Writing Courses from Janice Marriott
When you need a bit of stimulation for your creativity look at what other GWN clients are doing:
Congratulations
Harriet Bremner’s crusade to make farms safe environments, and her books to drive home this message, were featured on Seven Sharp, TV One, in June.
Joan Joass was interviewed by Jesse Mulligan on RNZ National regarding her non-fiction book about NZ fossils, in mid June too.
Both of these interviews are available on line through TV One or RNZ National.
Rachel Weston has just published
Messy-o-saurus,
her FIFTH beautifully produced picture book.
It is available from www.rachelweston.co.nz
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Memoir workshop
In August I’m giving a Saturday morning workshop about memoir writing. The focus will be on writing anecdotes, accounts of something that has happened to you, and shaping these for a wider audience.
My workshops are always a great opportunity for participants to mix and mingle with other people who are also writing, and also to meet me if you haven’t already.
Location: Parnell Public Library, Jubilee Building, Parnell Road, Auckland.
Date: August 20.
10 am for two hours.
You do not have to be a GWN client to attend. Bring a friend if you’d like to.
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File Names
Some assessment clients want their script re-assessed after they have absorbed my suggestions and edits. All fine. They send the script to me again. All fine except when the client doesn’t change the
file name.
Because I keep script files until I’m sure you have received your assessment and are satisfied, it is possible that two files with the same name get muddled. It takes a lot of time to untangle the
confusion.
Please make sure you change the file name if you are sending work to be re-assessed. A simple 1 or 2 at the end of the file name would work
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Vocabulary
Another near miss with the dreaded Spellcheck this month. I wrote “pen name” and Apple decided that was “penance.”
A new word this month: Ephrastic.
I discovered it when I was reading about W H Auden’s poem. “In the Musée des Beaux Arts.”
about Bruegel’s Icarus painting.
It means, in this case, a poem about a painting.
Unusual words
Abecedarian – arranged in alphabetical order.
Concatenation – a series of interconnected or interdependent events.
(Not a con artist cat in the neighbourhood at night.)
A response to the spelling from last month: From Johanna:
“my thoughts on spelling or rain/rein/reign.
Here are three nonsense reasons – probably more use as a reminder of how to spell each one Rain because it’s a pain when you get wet.
Rein because you use one when you ride a horse. Neither horse nor ride have an a but both end in e.
Reign has a G because a kings and queens are very Grand when they ride horses in parades.”
Thank you for this. I will pass them on to the child in question.
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The Popularity of Audio Books
The US Publishers Association writes, “Nearly 74,000 audiobooks [titles] were published in 2021, a 6-percent increase over 2020.”
“Science-fiction and fantasy narrowly edged out mysteries, thrillers, and suspense as the most popular genres by percentage of sales, with romance and [general] fiction following close behind, and increases in children’s books and young-adult revenue. The romance genre experienced the most growth with a 75-percent increase in revenues, followed by self-help at 34 percent and science-fiction at 32 percent.”
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Do older books become dated or politically unacceptable?
Seems that there are any number of academics popping out of the woodwork to ban various muchloved favourites. It’s happened to Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl, Dr Seuss, and now it is Lynley Dodd in
the firing line for Hairy McLary. When she was made aware of this latest salvo, from Perth, Lynley
commented that the characters are dogs and that female dogs do sometimes need to stay at home.
See
– https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/oh-for-goodness-sake-hairy-maclary-author-responds-to-academic-s-claim-book-is-outdated-lacks-diversity/ar-AAZa8mm?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=6b4cea0de1054d54a7dc1b4058884cf9
The winners of the children’s book awards will be announced on 10 August.
Editing
It is so easy to NOT see a spelling mistake. How many people haven’t noticed this one in Cornwall Park?
Presumably it was checked by the Auckland City Council sign checkers.
Maybe not.
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Wisdom from Clients
I learn a lot from clients.
“I wrote this story for a younger version of myself,” a client explained to me.
Writing for a younger version of yourself is always a good way to the truth.
It’s great advice you can apply when writing memoir, or for children.
“I love magic realism and finding magic in the everyday, and I think children’s stories give permission for that kind of magical imagination in a way that feels really freeing.”
Yes. Indeed.
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Questions from this month
“Should I write in a notebook or on a computer?”
