Guest Blogger: Emma Young, author of The Last Bookshop

It is lovely to welcome Emma Young, author of The Last Bookshop, to Aussiereviews, to speak on her favourite bookish books. Over to you, Emma.

I was once a bookseller. At various shops across Perth, Western Australia, I covered and stickered and flyleaf-labelled titles destined for libraries, I bought and sold second-hand volumes, and I special-ordered non-fiction and technical books. Across the years I saw the challenges: the tight profit margins; the hard physical work; the need to be knowledgeable, continuously upbeat and helpful; the commercial headwinds forcing shops to pack up and move, or reinvent themselves repeatedly. I saw how at the heart of a bookshop’s success is the strength and sincerity of its connection to bookish people. I met so many such people, who asked me so many weird questions, and had such astonishingly varied interests, that of course it was not long before I began to think to myself, ‘This stuff would fill a book.’

I have finally written that ode to bookshop life: the difficulties and absurdities, but above all the joys of a business that’s about more than money. It’s called The Last Bookshop and it’s just been published by Fremantle Press.

Fun fact: my book mentions a grand total of 78 specific books by name. I know this because my editor, Armelle, made a list of them, for no doubt excellent editor-y reasons best known to herself.

But it’s not just my book that celebrates books, bookshops and writing. I come from a grand tradition of such stories. And since compiling this shortlist of my favourites, I see the influences they have had on my story, so I’m pleased to share my top five.

  1. 84 Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff

This gentle, charming story is a collection of real letters between outspoken New York writer Helene Hanff and antiquarian book dealer Frank Doel from Messrs Marks and Co, at 84 Charing Cross Road, London, beginning in the 1940s. What begins as a simple back-and-forth to fulfil Ms Hanff’s insatiable need for rare books blossoms into an epistolary friendship that spans decades. I can’t overstate how sweet, funny and touching this book is.

The 1987 movie adaptation is also good, starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins: lovely escapism with a cup of tea on a wintry afternoon.

2. Underfoot in Show Business, Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff’s account of her early days trying to make it as a writer in New York, employed as an apprentice playwright by the New York Theatre Guild, is equally enjoyable. It’s side-splittingly funny and utterly absorbing, a fascinating account that transports you effortlessly into her world.

If you loved Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, this is very like it – but the real thing. It’s most likely out of print, but I urge you to find a second-hand copy.

3. The Diary of a Bookseller, Shaun Bythell

Wigtown, Galloway, Scotland: officially designated Scotland’s National Book Town. The largest of the second-hand bookshops is The Bookshop, run by Shaun Bythell. His published diaries are caustic and bad-tempered. He is Black Books’ Bernard in the flesh, though a big heart is just visible beneath the misanthropy. A hilarious book – the sort you constantly read bits aloud from to your partner, though they wish you would shut up, because strangely they don’t love books about books as much as you. It’s cruel Bythell wrote this; he essentially stole the book I wanted to write.

If you need more when you’re done, he’s also written three more books in this vein.

4. The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain

 Bookseller Laurent Letellier finds a handbag on a Paris street and commences a journey to find its owner. The best clue he has: a notebook inside, filled with scribbled notes that drive him mad with curiosity to locate the writer. A beguiling tale of a meeting of hearts and minds, this is a light and cosy read written with a delicate touch. It’s incredibly French.

Now that I think of it, this would be a nice Mother’s Day gift

5. My Salinger Year, Joanna Rakoff 

A New York literary memoir, a coming-of-age tale and a fitting accompaniment to Underfoot in Show Business. Rakoff is another penniless wannabe writer new to the city, this time 1990s NYC. She takes a job as assistant to the literary agent of the reclusive J.D. Salinger, tasked with answering his fan mail. She’s supposed to send form letters, but – partly bored, partly touched – she begins writing back …

This is a nostalgic evocation of a pre-digital New York. I read it after a month’s stay there, which I highly recommend, but since that’s impossible right now, reading this is an excellent substitute. A big-screen adaptation has just been released starring Sigourney Weaver (though I just happened upon two scathing lines of review by the Guardian that I can’t unsee, so we’ll view at our own risk, shall we?).

 

Thanks for sharing Emma – I am off to add some titles to be wish list.  The Last Bookshop by Emma Young is available in all good bookstores and online.

 

Connect with Emma here:

 

 

Guest Blogger: Susan Midalia – My Writing Life

 

On the cusp of releasing her new novel,  Everyday Madness Susan Midalia shares how loss compelled her to become a writer.

I’ve been an enthusiastic reader for decades, but one particular event in my adult life impelled me to become a writer. A few days after my father died, I found myself scribbling words onto a page without understanding why. The writing initially resembled a series of diary entries – spontaneous, private jottings – about my difficult relationship with my father. But soon I began to see patterns, a shape, a sense of purpose in those muddled beginnings. The story became, in short, a therapeutic exercise: a way of trying to understand what it might mean to be a daughter who didn’t love her father, who indeed had no respect for him. Then, by a series of coincidences and without any planning on my part, my story ended up being published in a literary journal. What happened next was both unexpected and immensely gratifying: I had responses from readers telling me that my story had encouraged them to reflect on their own fathers, on the process of dying, on the nature of grief, or the inability to feel grief. I realised that my story had moved from self-expression to communication: that my words had made some kind of difference to people I didn’t even know. I realised, too, that I wanted to keep doing this wonderful thing: turning black marks on a screen into something for people to believe in. So, in 2006, and with the blessing and crucial financial support of my husband, I quit my teaching job and embarked on a full-time writing life.

