over their lives tend to adopt a planned approach. Many prefer this approach, especially if they are writing crime or science fiction stories, the preserve of many successful male authors. Women are more likely to be interested in character above all, and will choose to ‘fly by the seat of their pants’ as a first response.

James Patterson, who writes crime stories, is on the side of plotting as a first step. He creates detailed outlines of his stories before putting pen to paper. Kate Grenville prefers to write freely at the start and to search for a plot at a later date.

Fantasy writers and detective story writers will likely employ plotting as the favoured approach, as these genres are more focused on action than on character. Literary approaches would often require an emphasis on characterisation, imagery and stylistic features, which would place them on the laisser faire end of the spectrum.

Another more colloquial term for non-planners is ‘pantsers’, short for writers who ‘go by the seat of their pants’ in creating a short story or a novel.

If you get caught up totally in the ‘Dionysiac’ lust and chaos of ‘pantsering’, (going by the seat of your pants), you might get stuck and never finish, or fail to reach full potential. Then you’ll need to appeal to the ‘Apollonian’ side of your nature, involving the ability to be rational, ordered, and self-disciplined, and turn to structural processes.

However, too much planning may stunt your style, especially if you are a creative and imaginative type.

It is best, if at all possible, to remain with one foot in both camps, like partners in a successful ‘marriage of equality’, in order to produce a brilliant work of art. That is, start off with one approach, but pay homage to the other, at least at some stage or stages of the writing process.

For myself, I like to start off as a ‘pantser’ for the initial draft, or perhaps up until about halfway or three-quarters of the way into the novel. Then I take an opposite tack, and do what the planners do: consider where I am going, draw a timeline and ask questions about structure, narrative arc and beginning and end goals. That is, I consider the ‘big picture’ of the novel and work on making it better, tighter and readable.

First of all, see which side of the fence fits you naturally. Do you prefer to start off by writing in segments, or scenes, and just ‘letting the creative juices flow’. Or do you like to create a plan of your story, and, maybe, a concise plotline, before you actually start writing?

If you start out writing from Chapter One through to The End, as I did for my first novel, this puts you in the non-planner category. At some stage, you will need to consider structure, where you are going, as well as where you are coming from, that is storyline, plot and overarching themes.

At some point you might decide to explore the opposite approach to your favoured one. A marriage of equals is about a certain amount of compromise, and the best creative writing springs from experimenting, in order to find your niche.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds/Admit impediments. Shakespeare: Sonnet 116

Hermia & Lysander
Alternative Narrative Approaches was last modified: February 18th, 2021 by Anne Skyvington
March 27, 2013 2 comments
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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

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Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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