When I write poems ( which I do regularly) I write in a hardback red notebook with lines. I have become very fond of this space – this actual notebook. It says “You will write a poem” to me in some way. It anchors me to the process. That is my creative writing moment.
But my poems are not for me alone. They are for my blog and for many friends who enjoy them so I have to transcribe them to the computer, a process I don’t enjoy. It takes me a long time. It isn’t creative time but it is part of the process. Once the poem is there I can manipulate it – which I do a great deal – and massage it, change it, until I am tired of it or satisfied with it.
With my memoir writing I type that on the computer. Prose is longer than poems and it would take just too long to transcribe. So – if I am writing for others I write on a keyboard. If I am just writing for myself, finding the poem inside, I write by hand.
I hope that helps. Remember: we all must find our own ways into ourselves and out again.
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Self-publishing and self-motivating ideas
A photographer called Chase Jarvis has a popular blog on which he once introduced his self publishing and self-motivating ideas as follows:
“First, create something: a photo, a video, a poem, a story or a painting.
For that matter, you might create an app, a business model, or a bit of computer software.
Next, share what’s been created.
Send it to an editor or submit it to a jury if you like, but don’t limit yourself to such traditional
means.
Post it on a website or blog.
Tweet the link.
Link on Facebook.
Find editors and publishers who accept online submissions, and email it.
Finally, sustain yourself.
Continue creating and sharing for the pure pleasure of it all — especially the pleasure of not
requiring permission from anyone.
Over-thinking, pontificating, and wondering are tools for the slacker.
People don’t care what almost happened, or what your problems are, or why something wasn’t.
They care about what is, and what will be.
That requires actually making stuff happen.
So: just do it.
Make it. Show it. Make it. Show it. Make it. Show it. Make it. Show it.
Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.”
Ask for advice.
People learn the most when they ask the
most.
Endnote
Why didn’t I go to the Children’s Writers’ Hui?
I know. It looked bad. I enrolled then I didn’t go. Why am I being just so unreliable?
Well, some weeks are just harder than others.
I have been undergoing painful surgery of my kitchen and bathroom – just a tiny kitchen and tiny bathroom but a major disruption to my life and, in that week running up to the hui culminating in homelessness.
On Day I it wasn’t the electrician or builder who led the wave of destruction prior to construction. It was the plumber. Not only did he turn off the water in all the apartments in the building -I am not a popular neighbour any more – but he removed all taps, sinks, pipes and, worst of all, the loo. I then realised I was homeless, and the work isn’t scheduled to be finished before the end of August (“supply chain issues.”). A few days later the plumber returned to re-instate the loo because the builders refused to work at a site that had no loo. Fair enough.
Of course I had foreseen some of this disruption and had planned to live in the upstairs apartment where my family live. However, Covid moved into their apartment the same day building started, (right at the beginning of the school holidays) and comfort and family support were now out of bounds.
I stayed in unusual accomodation for four nights and had to be out each day, adrift in the pouring rain. One other night I booked into an apartment hotel in order to do my washing. The washing machine wouldn’t work so there I was, taking a Zoom meeting with a web developer in Australia while two plumbers took the washing machine apart around my feet! I might as well have stayed at home!
All my essentials were now in one capacious handbag – keys, phone, credit card, library card, masks, masks, bus pass, more masks, pen, notebook, spare shopping bag … I am sure that various cafes now know me as the bag lady.
Friends rescued me and took me to someone’s sister’s sister’s holiday home on Waiheke for the last night before my family were declared contagion-free and I could move in with them and use their state-of-the-art washing machine. (Why does washing now take 3 hours to complete a cycle!!)
From here I monitor the ‘build’. Why do I have to have scaffolding and a concrete boring machine to bore holes in the concrete walls for ventilation pipes when I have perfectly useful windows? (New regulations, ma’am.) Why does the concrete borer insist I move all my outside pot plants and benches before he can work?
The worst thing about all of this is the distress it causes my cat. He can’t understand where he should be living, upstairs or down. There are different rules in each place. When I’m at the computer downstairs he knows the world is “normal” and he spreads himself all over the keyboard, which doesn’t help me help other people to write.
If anyone would like to share their experiences of the hui please send them in.
When I get my life back I will get rid of most of my possessions. I know now I can live out of a bag.
The poet Rumi said:
“Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.”
This will be my motto.
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janice@gowritenow.nz
www.janicemarriott.com
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