Writing

Plot or Character?

Aristotle (Photo credit: maha-online)

Our writers’ group recently invited a speaker from the University of Technology, Sydney to present a talk on “Poetics”, which he defined as the features of narrative writing.

Did you know that Aristotle wrote the first literary treatise, entitled Poetics, on this subject in 350 BC?

You can read the book online at

http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/poetics.mb.txt

We discovered that Aristotle considered plot to be the most important element in constructing a narrative.

Character was next in importance, but secondary to plot (sequence of events). Mark, our lecturer, demonstrated this by retelling the story of “Oedipus Rex” in Sophocles’ dramatic tragedy written in 429 BC.

Here characters are subservient to fate, which throws in their pathway terrible events with tragic consequences.

I recalled Australian writer Kate Grenville, expressing the opinion that plotting was a more traditionally “male” way of constructing narratives, whereas many women tended to write in segments—events based on characterisation and “showing” rather than “telling”—which was her chosen modus operandus. In this way of operating, the plot evolves as questions are asked and answered.

Is this really a more “female” way of writing?

Perhaps a synthesis of the two approaches is the ideal way: have an idea of the story, but modify or recreate as you go…

Other narrative elements include language, structure, setting, dialogue, theme, genre, point of view and tense.

Mark defined tragedy as “terrible things happening to good people”, which is different from comedy, whereby characters are often severely flawed from the outset, and might change as the plot develops.

Complex plots involve a change of fortune, accompanied by reversals and character recognitions. The reader’s response is one of pity or fear when a tragic outcome is achieved.

February 18, 2013 0 comment

Books Writing

An ebook on Australian women writers

I’ve recently reviewed Women Authors by Linda McMahon and would like to share with you some of its content and my appraisal. Linda interviewed five Australian women writers (Wendy Harmer, Cate Kennedy, Jill Morris, Katherine Scholes and Rachael Treasure) about their craft, and how they managed to publish their books while married with kids.

Harmer and Treasure are both journalists, although they have branched out into other areas of interest, including fiction. Jill Morris has a wide-ranging career based in non-fiction, playwriting, fiction, publishing and films. Kennedy and Scholes have focused solely on adult fiction, both short story writing and novels. As they’ve all had to balance successful careers with child-rearing, support from partners has been a huge factor in their success. Nature appears to play an important motivating role for most of these women, as does the existence of childhood obstacles they’ve had to overcome. They all name the ability to tell a story well as the most important aspect of being a good writer.

November 28, 2012 0 comment

Memoir Writing

Armidale Teachers College: the class of 1961-62

Armidale, a regional University town, is situated in the northern tableland area of New England, halfway between Sydney and Brisbane with a population of 25,000. In the sixties, when I was a student there, there would have been perhaps half this number of people living there, and even fewer during university and college vacations. My early childhood was spent on a property in the Clarence Valley outside South Grafton, on the Glen Innes Highway that leads to Armidale. Dad chose Armidale Teachers College as the obvious choice for me: “You can always go back to teaching when you have a family.”

class-of-1961-1962-armidale-teachers-college

The class of 1961-62 ATC

There were 600 students and thirty-odd staff members at Teachers College in 1962. Most of us had only just turned sixteen when we started at Armidale, and would be out in front of classes by the time we turned eighteen. At college, we learnt how to teach all the theory subjects, as well as choosing several options seen as being part of our general educational enhancement. It was like an American campus, in that everything took place on site and we were housed in segregated student accommodation colleges within walking distance of the college on the hill. There was little chance of sexual misconduct in those days, as we had to be inside by nine o’clock during the week and eleven on weekends.

ATC in 2011

One of my options was Philosophy with Miss Margaret Mackie. (See the tiny stockinged figure in the bottom far-right of the student and staff photo). She was a brilliant teacher. An inspirational teacher. She taught me how to think. It was during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet bloc. We discussed issues to do with the atomic bomb that made it less frightening for us. Miss Mackie made me realise that you could have different opinions from the rest of the crowd without feeling like a renegade. She made us all think. I even loved doing her syllogisms. She taught us about Socrates and Plato and regaled me with stories of the Delphic Oracle. Despite having studied with other fantastic lecturers in universities both here and overseas, no-one surpassed Margaret Mackie for sheer pedagogical brilliance.

The women I shared sections of Smith House with, especially in the lovely old terrace called Southall, that was joined to one end of the rest of the building, have remained friends until this day. We had to make our own fun to a great extent, but there were regular dances organised by the College, and sport was an ongoing obligatory activity.