Since then, I’ve published three short story collections: A History of the Beanbag, An Unknown Sky and Feet to the Stars, all shortlisted for major Australian literary awards. I have also published two well-received novels: The Art of Persuasion (2018) and Everyday Madness (2021). I’m keenly aware that my writing life is a highly privileged one; most writers I know need a day job to pay the bills, but I have the luxury of spending unlimited, unpressured time doing what I love. It also helps that our children have left the parental nest, both of them leading happy and productive lives. One of those children told me I had to stop writing about sex (definitely an exaggeration). My husband told me I had to stop killing off husbands in my fiction (I tell him it’s simply a device to move the plot along).

What do I love most about writing? I love the challenge of creating characters who are not like me. I love encountering the unexpected: characters who refuse to do what I want; a plot that changes tack; a new character who didn’t feature in my original intentions; reaching a conclusion that surprised me. I also love the process of self-editing. Rethinking, changing words or the structure, making sure that every word in a sentence is necessary, or tossing 20,000 words in the bin and starting all over again. It’s both a lot of hard work and a lot of fun, and I wouldn’t write if it wasn’t fun.

My subjects are typically ‘domestic’ – marriage, family, relationships in general, and the daily world of work. While ‘domestic’ writing, especially by women, is often dismissed as a trivial or predictable depiction of ‘ordinary’ life, I believe that no-one and nothing is ordinary. A good writer can make putting out the rubbish an interesting, even an extraordinary, experience; it’s only a matter of finding the right words.

My new novel, Everyday Madness, is darker than my previous fiction, but I’ve injected some humour into the narrative. I think humour not only alleviates the gloom; it can also encourage us to think about human motivation and actions, about social problems and the necessity for hope. As the great comic writer Oscar Wilde observed: ‘Humour is the most serious form of literature.’ Even something as crude as a fart joke can make people think. As small children, my sons loved playing with a toy called a whoopee cushion, which made a loud, farting noise whenever someone sat on it. They did it so many times, and every time they would collapse with laughter (as did their parents, I have to confess). Now why do some people find that joke hilarious? I’ll leave you to think about that!

 

Thank you f or visiting, Susan.

Everyday Madness is in all good bookstores and online.

You can find Susan on Twitter or at her website

 

 

Guest Bloggers Deborah Hunn & Georgia Richter on How to Be an Author

Guest blog post: introducing an indispensable new book for writers

Between the pages of How to be an Author is everything you need to know about the business of being a writer, from people who live and breathe books. In this guest post, co-authors Deborah Hunn who is a lecturer in creative writing, and Georgia Richter, a publisher and editor, talk about how the book came about, what you might learn from it and the joys they find in their everyday working life.

Deborah Hunn says:

When Georgia and I began to discuss writing our book How to be an Author, I  remembered how a former Curtin colleague was fond of saying she’d rarely met a creative writing student who didn’t have a great idea for a story; the real problem was with what came came next: taking that great idea and transforming it into a viable, well-crafted, fully developed piece of writing. In short, what makes an author is not just (perhaps not even) some magical innate streak of creativity. It’s putting in the work, doing the business.

Georgia and I aimed to provide our readers with help and advice in understanding that business when we drew on our varied experiences in teaching, writing and publishing, and when we decided to include the voices of an additional 18 authors in this book. Whether the apprenticeship of young and emergent writers (for not all new writers are young) is through a university or one of sundry other pathways, they must learn and sharpen through practise – developing skills with language and syntax, with structure, plot and characterisation as well with voice and point of view; building an awareness of the possibilities of genre, an eye for observational detail and other modes of creative research, and an ear for how to pitch to their target audience. However, doing the work of a writer also requires persistence and a willingness to be open to advice and critique. It means developing a workable routine, managing to write through the bad days as well as the good, and committing oneself to editing and redrafting, dealing with rejection and finding a way through when imagination runs dry.

As well as cultivating persistence, the developing writer needs to find their tribe. For some who start outside established educational or community networks, it may mean locating like-minded others to share writing, information and ideas with; for all it will mean learning to recognise and take on constructive criticism through peer workshopping and editorial feedback, and then making good use of that in refining a draft.

Then of course there’s the next big step towards being a writer: understanding and utilising the mechanics of pitching and publication.

 

Georgia Richter says:

Some people write as an end in itself – for them, the satisfaction of laying down words on a page, like bricks on a path, is enough. There is the joy of the hard, exacting slog of it, and the satisfaction of looking back and seeing a path that has been shaped, travelled and wrought.

For others, finding an audience for their work is an essential component of their sense of themselves as a writer – and so publication is a necessary part of their practice. If it is an audience a writer seeks, then there is much to think about. A writer can ask questions like:

  • What is an author brand, and how do I authentically create my own?
  • What’s in a contract and do I need an agent to get one?
  • What takes place during the editing process?
  • What are the important relationships I need to work on before and after publication?
  • What is success and what is reasonable to expect?
  • How will I bear the bumps and setbacks and rejections and learn to carry on?