Today the college stands like a monument to the past. It was built in 1929 during the depression years from funds supplied in part by wealthy graziers, as a means of bringing status and employment to the district. The gigantic columns and other traits in the classical style of the Italian Renaissance, are intermixed with fifties art deco features. Situated on a hill, it overlooks the valley in which the town is located, and is surrounded by green lawns and colourful flower beds.

Our recent Reunion, held over three days, was well-organised by a committee of several ex-students, most of whom have retired on the north coast of NSW. On Wednesday was “Meet and Greet” evening at 5pm at the Returned Servicemens’ Club. Name tags had to be picked up and attached to clothing with women’s single names displayed as well. Two hundred people turned up and mingled for this event. Amazing to see so many of us recognising so many friends from the past; or trying to put names to faces, or remembering the names, and trying to dredge up the faces from the distant past. Many stories were recounted, and memories jogged on this very special night. Quite a few couples had met and married during their time at Armidale Teachers College — and were still married after forty-five years!

The next night was the formal dinner and dance during which we sang some of the old songs, including “Gaudeamus Igitur” (Let us Rejoice), and tried to dance some of the old dance numbers. It was a hoot! Daytime activities included golfing and bowls, as well as guided visits to the College and to the residential buildings.

One of the highlights for me was a guided tour of the Hinton Collection of art works. Howard Hinton (1867-1948) came to Australia from England at the turn of the century. He lived in a small room in a boarding house in Cremorne. Between 1929 and his death in 1948, Hinton sent over a thousand works of art to the Armidale Teachers College to adorn its walls. This was for the cultural benefit of the students who would later teach pupils in the schools of New South Wales. We all remember being enthralled by these beautiful works of art as we walked the corridors of the College between classes and rooms. Today they are stored in an art gallery not far from the college, and are lent our for regional exhibitions. The collection includes paintings by William Dobell, Adrian Feint, Elioth Gruner, Hans Heysen, J.J. Hilder, Gladys Owen, Margaret Preston, Thea Proctor, Tom Roberts, Ethel Spowers, Arthur Streeton and the Lindsay family.

Norman Lindsay painting

November 21, 2012 11 comments

Emotions and Health Writing

Melancholia

Many well-known writers down through the ages have suffered from melancholy or melancholia. This sort of ongoing negative feeling that artistic people often suffer from is different from everyday sadness or occasional bouts of depression that many of us feel from time to time. Extreme emotional sensitivity basic to melancholy (often referred to as ‘clinical depression’ today) seems to go hand in hand with the desire and ability to put pen to paper. Melancholy also seems to be, at least in part, an inherited condition or predisposition, leaving one open to more serious forms of mental illness. When I say ‘in part’ I mean that environment also plays a huge role in the ultimate outcome and expression of the disorder; possibly the solitary life of the writer contributes to it also.

the-vivisector

Australian author Patrick White (1912-1990) preferred not to seek treatment for his ongoing depression, which is well documented in his autobiography and biographies, because he felt that his creativity might be prejudiced if he were ‘cured’ or medicated. One of his novels, The Vivisector, presents the artist as a doctor, who analyses people like a surgeon cutting into bodies. White fell out with many of his friends during his lifetime, because of his mood swings and his tendency to treat people badly at times of stress. But he has always been forgiven by the reading populace, because of the amazing body of work he left us.

English speaking authors who wrote about their melancholy include Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), John Keats (1795-1821), Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), and Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) to name but a few. Johnson lived to a reasonable age, but the others died young as a result of their melancholic personalities. Two of them, Wolf and Plath, committed suicide when subject to depression.

When I use the word ‘melancholy’ and ‘melancholia’ instead of the more modern term ‘depression’, it seems to englobe the positive connections seen or felt by the authors themselves, as well as the negative connotations of illness and misery.

I’m not suggesting that you have to be mentally ill or melancholic to write well. Furthermore, there are great sportive people, politicians and people from all walks of life, who suffer from depression and bipolar illness. Still, as someone with an interest in this subject, I find it fascinating that so many writers fall into what I call the melancholia category.

an-unquiet-mind Kay Redfield Jamison suffers from bipolar illness, which used to be called ‘Manic-Depression’. She documents the illness vividly in her memoir An Unquiet Mind. She actually embraces her bipolar, because of her heigthened imaginative capacity and the enjoyable ‘highs’ she experiences.