Deb and I, and the contributing authors, provided as many insights and practical suggestions as we could to help emerging writers answer questions like these.

There are lots of things I love about my job as a publisher.

One is the feeling of reading a submitted manuscript and experiencing the affirming excitement of being in the hands of an assured storyteller who knows what they want to say and who has found exactly the right vehicle to say it.

Another is building a relationship through the editing process with an author as together we hone and refine the submitted work so it is as perfect as it can be.

A third is placing a book, fresh off the printer, into the hands of an author. Here is the hard, beautiful proof of all they have worked on – here is the moment when they are on the brink of sharing it with the world!

A fourth is when authors tell me about reader responses – conversations with strangers who have told the author how they were touched or moved or consoled or entertained by a book.

I derive huge satisfaction from having been a part of a writer’s journey to publication. Deb and I hope that this book will serve a similar purpose. We know that the greater work is always with the creator – from the clearing of the path and the placing of the first brick to the invitation to others to come walk that path too.

The book is available in all good bookstores and online

To connect with Georgia Richter, Deborah Hunn and other writers, join the How to be an Author in Australia Facebook Group.

Georgia Richter has also launched a new podcast series How to be an Author which features interviews with passionate members of the Australian publishing industry. You can listen on your favourite podcast app or using one of the players provided here.

 

Thanks for visiting, Georgia and Deborah. 

 

 

Guest Blogger: Josephine Taylor author of Eye of a Rook

Guest blogger Josephine Taylor hopes her historical novel will shine a light on a condition many women have but most don’t discuss

I’m always reassured when I hear other writers advise, write what you feel passionate about, because that’s why I wrote Eye of a Rook.

I was angry. Angry that so few people knew about a condition that was so debilitating and that affected so many women, including me: vulvodynia. And I felt frustrated and helpless – at least at the beginning, way back in 2000. Then, in 2003, I started writing about my experiences, and I began to feel more in control, more an agent in my own life. I researched and wrote and eventually began a PhD, which turned into a memoir – a kind of embedded sociological detective story that delved into the history of vulvar pain and hysteria, and that explored more recent understandings of pain that won’t leave, from psychoanalysis, psychiatry, neurophysiology, feminist studies… The resulting investigative memoir, Vulvodynia and Autoethnography, won several awards, but it was an unwieldy beast from a publisher’s perspective. So, while I continue to draw material from it for my personal essays, with many published, I’ve left a full-length memoir to one side – for the moment at least!

After I finished my PhD in 2011 the pressure inside me remained. I knew that somewhere between 10% and 28% of all women would experience vulvodynia in their lifetime, so how could I contribute to beneficial change for them? What was I to do about the BIG story I wanted to get out into the world? I had no conscious idea. Fortunately, my creative life had its own plans, and at a writing workshop in 2013, two Victorian men came to life in response to a writing prompt. One was a man called Arthur, with fine brown hair and dressed in a frockcoat, and the other was a real-life surgeon I’d been researching, Isaac Baker Brown. It seemed that Arthur was consulting Brown about his wife, Emily, and contemplating the surgeon’s radical ‘solution’ to hysteria. This initial scenario turned into a short story which now also included a scene with a contemporary Perth couple driving tensely to an appointment. It seemed that the modern-day Alice had the same pain as Emily – the same pain as me – and both women needed answers. The short story, published in an anthology as ‘That Hand’, became the first chapter of Eye of a Rook.

I wrote my novel in timelines separated by almost 150 years because I wanted to show how little has changed since 1866. In fact, my research had shown that the understanding of chronic pelvic pain and specific pain states like vulvodynia has stayed largely stuck for many centuries. It’s men who have, until very recently, studied, written about and treated mystifying female complaints across recorded history, and medical understanding has been based on a male model. Knowledge skewed even further in the twentieth century, as the theories of Sigmund Freud were taken up by psychiatry then gynaecology, especially in the US. Under this influence, vulvar pain was interpreted as psychosomatic, a woman’s way of acting out unresolved unconscious conflict, a ‘defense mechanism’ against intercourse. The onus was placed upon the woman, rather than the limits of medical knowledge, with women generally told or made to feel that the pain was ‘all in her head’.

Both Alice and Emily come up against this kind of ignorance and dismissiveness, enduring harmful treatments and worse. Both reach out for help, with Alice finding community in a support group and Emily relying on her husband at a critical moment. I hope that readers will be able to relate to or empathise with Alice and Emily’s pain and the decisions all the characters make, for themselves and their futures.

My biggest hope is that my book will be read by women with vulvodynia and that it helps them in tangible ways. More, I hope that the people these women depend on read it: family, friends, GPs, physiotherapists, gynaecologists, dermatologists, urologists and psychologists. I hope that those who live with chronic pain, who may have been made to feel that they could be doing more for themselves or that they are exaggerating their symptoms, read it. I hope that Eye of a Rook will shine a light where one is so desperately needed and bring this conversation into the public domain.

Eye of a Rook is available in all good bookstores and online.

Thanks for visiting, Josephine. You  can learn more about Josephine, and connect with her

At her website here.

On Twitter.

On Facebook.

And on Instagram .

 

Guest Blogger: Author in the Wild – Cristy Burne

Author Cristy Burne shares her top six survival techniques for touring authors.

So, it’s been a while since you’ve been on tour. In this new-normal, COVID-19 world, we’ve all grown used to the comforts of home: skyping in your PJs, talking to yourself, not wearing pants.

If you’re like me, it’s been a while since you’ve packed your Meet-The-Author bags to head into the [Big] Wide World.

Well, that’s about to change. This month I have a new book out (YAY!!!), and that means, COVID-19 lockdowns permitting, I may need to actually leave the house.

The book, Beneath the Trees, is a junior fiction adventure about teamwork, family and survival.

It’s based on the true story of a 2019 hike my family went on in Eungella National Park, Queensland. A hike I’m really glad we all survived! (Spoiler alert?)

Eungella is one of the best places in the world to see wild platypus, and that’s how everything really started … In the book, Cam and her little sister, Sophie, are looking forward to seeing a platypus, but when they finally spot one, something is wrong.

And then things just get worse. Soon they’re lost in the rainforest with their bossy older cousin, Jack. And they need all their resilience and courage to survive …

Just like you’ll need when you step out the front door on your next author tour.

So, because I’ve been thinking loads about survival, I’ve written up a list of top tips totally recommended if you want to make it through your next author tour alive …

  • Find water

Dehydration leads to headaches, lethargy and hallucinations. Only one of these things will serve your career as a children’s writer. So it’s essential you secure a source of water early. Your voice will last loads longer if you’re sipping all day. Also, your brain needs water for proper functioning. Just saying.

Score additional points if you bring along your own reusable bottle.

  • Signal to rescuers

If you’re drowning, not waving, you have an issue with communication.

If you’re an author on tour, it’s essential that you master the basic skills of effective signalling. Personally, I practise survival signalling every day, before I even leave the house. Techniques such as ‘I’d love a flat white, please’ may just save your life.

  • Navigate to safety

We all get lost at some stage. I usually get lost on the way to the venue. Or on the way home from the venue. Or on the way to the bathroom at the venue.

The point is, if you find you’re losing your way, don’t panic. Just pause, get your bearings, and then strike out in a better direction. If you get lost onstage, the pause is your friend. It’s a survival tool you can use. Any. Time.

  • Build a shelter

Protect yourself from sweltering heat, bitter cold, buckets of rain and billions of fans by ensuring you have shelter. This could take the form of a green room, staff room, hotel room, even the inside of your car. It’s way more fun if you actually build your shelter, so feel free to use library furniture, cushions, cardboard boxes and BYO mattress.

  • Pack basic medical supplies

Throat lozenges, headache tablets, dark chocolate, instant coffee. Your melt-down bag should provide a strong sense of safety. Whether you’re suffering from a blister, bruised ego, or muscle cramp from signing so many books, packing some basic emergency supplies is always a good idea. Include a second thumb drive. And a second shirt.

  • Make fire

Fire helps us cook, keeps us warm, and burns inside our souls for the rest of our lives.

Fire drives us forward, even when our slides don’t work or there’s an unexpected evacuation drill.

As children’s authors, our job is to start fires. A spark here, a spark there. Starting fires is the reason I get out of bed in the morning. It’s what drives me out of my front door. So make books, find your pants, and practise these survival techniques. Let’s start a fire in the hearts of children everywhere.

Cristy Burne’s new book, Beneath the Trees (Fremantle Press), is available from all good bookstores and online. It’s one of a trio of junior outdoor adventure stories that includes To the Lighthouse and Off the Track.

 

Thanks for visiting, Cristy.. You can find out more about Cristy at her website. 

 

The Power of Suffering, by David Roland, reviewed by Leonie Callaway

The Power of Suffering is a beautiful book. Exquisite storytelling, and a   book that could only be written by someone with the unique causes and conditions of David Roland – a personal journey through suffering, a psychologist’s eye and the capacity to weave his own story and observations with the stories of others. For me, the reflections on the suffering of “moral injury” were especially pertinent, and David’s explorations of spirituality and suffering are nuanced, generous and encouraging. This book was launched as our world launched into the unprecedented changes of a global pandemic, and perhaps there has never been a time when a book about suffering has been more relevant?

You can learn more about David Roland and his books at his website  here: www.davidroland.com.au

 

Guest Blogger: Sally Bradfield Discusses the Genesis of Not Quite 30-Love

It’s always a pleasure to meet another Sally, and today I am excited to be welcoming Sally Bradfield as a guest blogger at Aussiereviews. Over to you Sally. 

The Genesis   

Hi, My name is Sally Bradfield and I spent many years (try twenty) travelling the globe working in marketing and communications on the professional tennis circuit. Yes, I met and worked with all the household names you can think of: Serena and Venus Williams, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Anna Kournikova, Maria Sharapova, Novak Djokovic…

My first real tennis job was a WTA Communications Manager. The WTA stands for Women’s Tennis Association. Watch the movie on Billie Jean King (who I am also proud to know), called ‘Battle of the Sexes’ to understand how the women’s tennis tour began.  I remember starting this job and being blown away by being paid to travel around the world, staying at five star hotels, eating room service and watching tennis. I said to a few long term employees – how could you ever get sick of this? Then the real work began. As the meat in the sandwich between getting players, sponsors, fans and tournaments together, the communications team are always fighting an uphill battle. You work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week and get yelled at a lot.  But you do meet amazing people, see unbelievable places and watch astonishing athletes at play.