She is also able to keep her illness in check, as she is a psychiatrist specialising in Lithium, the main mood stabiliser for sufferers.

This is a wonderful read on the subject of bipolar illness.

October 20, 2012 0 comment

Short Story Writing

A Fairy Story

Jade was a much longed-for baby. I had waited five years into my marriage before I conceived. I secretly wanted a girl and it was as if a God had heard my silent wish and she’d come to me in my late thirties, drawn by an invisible pull. The experience of being pregnant, of giving birth, and of holding her in my arms eclipsed everything that had gone before.

November 1979: Felt the first flutterings yesterday, like a tiny sea-horse gently weaving its way deep inside my belly. I am seventeen and a half weeks. I was very tired last night, having made a big effort, washing and ironing all the baby clothes. I was exhausted and lay on the bed and felt the baby move for the first time. Felt strangely high and marvelled at the feelings. It has been fluttering ever since, getting ever more strenuous.

May 1980: Jade looks like a wise teddy bear with puffed eyes and a round face. We call her ‘Our Cuddly Bear’. I have dressed her in hospital nighties because they are so comfortable; Mum was horrified and told me to put something nice on her for visitors to see. She latched onto my nipple quickly and I realised she had a strong grip on life.

She is so relaxed and so dark: an unlikely child for two fair parents. I can’t believe she is really mine. I sing ‘Don’t Break My Heart in Two’, just as I did when she was inside me. I love staring through the bars of the bassinet next to my bed, but mostly I pick her up and bring her into bed with me.

◊◊◊

While pregnant, I had read The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff, who had lived with the Iraquoi Indians in South America, and noticed that the children there were happy and free of neurosis. I had decided to follow a ‘total access’ policy of child rearing. Jade and I thrived on it. I called her ‘Jadie Bear’ because she was warm and brown and cuddly and we merged our bodies in symbiosis.

“Why doesn’t she ever cry?” Mum asked when she visited from the country, “It’s not normal.” I loved breast-feeding, and wanted to extend it as long as possible. Until two years of age. I was proud of her Rose Red looks, her dark hair and blue eyes that might turn brown. “She’s a good looker” the doctor on duty had said that first morning. I knew that I had given birth to the most beautiful baby on earth.

◊◊◊

Fast forward 26th April, 2003: She is lying on the cold floor of the bathroom, stinking of stale alcohol and bad breath. The words ‘fuck you’ spat forth at me with such venom that I shudder in every cell of my body; only a few hours before she had been telling me how much she loved me and that she could not go on without me. The hair dryer is already attached to the bath in readiness. I know I should hug her, press her cold flesh to mine, but I feel sick; her smell sickens me. I am afraid of her superhuman strength. I hate the look of her: the way she is writhing out of control, screeching insults and swearing. Hyena-like… not my daughter. There is broken glass everywhere—she has been trying to kill herself with knives and with glass shards. My job is to prevent her, but I feel broken too; one part of me wants to tell her to get fucked; the real part loves her to death and only wants to save her from herself.

◊◊◊

May 1999. Jade sits perched on the new navy lounge, painting her toenails pink. The acrid smell of fumes invades the loungeroom and my senses, and I wish silently that she could move out.
“Careful it doesn’t get onto the fabric,” I say, treading on eggshells.

Jade moans, but continues to do it.

“Could you do it in your room?” She moans again: “Look, I’ve nearly finished.” I want to scream at her to get out, but I hold it in.

I dare not push her… I tread lightly now, afraid of the terrible tantrums that had come on fifteen years too late. I blame myself for not being strict enough with her. For spoiling her.

◊◊◊

I think, as I look at my olive-skinned daughter, that she should have been born in the tropics, not to an Anglo couple in a temperate lakeside town. One day in calmer times, Jade and I had found this run-down, post war fibro-and-timber cottage that sits on a hill and looks out over a tree-filled basin. Eucalypts, mediterranean pines and bangalow palms, co-exist beneath a vaulted sky across which planes and birds fly as if projected on a screen.

◊◊◊

The day of Mum’s death, 19^th May 2003, passed by quickly, being overshadowed by her granddaughter’s hospitalization, the funeral taking place on Jade’s 23rd birthday.