About ten years ago, I gave it all up to settle back in Sydney. I am married to a former professional player, now coach – Nicole Arendt (who is American, but moved here so we could live in the greatest country in the world). I missed tennis and some of the travel. A bit like Hotel California, they kept calling me back. Each year when the tennis came ‘down under,’ I worked at the Sydney tournament, visited my friends at the Australian Open. Every couple of years, we went to Wimbledon. Nicole often played the legends event and we are given special access forever as Nicole’s a member of the Last 8 club (having reached the Wimbledon Doubles Final). We feel very lucky and blessed to be able to keep in contact with the old and new crews, without having to travel full time.

A few years ago, I talked about writing a book about my life on the tennis circuit. I enrolled in and completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Sydney’s UTS. There I started my fictional novel. The first title was ‘Balls in my Face.’ My UTS lecturers hated the title, but I thought it was brilliant.  The first draft took my several years and it was way too close to a thinly veiled autobiography.  Fun for me and interesting to others, but likely to end up in litigation.  At some point, I will write my autobiography, but it will be truthful, rather than hiding under the fiction tag.

As the drafts evolved, the protagonist, Katie Cook, became less Sally Bradfield and more her own person. An amazing thing happened, she started to speak to me. She was her own woman (twenty-eight and full of opinions). She was certain of the way her story should be told. I was not always in agreement. She mostly won!

The tennis characters in the book are all fictional, but the world they live in, is very real. It was important to me that those in the know, felt the book was an accurate depiction of life on the Tour. So far the feedback from those people has been extremely positive, which was really fulfilling. They said it was like ‘reading about my life.’

There have been books about life on the Tour before, but they always felt like they were written by outsiders and they mostly were. I’m proud to have my book stand on its own feet and hopefully entreat people to want to know more about the tennis world. It’s a great place to visit…

You can purchase the Ebook via this link;  https://books2read.com/u/bzvzx

My website www.notquite30love.com has more information and links how to buy.

My author Facebook page: https://bit.ly/357v5bs

Instagram: NQ30love

Twitter @sallybradfield

 

Below is a little more about the book and about me.

Twenty-eight year old Katie Cook lands her dream job in the world of professional tennis.

It was like being invited to the Academy Awards, except they were all wearing branded tracksuits.

Katie finds life in Sydney to be not quite measuring up and makes the move to follow her childhood obsession with professional tennis, running away to join this circus of a world and finding work as a publicist.
Racing around the globe faster than a Contiki tour, creating internet scandals wherever she goes, Katie is seduced by the appearance of glamour and her weakness for bad boys.

She falls for one of the troubled champions and starts a trending relationship.
With an archenemy placing social media bombs in her way and hashtags haunting Katie in her sleep, she navigates her way through a series of social media and love crises.

Katie has some decisions to make. Does she want a hero or a career? Will she end up happily ever after? What does that even mean?

One thing is for sure, she will never schedule an Instagram post again! #Girlscanbeheroestoo.

The story is written by a tennis insider and has been described as The Devil Wears Prada meets the exciting world of professional tennis.

Author Bio

For almost twenty years Sally Bradfield has worked with the who’s who of professional tennis. 

She has travelled the globe working as a Communications Manager/publicist for the WTA Tour. She worked alongside Venus and Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Martina Hingis, Monica Seles, Anna Kournikova and hundreds more.

Subsequently she joined the men’s tour as Brand Manager for the ATP. She ran major events with Roger Federer, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and many other household names.

Wanting to leave the suitcases and hotels behind, Sally settled back in Australia with her retired tennis champion partner, Nicole Arendt. Together they live in the Blue Mountains in NSW running tennis and fitness businesses.  

To find out more visit www.notquite30love.com

Sally also has a Podcast series called  No Challenges Remaining.

 

Guest Blogger: Ingrid Fry Talks About Time and Motivation to Write

It’s my pleasure to welcome guest blogger  Ingrid Fry, debut author of four new books, released in March. Over to you, Ingrid.

Don’t Let Time Steal Your Book

How the hell did you manage to write four, eighty-thousand-word books in the space of eighteen months, and, get them published?

As a published author, that’s the question I’m most often asked, and, often ask myself!

I thought a short blog on the topic would be helpful to anyone who feels they have a book inside them but are struggling with how to get started and keep going.

If you love to write, and plan to write a book one day, not having enough time is often the excuse we use to justify our inaction.

In these days of Corona Virus, all the ‘not having time’ memes indicate that lack of time is not the real reason behind why we don’t start all those things we want to do.

My four-book series would never have seen the light of day if I hadn’t ‘made time’ and set achievable goals. As Charles Buxton so rightly said, “You will never find time for anything. You must make it.”

I started a blog on my website to document my writing journey and road to publication. By doing so, I hoped to inspire, motivate and make it easier for other aspiring writers to achieve their dream. The blog didn’t get very far, because I soon realised, I had to narrow my focus if I wanted to achieve my dream of writing a book.

Tapping into something that motivates you and drives you forward on a daily basis is a crucial component to writing that book. You really do have to “start with the end in mind” and identify your “why”. Whatever your aspiration is, whether it’s achieving fitness goals, losing weight, learning the guitar; your “Why” has to be identified and kept in mind if you want to accomplish your dream.

Write down:

(1) all the reasons you want to achieve that goal

(2) all the ways your life will be better for achieving it

(3) how you will feel when you have succeeded, and most importantly

(4) how you will feel if you don’t achieve it.

It’s important to put this in writing, refer to it regularly and update it as new things come to mind.

Having daily achievable goals was the other key to my success. You can learn more about what that looks like from my blog post How to Get Started and Write That Book

Here’s a little about me and one of my motivating forces; my “Why”.

Mum and Dad were writers. Good ones too.  Dad died at 87 and Mum at 93. They both lived extraordinary lives, the content of which would fill many books.

They both swore that one day they would write a book about their amazing adventures.

It never happened.

Time. Time and not enough of it was the excuse that stole their dreams.

I’ve always wanted to write stories like the ones I loved to read. I grew up on a diet of Sci-Fi, Horror, Fantasy and Metaphysics.

They were the books that fired my imagination, excited, enthralled and transported me to distant worlds.

I wanted to write a book. But like Mum and Dad, I kept putting it off. It seemed too huge a task. My life was littered with a trail of short stories, poems, illustrated children’s books, notebooks, ideas, creative journals, but ‘the book’ loomed like a mountain above me, impossible to climb.

The motivation – the “Why”– to take that first step came from my parents.

I didn’t want to lie on my deathbed with a precious dream unfulfilled.

So, I wrote that book.

And then another. And another. And another!

And I’m halfway through one more.

I’ve done it! I’ve written that book, and some. But I still have one regret.

Mum and Dad aren’t here to read them.

Is your soul aching to write a book?

Then don’t be like my parents or many other would be writers and get to the end of your journey filled with regrets.

Do it now. Your soul will sing.

‘There is no greater joy than expressing the song in your heart.’ ~ Ingrid Fry

Resources

Bird by Bird (Some Instructions on Writing and Life) by Anne Lamott

This book is a great place to start for guidance and inspiration, especially if the road ahead seems overwhelming.

Word by Word, an audio workshop by Anne Lamott 

This audio workshop provides you with the opportunity to hear Anne in action. It is laugh out loud, poignant, informative and will provide you with the encouragement and ideas you need to get started and most importantly, keep going.

 

About the Crystal Sphere Series

Following an encounter with a mysterious crystal sphere, Maggie is compelled to lead her partner Jason, an eclectic entourage of humans, and a telepathic beagle into battle against a dark force and a very nasty villain intent on destroying humanity.

Maggie, the reluctant protagonist, is a psychic, computer programmer and corporate couch potato.

For her, things don’t get much more strenuous than walking the dog. Unfortunately, walking the dog is where it all begins, and now the fate of the world rests in her hands.

As a keyboard warrior and intuitive, Maggie feels ill equipped for the battle she has to fight. Music assists in keeping her sane, helping to muffle the psychic barrage that bombards her mind.

Each chapter in the series is linked to a tune that readers can follow via Maggie’s playlist on Spotify.

Set in current day Melbourne, Australia, this urban comic fantasy takes the reader on an action-packed journey across regional areas of Victoria and interstate. The story combines adventure and edge of your seat suspense, with a good dose of humour and a sprinkling of romance and spice.

Even readers who normally wouldn’t consider books with a slightly otherworldly element, have fallen in love with the story, describing it as “a sexy, funny, action packed story with characters you will fall in love with.”

Buy links:

Paperbacks

eBooks

Descent into Darkness

Journey to Hell

Quest for Light

Search for Truth

Limited Edition Box Sets

Maggie’s Playlist

 

Brief Bio:

Ingrid was born and raised in Berkhamstead in the UK but spent much of her childhood commuting between England and Austria. Emigrating with her parents many years ago, she has called Australia home ever since.

A writer, business development consultant and minder of a husband and a beagle with superpowers, she lives in a leafy suburb on the outskirts of Melbourne.

Lakes Entrance is her second home and it was from there, much of her first four novels were developed. In her spare time, she enjoys pistol shooting at the local gun club, dancing at The Caravan Music Club and as a passionate karate nerd, well on her way to a black belt in karate. Her fifth book in the series, Battle for Blood is due in 2021.

You can visit Ingrid’s website here.   Ingrid is represented by Tale Publishing

Guest Blogger Elaine Forrestal: The Story Behind Goldfields Girl

It’s my pleasure to welcome Elaine Forrestal here to Aussiereviews  to share the story behind her newest book, Goldfields Girl. Over to you Elaine. 