◊◊◊

Today Jade is an ‘eight’. She slipped a little mid afternoon, but went up again at night. What a relief! The medication is at last starting to take effect. I have only recently begun asking her to give a mood score out of ten, and she was able to respond promptly and easily. The first day she was a ‘four’. Then it rose for short periods to ‘five’, then ‘six’ and yesterday things really started to look up, when it went up to a ‘seven’. And she has been an ‘eight’ nearly all day today!

On Monday we went through a catharsis. We were all feeling a little depressed. It seemed like Matthew and I were being pulled down into the vortex with her. Her mood had fluctuated during the day, as if trying to find a level. It was very frustrating. I didn’t know what she wanted or what she would propose next, and I found myself wanting to argue with her and becoming negative. Then suddenly it was as if a heavy stone was lifted and her spirits rose.

◊◊◊

I long for the day when I will be able to write the following words in my journal:

She has awoken like Sleeping Beauty from a long deep sleep and opened her eyes on a new world.

Postscript: As Carl Jung wrote: “You can’t have both wholeness and goodness.”

October 3, 2012 4 comments

Travel Writing

Oxford Town, Oxford Gown, 2008

oxford-towns

We sped in a First Great Western train towards Oxford via Slough and Reading, passing through picturesque countryside, woolly green hills dotted with slate-roofed red brick houses; no water restrictions here; verdant pastures and flat crops under a vaulted cloud-filled sky. So different from drought-ravaged Australia.

We stayed at St Catherine’s student college and were surrounded by aqueous nature: geese, mallard ducks and water lilly ponds, which made up for the spartan lodgings. On our first day, I went with my American friend, Terri, on a walking tour of the city. The Italian tour guide showed us around some of the colleges, the Bodlielan Library, the Church and the quaint Turf Tavern where she was proud to point out the plaques celebrating Bob Hawke‘s drinking prowess, and Bill Clinton’s experiments with drugs. She also showed us the cross in the main street marking the spot where martyrs were burnt at the stake during the Reformation.

Conflict between town interests and those of the university has a long history in Oxford, and it still continues in some form up until the present time. The high walls built around the colleges are a symbol of this conflict, representing a need on the part of the colleges to protect themselves and their students from the world outside. In the past there were demonstrations and riots that led to deaths, but today the dissatisfactions are settled in court.

The Bodleian Library, from its beginnings in the fourteenth century, has become one of the great libraries of the world. It is also a copyright deposit library, able to claim any book published in the British Isles, and has continued to spread in size, taking over many adjacent ancient buildings.

The beautiful New College, Catholic, founded in the fifteenth century, so-called to distinguish it from another of the same name: Saint Mary’s. The three statues on the facade at the front withstood the destruction of the Reformation years, probably because of their elevated position. We wandered around the cloisters, the chapel and the gardens for a long time, breathing in the history and atmosphere. The huge tree was part of one of the Harry Potter movies.

Terri and I were inspired to return and explore some more the next day, especially the New College and the Ashmolean Museum.

In Australia, buildings that are 200 years’ old are considered ancient; even The New College here is from the fourteenth century!

The hanging baskets of flowers and the English-style gardens in the college grounds are indescribably beautiful. And even the fat bumblebees here are different from bees back home!

The Bodleian Library, Oxford, England.

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Travel Writing

Londinium

Tonight: Despite our best-laid plans, our travel was initially upset by the Qantas engineers’ “requirements” (strike). We were bused to the Ibis Hotel in Darling Harbour in Sydney to spend our first night, instead of in Singapore.

Once we got to Singapore, we managed to grab six hours’ “horizontal time” at the Traders’ Hotel, before getting on the Qantas flight for London at 2 am the next morning.

Flying over London at 7 am in fine weather was breathtaking. The first landmark that was pointed out to me on the edge of the Thames was “The London Eye,” as it has become known: the highest ferris wheel in the world. Then I saw the Tower Bridge and felt like I was really in London. Londoners believe it to be the most famous bridge in the world, and yet most outsiders don’t even know its name: “Isn’t it London Bridge?” they ask.

Trafalgar Square

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Book Reviews Books Writing

Tirra Lirra By The River by Jessica Anderson

Where does the title of this book come from?

In 1978, Jessica Anderson won the the Miles Franklin Literary Award for her fourth novel, Tirra Lirra by the River, published by Macmillan. It has rarely been out of print since.

Yet many readers are unaware of the origin of the title. It comes from a romantic poem, The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1842; it is his most tragic one.

His broad clear brow in sunlight glowed;
On burnished hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flowed
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
“Tirra lirra,” by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.