On the 9th December 1892 the first case of typhoid in Coolgardie was registered. The area around Bayley’s Reward Reef had just been declared a town and there were some 6000 men living in tents or camped under the stars. Food and water were still extremely scarce and there was no water to spare for maintaining good hygiene. To make matters worse, men from similar parts of the world tended to pitch their tents together in clusters. For example men from Western Australia could be found at the Sandgroper’s Camp, men from the USA at Montana. While this worked well in terms of company and security it was often disastrous for their health. If one man came down with typhoid or dysentery it quickly spread throughout the camp. And the nearest medical help of any sort was at least three days journey away. An early visitor to Coolgardie wrote to his friend in England: 

‘One half of Coolgardie is busy burying the other half. Bad water, harsh conditions and lack of proper attention causes deaths to occur daily.’

Sound familiar?

Like today, though, life was not all doom and gloom. Australians are known for their wry humour and the hardy prospectors were no exception. Evenings were spent in the pub where the bush ballads of Dryblower Murphy were recited, often by the author himself, who lived in the town. Then one of the men would strike up a tune on their mouthorgan or squeezebox and everyone would join in the singing of well known folk songs – some sad, some funny and some adapted, on the spot, into outrageous parodies. Peels of laughter rang out and lasting friendships developed. Naturally, after the long backbreaking days of digging in 40 degree heat, a lot of alcohol was consumed. ‘I’m doin’ yous all a favour. Savin’ on the drinkin’ water!’ would be the loud protest if the publican had to step in and evict someone. With water only arriving about once a week and costing 2/6d a gallon it, really was cheaper to drink Champagne.

Goldfields Girl by Elaine Forrestal, tells the story or 14yr old Clara Saunders who arrived in Coolgardie with the first gold rush and survived to tell the tale.

In bookshops now and available from Fremantle Press.

 

Thanks for dropping by Elaine!

Fauna, by Donna Mazza, reviewed by Aksel Dadswell

This review first appeared on Larval Forms  and is reprinted here with permission

Full disclosure: I personally know Donna Mazza and consider her a friend and mentor. As much as this is an honest review, I’m so glad to be able to promote this book and I wish Donna the best success with Fauna – the biggest royalty cheque and the most glowing reviews. Speaking of which, pick up a copy here.

Over the last few years, as the climate change “debate” has raged on and the effects of our environmental destruction/pollution have irrevocably altered the world’s ecosystems and climate, we’ve seen a flood of fiction that falls under the moniker of “cli-fi” or climate fiction; essentially, fiction – more often than not science fiction – which addresses and extrapolates on the horrors of climate change, and humanity’s evolving relationship and treatment of the world’s flora and fauna.

Fauna, set in the so-near-it-could-be-now future, could certainly fall under this sub-genre of speculative fiction, but in Mazza’s novel a world ravaged by climate change is more background noise than narrative skeleton. If you pay attention to such demarcations, Fauna is more literary than genre, leaning into the more contemplative and character-driven tone of a Margaret Atwood or Ian McEwan. Fauna explores a truly original and thought-provoking conceit through the troubled but quotidian lives of its characters.

In the wake of de-extinction programs that have successfully resurrected species like the Thylacine, passenger pigeon, dodo and woolly mammoth, the next species on the checklist is something far closer to human: the Neanderthal. Protagonist Stacey has a husband (Isak) and two young children (Emmy and Jake), but after the loss of a third, unborn child, she signs up for a kind of IVF treatment with LifeBLOOD®, a company at the cutting edge of de-extinction technology. LifeBLOOD® provides the family with much needed financial support to carry and raise a child that is biologically Stacey and Isak’s, but genetically altered with Neanderthal DNA. As Stacey explains it, “the cells … some of them are mine and Isak’s, but others were snipped and sliced and fused into our baby. There is not just us in there. Her whole genome was recovered and reissued: a new work using old materials. Somewhere in prehistory … she is the child deposited in a tooth found under layers of sediment in a deep cave. Only accessible via a narrow tunnel, amid a ring of stalagmites, an ancient campfire. The fossilised remains of a woolly rhinoceros, butchered mammoths and red deer… From there she has come back. Back to us. I have excavated her.”

The novel’s pace is slow and dreamlike, a story told through the growth of Neanderthal child Asta, from genetically altered embryo into little girl, and the ebb and flow of her family around her, about her. In many ways it’s quite a claustrophobic story, narrated in first person from Stacey’s point of view. With its small cast of characters and its introverted, introspective tone, Fauna unfolds at its own pace, largely untethered from the weight of plot or external conflict.

The economy of Mazza’s prose belies the narrative’s – or more particularly its characters’ – icebergian depth. Every word feels carefully chosen and painstakingly placed, every page a blistering rainfall of ideas and imagery made up of individual drops all falling towards the same purpose, narrative- and gravity-driven wonder. This is a beautifully written book, and the language flows in a consistent and engaging tone.

Stacey is a character very much in her own head, but Mazza is canny enough to constantly engage and relate her protagonist to aspects of the world around her, the human often juxtaposed with the environment. Animals and wildlife are always close by, playing a significant role in the characters’ lives and contributing to the novel’s thematic core. Little details add weight to the story’s mood and accentuate Mazza’s crystalline imagery. In one scene, tension “hangs in a silent wake that seems to hiss”, which is evocative by itself, until “a languid fly crawls across a convex mango skin scraped clean by small teeth.” Fauna’s world feels lived-in and tactile, constantly responding to and being shaped by its characters. Stacey’s point of view is cleverly taken advantage of, and there’s a sly disparity between her dialogue and her inner thoughts, in the spaces between people, what’s spoken and unspoken. Mazza teases out this dichotomy with the glacial weight of all the complicated emotions and tensions and knots that lie between two people in a long-term relationship, their words often inadequate at articulating the vastness and complexity of their emotions.