The story of the poem: (Thanks to Jane Gleeson-white for her excellent summary of the poem’s plot in her 2010 Overland article “Farewell Jessica Anderson—1916-2010—and Thanks”)

“The title Tirra Lirra by the River comes from one of Tennyson’s most popular and tragic poems, ‘The Lady of Shalott’. It is about a woman, the Lady of Shalott, who is confined in a tower on an island in a river that flows to Camelot. She is cursed to sit alone and to see the bustling world of Camelot below only through its reflection in her mirror. And so she spends her time sitting by her window, watching the reflected world in her mirror, recording it with her needle and thread in tapestry”.

“One day the Lady of Shalott sees in her mirror a dark-haired man riding by. It is Sir Lancelot: ‘“Tirra lirra,” by the river / Sang Sir Lancelot.’ She rushes to her window and looks straight at the world below, the unreflected world, as she is forbidden to do. The curse is triggered, her life must end. The Lady of Shalott goes down to the river where she finds a boat. After writing ‘The Lady of Shalott’ on its prow she lies down and, singing, floats toward Camelot. And she dies with the unfinished song on her lips.”

To plot or not to plot…

Jessica Anderson, the author of one of my favourite books of all time, died on 9th July, 2010 at ninety-three years of age. Her funeral was held at the South Chapel in Malabar, and many literary notables were present including David Malouf, who gave the tribute. She went quietly, her passing being largely unnoticed, which was typical of the woman and of her life. She won the Miles Franklin Award for this novel, written at a time when there was a dearth of fiction by women writers in Australia. She wrote several more novels, one of which, The Impersonaters also won awards. Later on, she made a conscious decision that she would write no more fiction.

The content

The book is written in the first person from the viewpoint of an elderly woman, and describes the character’s life in Queensland, then in London, and on board the ship that took her there, as well as events unfolding when she returned to Australia. It is written with such spirit, that readers have assumed that the elderly woman was Jessica Anderson, who was, however, in her forties when she wrote the book.

The structure

Tirra Lirra has never been made into a film, partly because much of it is in flash-back mode, which means that the forward movement necessary for action and good cinematography is missing. As someone once said: “Nothing happens in the novel.” In an Australian Book Review article, Kerryn Goldsworthy writes:

“It is a book about the inner life: about memory, imagination, and the still, silent workings of one person’s mind. The novel’s external time frame is not much more than a month or so, while Nora is almost immobilised by illness. But the story is essentially one long act of remembering, covering almost seventy years, punctuated by short forays into the present day when things happen to jog her memory further. There is very little action, except within the frame of her memories. And yet this book has been widely read, widely praised and widely loved by two or three generations of Australians”. https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/reading-australia/jessica-anderson/tirra-lirra-by-the-river-by-jessica-anderson

Plot versus character

The men in my life seem to have no trouble in imagining storylines. I have received help from my brother, whose storyline ideas for me were imaginative and full of surprises. And he reiterated what I already knew myself, that I had to write fiction, not memoir, to escape from the bind of “facts” or “truth”. Whether writing in the first or third person, I can become “me but not me” or try to escape totally from the “I” of the narrator. Fiction is more liberating.

This leads me to postulate the possibility that plotting is a “male skill”, whereas female writers often tend to write more in segments and rearrange these into a workable plot afterwards. Aristotle believed that plot/story were more important than characterisation. Women friends and writers often show a preference for characterisation. I realise that this is akin to saying that men are more rational and women are more emotional: a terrible stereotype!

However, traditional “maculine virtues”, such as heroism, strength and war, can easily be seen as linked to plot lines; and strengths, such as being in touch with deep feelings correlate well with femaleness. Thus: characterisation. That is not to say that men and women fall strictly into either category. For, as a devoted Jungian, I know that each one of us is composed of both female and male qualities in differing degrees: the animus/anima archetype.

Favourite writers who may fit the stereotype

A favourite male writer is the American, Paul Auster, who manages to write interesting stories with male characters. He is that rare breed of writer who is also drawn to experimenting with form in his novels. His memoir-based novel The Invention of Solitude throws some light on his obsession with male characters. At the beginning of many of his novels, the characters are often dying, old, blind, or linked to death and sickness. The plot is probably the dominant feature in the books that I have read: Man in the Dark, The Brooklyn Follies, The New York Trilogy, Invisible, Oracle Night, The Book of Illusions, and The Music of Chance.

His wife, Siri Hustvedt, probably also fits the stereotype, in that her novels stress the emotional through her characters. The plot lines are strong, but the focus is more on vibrant characters. Books of hers that I have read and loved: The Sorrows of an American, The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, and What I Loved.

The answer to plotting or writing in segments…

I have come to realise through my own writings that, no matter how or where you start off, you will almost certainly need to explore the opposite pole of the plot/character continuum, at some stage during the writing or re-writing of your novel or short story.

September 27, 2012 1 comment

Memoir Writing

Water Memories

My very first water experience is in my mother’s womb. I’m safe, secure, warm. I swim, mermaid-like, do somersaults and swallow the magic fluid. I imagine that I’ll never leave this watery place.

Down the Back

At Waterview the humid scorching air engulfs us; the heat, ruthless, tears at our skin and sends us kids scurrying towards water. My brothers swing Tarzan-like from overhanging scribbly gums, and jump into the creek on Dad’s bush paddock. Launching ourselves from tree roots embedded in the banks, we dive and bomb one another scattering tiny snakes and tree frogs that hide in the depths. I jump in and feel the clay squelchy and squidgy between my toes.

I try to hide my fears of the depths and copy my brothers in derring do. Yellow belly fear, like the bloated green tree frogs with bulging eyes staring down from the rafters of the outhouse, ready to pounce, gobble me up; green waters swirling; amphibian annihilation.

I don’t know where it came from, the fear. My elder brother went off to school at four and found a solid niche for himself within his intellect. Donny, the second brother, was fearless as a warrior. As soon as he could run, he climbed tall trees in search of birds’ eggs, rode bareback and played the clown at school.

I am Minny-Ha-Ha to his Hiawatha the Brave.

Often I was afraid of the dark. One time I screamed out in the middle of the night:

“Monsters. Big black bogey man…under the bed…”

Dad races into the kids’ bedroom and flashes a torch underneath my bed. I want to crawl in between him and Mum in their double bed, but it’s out of bounds. I crawl in with Donny instead, snuggle up to his naked body; feel the flip of his penis like a lizard as he moves over to let me in; I fall into a deep sleep o contentment.

~~~

Early memories are bathed in warmth. I am sitting in a pink tub on the old wooden table in the kitchen next to the fuel stove. It is dusk. A golden ball of light sinks into the hills to the west. The warm water soothes my body. I splash my hands in it and crow.

Mummy laughs and rubs me all over with Lifebuoy soap, pours the water over my dark brown hair that is just like hers. The kitchen is bathed in a soft hazy glow. Mummy is listening for the jeep to pull up at the front. I listen too. We will hear him opening the wire gate and driving through into the back yard.

Mummy is laughing now at the black stallion through the window as it frisks and plays with the piebald and bay mares. Her laugh is the laugh of a naughty child. I don’t know what she is laughing at.

The kitchen is warm, warm from the heat of the stove and the last rays of the sun dropping in the west. And I sit in the tin tub waiting for the sound of Daddy’s footsteps.

He bursts in, eyes twinkling and red-cheeked from a beer at the pub, and goes straight to me, picking me up in those strong sun-browned arms and calling me his ‘Little Angie-Pangie’, tossing me up into the air and showering me with kisses. Mummy watches us.

~~~

One very early memory is of tombstone-like coldness. A nurse places my skinny body in a hot tub. I have Scarlet Fever. I’m hallucinating. A large black bull chasing me.

“Put her in hospital or you’ll carry her out in a box!” the doctor says.

It’s when the fear, the frozenness, first enters me. I’m taken away from my mother. They put me in a sterile ward in the hospital. It’s opposite the Grafton Gaol.

Daddy brings a tiny rabbit to the windowpane of the children’s ward where I am quarantined. It reminds me that goodness, gentleness still exist the coldness and trauma.

At the end of three weeks, just before Mummy comes to take me home, a nurse places me in a tub of hot water. The sensation of my body afloat in salving water, remains with me to this day.

Not long after this, Daddy drives Mummy and me to Moree. I am the littlest princess. Billy and Donny, five and six, are left at Grandma’s farm, directly across the Highway from our house.

There is one tourist attraction at Moree: the public baths. They’re not just any baths, but ones formed from natural salt springs hidden beneath the ground. Discovered when an engineer sank a drill in search of oil, the hot salt water spurted up like a miracle, an offering from the gods.