Despite its grounded narrative, there is no escaping the strangeness of raising a Neanderthal child. During Stacey’s pregnancy, Mazza briefly lights upon the abject body horror of pregnancy, the baby that grows inside her “forming and assembling, stretching me into its own shape”. From this point, Stacey and her daughter Asta are tightly bound, often to the detriment of her husband and other children.

As a character in whose head we spend the entirety of the story, Stacey can be a difficult protagonist to empathise with. At one point, Isak tells her, “You’re very self-absorbed when you’re pregnant”, but she seems self-absorbed for most of the book. Her mindset is a deliberate choice on the writer’s part, and the primary source of conflict in the novel. This plays out very well in several ways, from Stacey’s anxiety during the pregnancy, to her reclusiveness when Asta grows up, her reluctance and embarrassment around other people and how she assumes they will react to her decidedly strange-looking daughter (whose true origins and nature she is forced to lie about). Unfortunately, however, Stacey doesn’t really seem to learn very much from her mistakes; she’ll alienate her husband or children in some way, acknowledge her actions and their negative affects to herself, the reader, and eventually in teary apology to whoever she’s shut out, but instead of growing or changing as a result of her self-awareness, she often circles back to reclusive and damaging behaviour.

As a result of this, Stacey doesn’t exactly have a dramatic character arc, and while at first I felt like this hampered Fauna’s momentum, I came to realise that the novel isn’t so much about a propulsive narrative as it is the mundane drudgery of everyday life, with its high and low points, the anxieties and arguments, the hopeful glimmers and moments of joy and love. Its innovative conceit aside, Mazza’s novel is far more about family dynamics, and in this Fauna is masterfully crafted and achingly evoked, unfolding more in the vein of real life than a constructed story.

Normally I feel like this kind of book would be written about a middle-class mother undergoing an existential crisis but it’s refreshing to see a family from a lower socio-economic bracket represented here, along with the dynamics their circumstances precipitate and cultivate.

The argument that Asta is human, “just not the same kind of human as everyone else”, dominates Fauna’s thematic arc and is the basis for much of Stacey’s conflict. LifeBLOOD® enforces a veil of secrecy around their research project, forcing Stacey and Isak to explain Asta’s anatomical anomalies as a rare genetic disorder, and other parents and children often assume Asta has a disability of some description. This touches on some engaging and deftly handled issues about the way society treats children with disabilities or differences. More often than not, however, characters in Fauna are refreshingly inclusive towards the little Neanderthal girl. It’s predominantly Stacey’s preconceptions about people that are negative or wary.

I mentioned before that Fauna doesn’t focus on the wider global issues like climate change in which the story’s context nestles. Mazza works this reasoning into the novel in a very effective way. By all but excluding greater global events from the story, it feels as though Mazza is commenting on people’s proclivity for ignoring large-scale events they’re not directly affected by, which is exemplified to a tee in Stacey’s insular attitude. She watches on television as “a record-breaking fire tears through the Canadian wilderness and a coal-seem gas plant has exploded. Dead geese are heaped with a bulldozer.” With barely a thought, she changes the channel to a cooking show.

With these aspects relegated to the sidelines, Mazza has plenty of room to sculpt a convincing portrait of family life, Stacey and Isak often reduced to exhaustion and irritability with the efforts of maintaining a family and raising a baby: “we bundle ourselves into human shapes and collect the kids from school.” These are hurdles enough on their own without the pressure of LifeBLOOD® looking over their shoulder and constantly checking in on their living property, enforcing specific dietary requirements and taking measurements and blood samples from Asta.

Scientific experiments aside, the family’s dynamic will be familiar to most people, with or without kids; Mazza’s world in Fauna is no different from today’s endless grind, where capitalism is causing – has caused – the collapse of the ecosystem and the zombification of the working class. Those enduring pressures mount as the novel progresses towards its melancholy and ambiguous climax, as Stacey’s brittle balance of sanity cracks. Reader and character alike sit taut, nauseous with the feeling that at any moment she might slip off the edge and shatter.

But Fauna isn’t all struggle and angst. It’s a joy to watch Asta grow, and her family along with her, and Mazza’s skill at portraying this is wonderful. Stacey notes that her daughter “understands more all the time but her vocabulary is still so small, growing incrementally though her body shoots like spring.”

Fauna isn’t what I’d call a feel-good book, but it is a beautifully written one that examines challenging ideas through the eyes of its equally challenging characters. Its premise is original and refreshing, and Mazza balances angst and anxiety with a sense of hope, and an appreciation of the natural world rendered in crisp, poetic prose. It’s a story that lingers in the mind long after the last page is turned, and holding the book in your hand, you can feel more than the mere physicality of it, heavy as it is with the weight of life, and history, and humanity.

 You can visit the reviewer’s blog here. 
Fauna is available online  or, even better, from your local bookstore, who could really use your support right now.