Now I’m floating in the warm salt waters of the baths. Mummy and Daddy are holding me up in their arms. It’s heaven. Just the three of us. Floating there. On the surface barely a ripple. h hot waters holding us all up, the three of us, just floating there, on the surface, all is well with my world

~~~

On the way back home to Waterview, I spy through the window of our car, a host of tiny snowflake white lambs dotted all around the fields with their mothers.

“Daddy, Daddy! I wan’ one! Pleease can I have one!”

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong, for cris’sake?”

“I want a baby lamb! Daddy, Pleeease can I?”

Mum laughs. Dad stops the car and lets me take a closer look, but it does not assuage the terrible want, the aching hole like hunger, like unquenchabe thirst. I yearn to hold one of the babies in my arms, not merely drink it in through my eyes. In fact, the stopover makes me covet it all the more strongly and urgently, and I whine and cry for a lamb for the rest of the trip.

Mum is a bit deaf by this stage. “Just ignore her, Will,” she says. “She will stop after a while.”

“I wan’ one… I wan’ one…”

“Here, have a lolly to suck on…” and she reaches into the back and sticks it in my mouth.

“I wan’ one!” my voice slobbery now, as well as whining, through the dribbles from the sticky crunchy peppermint stuck to my teeth.

For once my father, who rarely gave into our pleadings for things, seemed to consider the possibility.

“When I have time, I’ll make enquiries. Just give us some peace will you, Angie?”

And that is exactly what he did when we got back home. It was quite a sturdy beast, not the soft toy-like babies of the tablelands, but it was the gesture that counted. I wonder now, whether it touched a chord in him, something to do with his secret yearnings. “All I ever wanted was a mate to share my life with,” he told me once. Much later on.

But it’s the Moree baths I remember most of all.

moree-baths

September 27, 2012 4 comments

Writing

Keeping It Real

An editor at a recent workshop stressed the importance of “keeping it real”, when writing fiction. That is, at least partly, why I started off on the writing journey with memoir. From there I moved on to writing memoir using fictional techniques of characterisation and events. From this sort of creative memoir, I graduated to writing fiction.

In the beginning, I felt that non-fiction equalled “realness”, authenticity. And I feared that I would fall prey to artificiality, if I used my sole imagination in writing fiction. My fiction would come across as unbelievable, the opposite of the French word ‘vraisemblable’.

I have now come to the realisation that this is not entirely true. Many writers seem to cut loose from memoir and use their imagination when writing fiction. However, even if the connection is unconscious or tenuous, writers will always draw from what they know.

And one needs to employ fictional or creative techniques in writing non-fiction, too. That is if you want it to be good or accessible to the reader.

So the trick is to write about what you know, while at the same time employing the literary devices, such as narrative techniques, characterisation, dialogue and imagery.

Photomontage – Composite of 16 different photos which have been digitally manipulated to give the impression that it is a real landscape. Software used: Adobe Photoshop (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It is usually obvious to a reader when a writer of fiction is going “over the top” in terms of language, plot or descriptions. Of course, sometimes this is warranted by the genre or the type of writing, however in general it is best to conjure up the appearance of reality by choice of words. Relying on sensationalism is usually not a good idea. Nor is the overkill of too many adjectives and adverbs.

Our editor friend explained the situation by saying that richness in content is OK, but not wordiness in style. For example, a very painful experience in someone’s life does not become more powerful through the use of many adjectives. It is better to choose one apt or original one, rather than to lay them on thick like jam. So the need to cut and tighten are often paramount when it comes to a writer’s first manuscript. And sometimes it will be a whole paragraph, or a whole scene, that are causing the flab, or are wasteful.

Editors and publishers are also looking for honesty and originality. So write about what you know. If you are uncomfortable, or “haven’t faced up to your demons” it may be better to not go there yet, as you can’t pull back once you have started on a particular pathway.

The session ended on a positive note with the call to list what you know, as you don’t always know what you know.

Many of the ideas here are gleaned from the presentation given to our group by Catherine Hammond, a freelance editor with valuable experience in the publishing area, whose input is always appreciated.

My photo of Sydney Harbour is only slightly air-brushed using Photoshop, which I am trialling at the moment. If I made too many changes, it would result in something verging on artificial. Like the hyperbolical texts referred to above. I see my creative writing and photography going hand-in-hand, as I enjoy the challenge of improving in both areas.

September 27, 2012 0 comment

Writing

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